PSB Panic

jlpsu · Jul 26, 2011

Hello All,

I am taking the PSB RN test at the end of August...and I'm panicking about it! I have been out of highschool for (ahem...) 21 years. I do have two bachelors degrees, however, so it's not like I'm not used to studying, etc...or that I haven't been exposed to a lot of vocabulary in my life.

I have been studying for weeks already for this test. I have the Barrons Nursing School Entrance Exam book, the McGraw Hill Nursing School entrance exam book and I purchaed the ebook from Mo-Media. All have been helpful in their own ways. I am doing ok on the practice tests...but without time limits. I'm afraid once the time limits kick in I will be a mess.

Also, I am not doing well on the analogies portion of the practice tests...(i.e...dog is to puppy as cat is to kitten, etc...). That is a really easy example..but some of them are confusing! For example..one of them was Sun:Mercury::Sun: (Earth, Venus, Jupiter, or Neptune). I chose Neptune because Mercury is the closest to the sun, and Neptune is the furthest. But no...the answer was Venus...because it was the NEXT closest one to the sun. Another example; Trout:Fish::Bull: (snake, pig, cow, sheep). I chose Cow because a bull is a type of cow...but the answer was snake, because a bull snake is a type of snake. How the heck am I supposed to know what they are looking for??? There are also a lot of those questions in the book that assume you know other things...like who wrote some obscure play or Italian musical terms. How on earth do you study for something like this? They could literally ask anything.

I'm doing fine on the math and reading comprehension. Science will be fine as I at least have a direction to study...but the vocabulary and the analogies have me worried.

So, for those of you who have taken this LATELY (Because I think they changed this test in 2009), please tell me how hard you found the PSB-RN exam. Are the books accurate portrayals of the exam...or are the books harder? Did anyone find a book that was MORE like the PSB than other books (since the books are used for multiple exams).

I am truly in a panic..and that can't be good! I need to score in the 65th percentile in order to even apply to my school of choice. Not 65%...65th percentile. I don't even know what raw score would = the 65th percentile.

HELP! (and thanks :-) )