How fair is this?

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I am in Level 3 of an ADN program. They have split the students into two groups because we have two instructors. One group took cardiac while the other took respiratory. Then we switched places. Each group gets different tests for the same unit. The group that took the respiratory first got very high marks, so rather than giving second group a test already made of equal difficulty, the instructor made the test for the second group harder. I normally average around 94%. This time I got 86% and I think I was one of the highest marks.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

Hi,

Nope its not fair but if you spend one second of your precious time worrying about all the unfairness you will encounter in nursing school or just in life for that matter it will add up to years and be quite a waste. Keep your eye on the prize.

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Specializes in Maternal - Child Health.

I don't see a problem. The "difficulty" of an exam is subjective. What one student finds hard, another may breeze thru. Unless the instructor deliberately misled the students as to what would be on the exam, I don't think she did anything wrong. It is not unusual to change up an exam for multiple classes that are taking it within a short period of time, in order to prevent discussion among students that would give an unfair advantage to groups taking it at a later date. Both groups in your class took a "new" exam so that there would be no advantage to one group over the other. Seems reasonable.

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Actually she added more questions on material that she did not cover in class and included questions about medications that we were not responsible for.

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Specializes in Psych ICU, addictions.
Actually she added more questions on material that she did not cover in class and included questions about medications that we were not responsible for.

I'd expect her to make new exams for each group, but they should both be comparable in content. If she's added stuff that wasn't covered in class, that doesn't seem very fair to me :(

But like Jules says, a lot about NS is unfair--stay focused on the larger picture (getting through it!). Though if a lot of your class failed this test due to those extra questions, you may have a valid complaint.

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You should be responsible for material even if it was not covered in class. Sounds like the medication questions is the only unfair part.

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