fencikboy

Hello, I am a new grad applying for jobs. Over a year ago I took a CNA position at a local nursing home. At the end of the training/probabtion time, I realized that this was not the place for me. I then quit before being added as a permanent employee. I did good work there but realized that going to school needed to be my full time job. My question is, do I add this job on my current applications for a RN job? I only worked 5 shifts. I do think that if called, the nursing home would give me a good review. If I do not add it to the application is that considered lying? Also, do they want me to list the jobs that I had when I was 16 (I am now 40) working at Long John Silvers? Or do they really only want the jobs from the last 20 years? Thanks! Your comments are appreciated!

Hello, Can anyone tell me why schools give the HESI test? I just passed my mid-curricular HESI and I am looking forward to second year. At out school, if you fail the exit HESI, you are not able to take the NCLEX (you have two chances to take the HESI). However, our graduating class just took the HESI with horrible results. Out of 110 students, 49 failed (the results were not much better last year). I guess what I am asking is, since the HESI test has been given, have better nurses been produced? Has the HESI test actually "weeded" out the bad students? Is the NCLEX test not enough anymore? Why is it that each school gets to pick their own passing grade? I just feel that this test has been handed to us without being told what the benefits are to the test or why schools give the test.

I am not against hard tests. You must know your material. When a class with 30 people in it has 17 fail the test, where did things go wrong? Were the topics covered on the exam covered in the classroom? Were the students able to figure out what the question was asking? Were the questions prepared for a novice nurse? I am not saying that is all the fault of the teacher, the students have to hold up their end too. When using NCLEX-RN review books (such as Saunders) the questions are fair in that they are asked in a way that the student knows what is being asked. It is not that the Saunder questions are easy, but they are asked in a certain way, I cannot put it into words. Some tests given by teachers do not ask questions like those in the review books that have been written by professional writers. The questions from teachers just may not "flow" like those written by professional test makers and can be difficult to figure out what is being asked. And I am not saying that this is true of all teachers.

At the school I go to the teachers make their tests. So some teachers are known for fair tests and others are known to have really hard unfair tests. Many times at least 1-3 questions are being removed after grading. One teacher is just known for the majority of his classes to fail. My question is who is watching out for students by making sure that tests are fair and comparible between teachers teaching the same subject. I wonder if the teachers are actually taught how to write good questions. I wish that the head of the department or dean would gather all the tests given in a semester and review them, just to see what is being expected from teacher to teacher, and see which teachers could use some help in writing better questions. Don't get me wrong, I think our teachers are very knowledgeable and have a lot of great information to share with us, but that does not mean that they are experts at writing test questions.

We are using the Medical Surgical Nursing, Assessment and Management of Clinical Problems byt Lewis. This book is very imformative but I am having a hard time following it. It seems very choppy at times and our teacher does not always agree with the interventions. For our tests our teacher clamied she used questions from the Lewis test bank. These questions are very wordy and difficult. Much more difficult than any NXCLEX study quide. Any suggestions on how to work through these questions? Does the study guide that you can purchase separatly help at all? Any suggestions would be helpful!!