NLN Test is tomorrow!

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Hello all! I am scheduled for my NLN Pre Entrance Exam tomorrow at Southwest Tennessee Community in Memphis TN. I was curious to know if anyone has taken it at this college and do they allow us to bring our own calculator? Or can we use one at all? I have a TI 89 calculator and I also have a basic calculator. Hoping I can bring the TI 89! Might be wishful thinking though!

Also, they say you have to make a composite score of a 100 which is in the 50th percentile range and I have no idea what that means. Is a composite different than actually making a 100% like you would on a regular test in school?

For those who have taken the NLN exam? Did you experience the exact questions from the NLN study guide book with the practice exams/comprehensive tests that are located at the back of the book? Any insight would be helpful! Thanks!!!

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It's up to the specific nursing school to allow the use of calculators. Usually, those schools that allow it will only allow the basic calculator that is available on the computer. I wouldn't count on the advanced TI calculator even being allowed in the room.

As far as the scoring... you will receive a raw score between 1 and 199.. that's why 100 is in the 50% percentile... it's not like scoring on college exams where if there are 200 questions and you get 10 incorrect then your reported score would be be 95%... also there will be some exam questions that will not be scored since they are being tested as pilot questions.. however, you will not know which questions are being scored and which ones are not.

Best of luck on the exam.

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Oh wow, hi there! I'm also at SWTCC, and I work in the ASC across from Fulton building ;)

They allow calculators and will provide one for you - it's not as powerful as the TI-83/84 models, but it gets the job done.

As for how the test goes - It's pretty close to the book; you won't see the EXACT same problems, but if you had no issue doing the problems in the book, you'll be fine on the test. The science portion I found the hardest since there was so much material to cover, and I hadn't really studied things like physics since high school (waaaay back). That being said, it wasn't too bad.

The composite score is different from percentage - you are not required to score 100% on your exam to get a score of 100 or above; on the contrary, as long as you score decently high in 2 sections, if you bomb the 3rd (I say bomb... but you'll want to aim for above a 70% in each section), I think you'll be fine.

I didn't do as well as I'd hoped and came out with a 144 - I did put in a complaint though since the proctor wouldn't stop talking while people were taking the test, so if you're easily distracted, I would wait until things settle down before starting.

As a warning - do not tab out of the exam; if you do, it will automatically stop the exam right there. One of the folks who took it alongside me thought they'd try and cheat... they ended up wasting their $75. Good luck! And if you're around after 11am, come see me in the ASC! Look for the person with the blue hair streak - let me know how you do, and I'll give you a free motivational high five :)

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Thank you so much for your insight!! I don't feel that I did as well as i expected I would. I thought we could take an hour per subject and I ended up getting only 40 minutes. Which was so not fair lol! I ended up wasting my time trying answer the reading comprehension and spent too much time in that area. So I want to say i missed out on 15 vocabulary which is stomach wrenching. Hopefully my science and math made up for it though. Thank you for the response and kind words!! A 144 is wonderful! My friend who finished the nursing school 2 years ago at SWTCC said she made a composite of 109 and she was accepted which makes me feel somewhat hopeful. I may end up taking it again soon but that will determine what my test score is which i should find out tomorrow! Are you in the Southwest Tn Nursing program now??

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Thank you so much for your insight!! I don't feel that I did as well as i expected I would. I thought we could take an hour per subject and I ended up getting only 40 minutes. Which was so not fair lol! I ended up wasting my time trying answer the reading comprehension and spent too much time in that area. So I want to say i missed out on 15 vocabulary which is stomach wrenching. Hopefully my science and math made up for it though. Thank you for the response and kind words!! A 144 is wonderful! My friend who finished the nursing school 2 years ago at SWTCC said she made a composite of 109 and she was accepted which makes me feel somewhat hopeful. I may end up taking it again soon but that will determine what my test score is which i should find out tomorrow! Are you in the Southwest Tn Nursing program now??

I'm so sorry it's taken me a few days to get back to you; 5 classes plus work is sorely kicking my rear this semester haha.

With the time reduction per section, they also reduced the question count; I feel like post-modification, the exam ended up being a bit easier (especially with the use of a calculator) - NLN prep is one of the things I tutor at the ASC, and the amount of folks before that just couldn't handle doing math with a pen & paper was staggering.

The reading comp section is especially hard for some folks if comp isn't a strong subject - This is going to sound weird, and I apologize in advance; as a British lass, I've noticed a lot of American students have an issue with comp. Heck, even I'm not perfect at it either and found the NLN English test a little tricky in parts.

Did you find out what your score is yet? I'm really curious! Do keep me posted, and if you need anything help with anything you can always swing by the office and ask for the blue haired lass :D

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