StressedOutSteve

I am 21 days from the possibly completing my ASN, and I'm about ready to give up. I am doing well in all my classes, but one. I have only been hit-and-miss in passing my exams in my Critical Nursing class. I put in the hours of studying, answered hundreds of NCLEX-style questions with relative success and have even had professors tell me that I have a good handle on the material, only to bomb their exam. I have done test taking seminars, done test anxiety exercises and personality profiling all geared towards improving performance, but still do poorly. My mind keeps going back to one test-taking seminar where the leader told us that in nursing school "hard work isn't enough". How am I supposed to work with that notion? Is it really true that hard work and studying won't get you there? If not, what is the magic ingredient that it takes to at least get that magic 75%? I can still do this. My average is not so poor that its unrecoverable, but the hill is getting steeper and higher and I feel that I am slipping back. Has anyone else faced this challenge and overcame it?