May have failed an Anatomy exam (unreasonably hard Professor)

Rob27, BSN, RN · Apr 19, 2011

Some people say that I come off as a jerk, when I do not mean to, so please forgive me if that is the case here.

I find that I come out of a course learning more from a harder professor from an easy one. AP is certainly a course you would like to know as much as you can from. Mine was hard as well, he had class sizes drop down to 1 or 2 people or none. I understand where you are coming from, but if you can somehow get passed his course, you will feel like you can do anything from there out.

Basically what I am saying is, use the energy you have as far as hard feelings for your benefit. Be glad knowing your still even in the running to get the B, and that you can pass any other class going forward.

caliotter3 · Apr 19, 2011

Some instructors enjoy their role as a roadblock to students and are very vocal about it. You have the same option to drop the class and take it elsewhere that the other students acted upon.

sharpeimom · Apr 19, 2011

there are a few courses in any program that serve as "weed out" courses. unfortunately, a&p is used as a weed out course. it removes many students who wouldn't be able to finish the rest of the program if they were to continue. you have to know what you learn in a&p very very thoroughly and well. not half way. courses in nursing, as in most other programs, are like building blocks -- they lay the foundation for (and use that knowledge already learned) as the basis for other classes, and for when you are actually working as a nurse. not only do you need the information to help you pass the nclex, but to apply critical thinking skills down the road.

i still remember my stats professor in grad school. he caused many restless nights and more than a few

bad dreams that semester. this many years later, i still can't think of a polite way to describe him.

but i learned more from that $%^&* man than anyone else i can remember except maybe my second grade teacher.

soxgirl2008 · Apr 19, 2011

Some people say that I come off as a jerk, when I do not mean to, so please forgive me if that is the case here.
I find that I come out of a course learning more from a harder professor from an easy one. AP is certainly a course you would like to know as much as you can from. Mine was hard as well, he had class sizes drop down to 1 or 2 people or none. I understand where you are coming from, but if you can somehow get passed his course, you will feel like you can do anything from there out.
Basically what I am saying is, use the energy you have as far as hard feelings for your benefit. Be glad knowing your still even in the running to get the B, and that you can pass any other class going forward.

I agree with this totally, however what sucks at least at my school is that we also have a REALLY hard A&P class. If you go to the community colleges in the area and take A&P over there (which is much easier) they look at that the same as if you took A&P at this university. So basically someone with an A at the "easy" school will get into clinicals over someone with a B in our harder A&P class

Nung · Apr 19, 2011

some people say that i come off as a jerk, when i do not mean to, so please forgive me if that is the case here.
i find that i come out of a course learning more from a harder professor from an easy one. ap is certainly a course you would like to know as much as you can from. mine was hard as well, he had class sizes drop down to 1 or 2 people or none. i understand where you are coming from, but if you can somehow get passed his course, you will feel like you can do anything from there out.
basically what i am saying is, use the energy you have as far as hard feelings for your benefit. be glad knowing your still even in the running to get the b, and that you can pass any other class going forward.

some instructors enjoy their role as a roadblock to students and are very vocal about it. you have the same option to drop the class and take it elsewhere that the other students acted upon.

aside from his unnecessarily hard exams he is a good professor. i have retained much of what i have learned thus far and i do appreciate him for that, but i do not feel that is fair that i can go into the exam confident that i know all the content but still don't perform well on his exams due to the unusual format.

i no longer have the option to drop because the drop with a 'w' date has expired.

there are a few courses in any program that serve as "weed out" courses. unfortunately, a&p is used as a weed out course. it removes many students who wouldn't be able to finish the rest of the program if they were to continue. you have to know what you learn in a&p very very thoroughly and well. not half way. courses in nursing, as in most other programs, are like building blocks -- they lay the foundation for (and use that knowledge already learned) as the basis for other classes, and for when you are actually working as a nurse. not only do you need the information to help you pass the nclex, but to apply critical thinking skills down the road.
i still remember my stats professor in grad school. he caused many restless nights and more than a few
bad dreams that semester. this many years later, i still can't think of a polite way to describe him.
but i learned more from that $%^&* man than anyone else i can remember except maybe my second grade teacher.

i understand that i need to know this content well, and i do know it. place a bone or an organ in front of me and i will be able to describe to you all of it's features and functions in detail. i am not going to come across patients with plants and sandwiches inside of them instead of the normal viscera.

i am fine with him including some of these critical thinking questions because that can separate the a+ students from the a and b+ students, but i do feel that we should be tested mostly in the same format that was used to teach us the material.

i know for a fact that i would be getting a very high grade with most other professors because i have seen their tests. my brother took anatomy at a prestigious university and has expressed to me that his exams were not near this difficult.

soxgirl2008 · Apr 19, 2011

I know how you feel! Our A&P tests are all fill in the blank with no word banks and he makes them very very difficult and tricky. There's a girl in my class who transferred from a more prestigious school and said her A&P class was no where near as hard. It's just so frustrating, even though I feel like I'm learning a lot, it's frustrating that when I apply for clinicals all they will see is that I didn't get an A, not how hard the class actually is.

Nung · Apr 19, 2011

I know how you feel! Our A&P tests are all fill in the blank with no word banks and he makes them very very difficult and tricky. There's a girl in my class who transferred from a more prestigious school and said her A&P class was no where near as hard. It's just so frustrating, even though I feel like I'm learning a lot, it's frustrating that when I apply for clinicals all they will see is that I didn't get an A, not how hard the class actually is.

Yep, my lecture exams are also difficult with the same sort of questions you describe. Mine also includes comprehensive essay questions where he will deduct points if we slightly misspell a term.

At the end of the day the grade on our transcripts is all the powers that be will focus on. It's frustrating to know that individuals who are able to be selective with who they take their classes with have will have an advantage over me on their nursing school applications.

Witty3RN · Apr 20, 2011

Let me just say I completely understand. I fear that I will not be able to pull out a "B" in my A&P 2 class. My professor is extremely hard we have 50 - 75 questions all short answer and essay and we must spell everything correctly. After the test my hand is killing me from all the intense writing that I do while taking the test. The only thing that is keeping me from having a heart attack is that I just got accepted into nursing school but I still do not want a C on my transcripts.

Half of our class has dropped, I seen some students turn in blank test on our last exam because the questions were worded so difficult they didn't even understand what he was asking. We only have a handful of people left. I have been studying at lease a couple hours a night for our final which is just over the last 5 chapter (thank goodness) but is worth 300 points a 1/3 of our grade. i have a couple more weeks before we take the final but I have to score almost perfect to pull out a "B". My professor does not round or curve grade by any means.

The flip side is that we are not just learning a foundation of A&P we are learning some serious stuff. So even if I forget 50% I will probably still have a stronger foundation that most... Good luck and praying for a B for both of us.

pc2801 · Apr 21, 2011

Do you have more exams? Is there time to bring your grade up? If you still have at least 1 more test, I would visit this professor during office hours and discuss the test. Maybe he'll surprise you and throw a curve on the test scores if everyone did poorly. Even if he doesn't maybe he can help you prepare for the next exam (if you have one) and it never hurts to let the professor know you are concerned about your performance. Some people don't test well, but know more than I do, I happen to test well and may need more help with applying what I've learned since I'm more analytical than creative thinking.

I took a quiz in a class this semester and everyone in 2 classes the professor taught missed the same question, so he gave everyone that question and offered an extra credit homework assignment that week since most of the scores would have brought peoples average down. I didn't think I needed the extra points, but I did the assignment to show I was a dedicated student and in the end when I took my final exam last week I was glad I did the extra credit on the quiz because the final was much more difficult than I had expected and I think it will bring me down to a B when I had an A average all semester. I may have even fallen to a C if I hadn't done the extra credit on the last quiz.

lifelearningrn, BSN, RN · Apr 21, 2011

That lab test sounds ridiculous. If you're learning on cats, what is the point of doing an overhead with pictures? I'd be complaining to the head of the department on that one.

Moogie · Apr 21, 2011

I agree with previous posters that one can learn a great deal from the most challenging professors. I think you're already aware of that and have learned quite a bit from this professor. However, there are educators whose courses are difficult because they have high standards. The thing is, those standards have to be appropriate and realistic for the learners at that point in their education. Last semester I took a graduate level course from a professor with very high standards. However, we were grad students and we were certainly capable of doing what she asked, even though she asked us to do a great deal of work and put forth tremendous effort. She challenged us to meet or exceed her standards and, at the end of the semester, while it was nice to get an "A", the grade didn't matter anymore. I grew personally and professionally from the class and felt like I had truly learned. This class was tough, but it epitomized optimal learning.

Unfortunately, there are some professors whose courses are difficult because they don't know how to teach or how to test. If test questions are worded so poorly that students consistently turn in blank answer pages, the testing obviously is subpar. Writing test questions is an art. It's labor intensive. Many educators use test banks for their questions because they don't have the time or sometimes the skill to write questions that accurately test student learning. Good instructors do test-item analysis; if the majority of students miss a question due it being poorly written or not reflective of the material covered, they throw out the question.

The situation the OP describes is, honestly, just bizarre. I'm all for out of the box, creative thinking, but pictures of sandwiches and trees that vaguely resemble the circulatory system would be a fun, clever way to learn something. You might never look at an elm tree the same way ever again! But to use this as a way to TEST student knowledge is very, very strange. If you had learned it that way, fine. But you didn't.

I totally understand the need for courses to be difficult and for some courses to "weed out" students who aren't going to be able to grasp complex concepts like pathophysiology or pharmacology. We shouldn't dumb down our sciences, especially when they're critical foundations for nursing knowledge. However, there's a difference between a difficult, challenging course and one that is akin to hazing. The course as described by the OP sounds like hazing.

It was a lab exam but for some unknown reason the professor decided to change the format and test us solely by having us identify structures on the overhead projector instead of using cats and other physical lab materials which we had used to learn the material.
Many of the questions were extremely difficult. For example when testing us on veins and arteries he showed us pictures that were zoomed very far in, so much that we were not able to see the blood vessels in relation to each other or much of the surrounding tissue. Other questions were abstract, for example he would show us a picture of a sandwich or a tree that vaguely resembled a heart and blood vessels and expected us to know what a specific region of it would be it was the real thing.

I wish you the best and agree that a talk with the department head might be appropriate. You sound like someone who is very responsible and involved with your learning so you aren't pulling a victim card here....oh, the course was so tough and the teacher was mean, yada yada. I think you have legitimate concerns and I hope it all works out for you.