My classmates using Test Banks in Nursing school

Nursing Students General Students

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Please note: I do NOT promote the use of any use of test banks.

This is something I've kept in the back of my head for a few years and never really had a chance to speak about it until very recently. This situation involved a group of 5-8 students in my cohort. I'll just refer to them as my classmates.

During my last year of nursing school and in the beginning of preceptorship, one of my classmates invited me to a study group for our last Med/Surg 2 rotation final. We have gone over almost everything we could cram into our heads. Prior to my departure, one classmate mentioned something called a Test Bank. At first glance, I thought it was practice questions copy/paste from Quizlet. My classmates said that they have been using it since third semester as a study guide. I declined and didn't want to bombard myself with more information. I would just look up Quizlet for any practice questions when I got back home. After the final, my classmates asked me not to say anything. I ignorantly nodded my head as my mind checked out for Spring Break or anything nursing related.

I would hear the words Test Bank again from other college students while I was prepping for Preceptorship in my nearby Starbucks. I googled it out of curiosity and discovered its controversy with all college students and staff.

I hate to say, I chose to NOT do anything. I had no proof. Preceptorship was days away and reporting this to my class advisor would be another thing I have to add on my busy plate. Initially, sought advice from this forum and seen variations of They are cheating themselves. They will not pass NCLEX. I left it at that and minded my own business.

This was over three years ago. I graduated. I passed NCLEX. I found a job. I focused on my own nursing goals. I forgot about my classmates until I recently ran into them. We did a lot of catching up and found out they all passed NCLEX (most under 100 questions) and are all happy with their jobs.

Specializes in MICU, Burn ICU.

Seems to me that those who are salty about the use of testbanks being deemed as "cheating" have USED them! LOL Stop being in denial if you've used them, you know it's in the slightest WRONG.

I'm no nurse just yet. I'm in Critical Care right now and found out that the loud bunch of the class are using testbanks. One girl in particular was bragging about an A in the class where the majority of the class is in the C-lB range and had scored a Level 1 on ATI MS while others did better because even though they don't get perfect grades all the time, they know the content where as she doesn't.

All I got to say is, it's annoying that there are students that cheat their way through nursing school (or any school) by memorizing possible answers. But when there's a teacher who really writes their own exams, they nearly fail. It's unfortunate that there are students who really do try and are struggling or those that try and kick ass.

It's like, why are you even here??? I get that test grades don't determine a good nurse, but ... are you really that shallow to not even surprise yourself and work hard at something? Lazy.

You understand that some people can be great at a general education style of testing, but struggle on application based, right? It's not using a test bank that made her not perform as well on the ATI, it's completely separate factors. There is absolutely no difference between learning through a test bank, and learning through any other practice tests that are given to students. Either you're capable of analyzing the information or you're not. Some people can remember every single detail of how to perform something, but when it comes to an application based question on it, they can't answer it.

Lose the ego. Not everyone learns by spending 8 hours a night reading a textbook.

There are a lot of vendors selling test bank and solutions manual online. Teachers and instructors need to be aware of this fact and should make their own exam questions. I know it is tedious and time consuming, but they have to be smarter than their students.

color me in the "dunno what the big deal is" crowd. quizlet has a ton of Prepu quiz banks and i use that to do the majority of my studying as the rationale is what is most useful. i went to .org and .net and didn't see their samples to be better than prepu - in fact there were no rationales in the 2 i downloaded so i will stick with the quizlet ones - and i've also make my own.

Specializes in Ortho.

Wow I remember this thread from a while back. It’s beneficial to just focus on yourself. Do whatever you need to succeed through your nursing program so that you can graduate, take your boards, and then move on with your life. Nursing school curriculum in some cases feels like a fantasy land compared to the real world. Just like one poster said, an exam score doesn’t determine a good nurse. Although, exam score can determine if you make it out of your nursing program. People cheat all the time in life. Nothing we can do to stop that. As long as you take care of yourself, and do the right thing. All the best!

Specializes in NICU.
On 5/26/2019 at 9:15 PM, harvestmoon said:

color me in the "dunno what the big deal is" crowd. quizlet has a ton of Prepu quiz banks and i use that to do the majority of my studying as the rationale is what is most useful. i went to .org and .net and didn't see their samples to be better than prepu - in fact there were no rationales in the 2 i downloaded so i will stick with the quizlet ones - and i've also make my own.

The test banks that the OP is referring to is the test banks that the textbook publishers supply to instructors in order to create tests. Their questions have been beta tested in order to provide valid test questions for tests. If a student had access to these test banks, it would be equivalent to them swiping a copy of the test off of the instructor's desk because they are the exact same questions.

Just pass your nursing school without worry about others. Grades wont help you to get the great job, but networking will.

My classmate barely pass nurse school, and guess what? She got the best job, because she was better in social skills that i was, she maintained contact with her mentor, and that mentor helped her to get where she is right now.

I got a job, but not as good as she did. So don't worry about how people are getting their grades, the importance is to pass N-CLEX and good networking.

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