After studying for 6 weeks, I finally took the PSB entrance exam today. Here's what I can tell you.
It's not as hard as I thought it was going to be...BUT, I would have completely failed it had I not studied. I went WAY overboard on the studying (5 study books). It's hard to say which book was the best one as they have all melded together at this point, but I can say that the Petersen "Master the Nursing School Entrance Exam" was overkill. I liked the Baron's Nursing School Entrance Exam book and the McGraw Hill book. I also bought the MoMetrix's PSB secrets and I liked that because it focused only on the PSB.
I overkilled the math preparation. It's all pretty basic math. The verbal part was 4 words mean the same thing, pick the one that doesn't. Also, easy. The spelling...Ugh...the Spelling. It was overwhelming. But I used a piece of paper to hide each line so that I only focused on one line at a time. The problem with spelling is even if you think you know it, one of the other choices also kind of "looks right". So sometimes I was completely guessing, especially because there were words I'd never heard of. Our proctor did tell us that we were not expected to finish each section and that it wouldn't hurt us to not finish. So, I skipped around the spelling going for words that I was 99% sure of. Then I went back to try to figure out the words I didn't know. I actually used that method for the whole test. Skip if I didn't know, and go back if I could. I figured it was best to answer 2 or 3 questions that I KNEW in the same amount of time it would take me to ponder the question i was unsure of.
One thing that surprised me was that the math and verbal and spatial were all mixed together. There were not 30 math, then 30 verbal, 30 spacial. There were 90 questions, mixed with all 3. So when I was running out of time, I just went to the easiest problems (the verbal) and got those right. Skipped the last 10 math questions and did the spacials I knew. That way, my overall correct would be higher than if I went in linear order. Just something to consider.
The reading comprehension was a joke. 15 minutes was all we were given. I answered only 20 questions in 15 mintues. That was the most stressful part I think. I read the first passage which was pretty easy read, and got those questions fast. The next passage was completely scientific and I got hung up on some of it. So halfway through answering those questions, I gave up and went to the next passsage which was an easier read. Again - all that matters is the number of correct questions answered...so go to the easiest ones if you can!
The science I would have failed had I not studied, but since I did, I was able to answer 87 out of the 90 questions. The last 3 I had no idea on so I left them blank. Not sure if that was the right thing to do or not. Out of the 87 questions, I maybe guessed on 5. There were anatomy, chemistry (fairly basic), and physics questions. A few electrical questions. The study books really do prepare you pretty well, I think. But I DEFINITELY over studied chemistry and math. It didn't hurt me, but had me way more stressed leading up to the test!
I won't get my scores back for 2-3 weeks!! So it remains to be seen how I did. I have to score at least in the 65th percentile in order to even be allowed to apply. I think I did ok enough to get to that....we will see.
If you have any specific questions...ask away! :-)
