I'm livid. I got my first B (92) for in a nursing course (Pediatrics). But this is not why I'm angry. Sometimes we are tested on straight garbage, where test creators seem more concerned about tricking you than providing a valid question.
Seriously my professor laughed at me when I made my case for aynuria being more critical than a heart murmur in a 3 year-old with CHF. I was asking my self are you laughing because your sick in the head or just plain dumb.... Or that we should strap on a helmet, knee pads, and elbow pads so a kid can kill himself crashing his bike into a tree as opposed to swimming (more logical) when he has hemophilia. Or at 3 months Vit D is more important than iron in an infant. I can go on and on about the horrible questions. But the point is that these test questions are becomming so petty.
And this is comming from a person who gets straight As. I freakin obliterated pharmacology with a 96 while 13 others failed out that semester. Why? Because I love science and like to focus on the real and actual rather trying to figure out whether the test creator means purple or violet. I will be the kind of nurse that will save your ass and show thoughtful care in the process. I got one more semester to go, and I plan finishing with a 3.8+.
To me grades don't matter, but they do to the people who will look over my grad school applications. This is the only reason I care. Once I make it in, knowledge and more knowledge will be my only benchmark. To all you guys frustrated in nursing school, I hear you. Don't get discouraged. Get ****** off and come back stronger.
Anyways welcome to pediatrics, I guess all peds classes are similar in testing strategies. In my class we were all confused when it came test time. The material was really not difficult for me at all but the material did not correlate with the tests. I, like you, could justify my answers with references from the text and still we would not recieve credit.
As for the grades ordeal, you are just going to have to resign to the fact that you just might not get straight A's, I know for a fact that there was not one person in my entire graduating class that got straight A's, and sometimes its just not fair.
My advise would be to stop letting it give you so much grief, if I would have worried less about grades I would have had a much happier and less stressful time in school. You dont sound like you have any reason to think you wont pass, so you are probably far ahead of most in your class because peds is not an easy subject and many struggle with it.
In my school's nursing program, a 92 would be considered a B as well. It's something like 100-95 A, 94-85 B, 84-75 C...Anything less is auto-fail out. I assumed most programs were like this...Also, they don't round up so a 94.99999 is still a 94 and still a B. BUT, my school does have like a 90% NCLEX pass rate so...yeah...It pays off I guess. At least for the school:yeah:
It's harsh and suckish, but we will eventually have pts lives literally resting in our hands so they would want to weed out anyone who's not the absolute best.
It's not all about books smarts and memorization. You are suppose to apply your knowledge so you can critically think like a real nurse in a supposedly real situation you can't just assume there is a straight answer right in your face because you memorized it in the book nursing is tricky in real life. There are critical thinking books out there that will help with your GPA if having a 4.0 in nursing school is very important.
One of the problems with some nursing schools is that instructors often have no education background. They may have exceptional knowledge, experience, and clinical skills. Unfortunately, if they aren't naturally inclined to be a teacher and they lack educational training, they can be quite incompetent in instruction, and test writing skills. These folks know absolutely nothing about test reliability, test validity, or score distribution. The problem is compounded when these incompetent instructors are unpleasant, unkind, and arrogant. It's not good situation for students when nursing instructors have neither the heart of a nurse or the heart of a teacher.
Good golly, sounds just like my nursing school instructors!
Yeah unfortunately nursing education at the pre-licensure level is filled with a lot of nonsense. Apparently the NCLEX-RN is the same way where you are to apply some faulty logic to a question and pick "the best" answer to said question. I wonder if it wouldn't be a better measure of clinical practice to have an exam that is like the Bar Exam. Where candidates are given a scenario and asked how they would respond to said scenario and make their case as to why their actions are the best and correct actions to take. The exact wording to these questions and how they would be "graded" I haven't given much thought to since nobody really gives a crap what I think anyways.
I don't think anyone would like NCLEX to change to a bar exam style. There was no being able to argue your point on my bar exam. It was 8 hours of multiple choice questions and then the next day was 8 hours of essay, but none of the essays were arguing a point. It was straight IRAC format (Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion). Grading is not very subjective because there are a finite number of issues and either you mentioned them all or you didn't.
However, with that said, I was much more nervous about NCLEX than I was the bar exam and although it was only a few hours, it was really high stress. I had a 3.9 in my BSN program (with the 95-100 as an A system) and I left NCLEX feeling like I didn't know anything and thought for sure I failed. I didn't, but it really is the most frustrating exam ever. For those of us that don't like ambiguity NCLEX is torture. So I agree with what has been said about the nursing school exams being frustrating, but they really will help you when you sit for boards. However, I do agree with the instructor on the one question. You can live perfectly fine without kidneys, but you can't live without a heart. Keep in mind there is an extreme nursing faculty shortage in this country, so yeah, maybe not all of the teachers are great, but cut them some slack and be thankful they are willing to teach you. Without them, you couldn't be a nurse. Maybe some day you can teach a peds class and try to make the experience for your students better than what you are experiencing.
Personally, I feel like almost every nursing instructor is out to get student nurses and want them to fail, except when it comes to taking the boards....then they want you to pass bc they want a high passing rate. It's not just me that feels this way. I know a ton of other people who made it through different nursing schools and felt the same way. The teachers are horrible!
I found that using ADPIE when taking tests was a huge help. Because as others have said, nursing school does more to prep you to pass the NCLEX than it does for real world nursing.
It took me a while to figure out (an I was a straight A student as well - I suspect many of us were in this field - we tend to be overachievers) that if Assessment wasn't covered in the question, the answer was Assessment. If Assessment was in the question, the answer was about Diagnosis...and so on. It's not exactly that black and white, but using the "nursing process" to analyze the questions before answering actually made a huge difference.
What I always hated was when the instructors wouldn't back down, even when confronted with facts that proved you'd gotten the answer correct! I once went to an instructor with a voice recording of her giving the answer that I'd chosen on a test as part of a lecture - her very own voice! And still, she said I'd gotten the answer wrong (along with 95% of the class).
I went through something similar, they ask questions that seem needlessly difficult and when you use your NCLEX book to study you ace every question in it but get some wrong on the test that doesn't make any sense but they do it for a reason. At least you catching on now, I was so focused I didn't even really notice until my last test of my last semester. The reason they do it is to help you critically think better so that you can rock the NCLEX. They did that in my school and so far everyone has passed AND all but 2 or 3 went more than the minimum of 75 questions. Your almost there, just hang on a little while longer!:)
You probably don't want to hear that it's no better in grad school. Our last final in our MSN program, the class average was a 69 before the curve and many of the questions were outdated and didn't even make sense. sigh
Or that we should strap on a helmet, knee pads, and elbow pads so a kid can kill himself crashing his bike into a tree as opposed to swimming (more logical) when he has hemophilia..
I bet your instructors are using the same test bank as mine. We had that same question and I had the
same response you do. It makes no sense, but then some things just don't when it comes to exam questions. It's frustrating, but if you can put up with it, you'll make it through. I didn't think I would, but I graduated a month ago.
I sometimes feel the same way about my instructors! Last week we went over a test and a concern was raised about one of the questions. After the instructor read the question, she said "well, I'll have to look at that one. I think its a bad question." DO THEY NOT READ THE QUESTIONS BEFORE THEY PUT THEM ON THE TEST?!?! This has happened a couple times. You'd think that it would be pretty important to them to read the questions and decide if they're good or not before putting them on the test!
Our last final in our MSN program, the class average was a 69 before the curve and many of the questions were outdated and didn't even make sense. sigh
DemonWings
266 Posts
a 92 is a B at your school?
Anyways welcome to pediatrics, I guess all peds classes are similar in testing strategies. In my class we were all confused when it came test time. The material was really not difficult for me at all but the material did not correlate with the tests. I, like you, could justify my answers with references from the text and still we would not recieve credit.
As for the grades ordeal, you are just going to have to resign to the fact that you just might not get straight A's, I know for a fact that there was not one person in my entire graduating class that got straight A's, and sometimes its just not fair.
My advise would be to stop letting it give you so much grief, if I would have worried less about grades I would have had a much happier and less stressful time in school. You dont sound like you have any reason to think you wont pass, so you are probably far ahead of most in your class because peds is not an easy subject and many struggle with it.