Severe Class Exam Anxiety

GingerSue · Mar 18, 2008

hope you're feeling better,

I found that it is helpful to study with a relaxed frame of mind.

And I write exams with that same relaxed frame of mine - seems to help.

Do the best that you can.

Ms Kylee · Mar 18, 2008

I used to have this in college... but not this time around in nursing school. I've found what helps is when I'm studying and I feel I am weak on things, I will write them down in a notebook. Then when I'm done with a chapter, I will take a break for 15 minutes, and then go back to the notebook and read what I have written down. The day before the test, I will read all of my chapters, and then take the notebook with me when I go somewhere (work, etc.) and when I have a break, I will look the notebook over. This helps me solidify the weak points. It has helped a lot.

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Mar 18, 2008

Moved to the Nursing Student forums.

moomoo111 · Mar 18, 2008

I'm right there with you. I have two semesters to go and med surg is kicking my butt. I have read the whole chapters, highlighted everything, made notes, listened to pod casts they supply and I'm still getting stumped on questions. The tests seem tricky to me and some of the questions are on things that are not brought out in class and even some of them the instructor does not know the answer to. The school I am attending has high requirements and they even make you have an 80 to pass. I am only two points away from having an 80 average and unless I make at least an 85 on my final next monday, I'm out. I'm so down in the dumps because I have spent so much time studying and I've bought so many books to help, have used every practice test I can find and I don't know where else to turn. I'm already looking at another school because my confidence is shot down. The school I am attending has a terrible pass rate. And to make matters worse, they have made med surg nursing a mini mester. So every other week we have an exam and there are only four exams for the whole mini mester. I pray hard and I even sleep with my books but it seems no matter how hard I study, I can't understand the answers they are looking for. The bad part, I was a paramedic for 12 years and I never had this problem with that school. I blew it away. The nursing process is so much different than the paramedic's way of doing things and I don't understand it. I wish you the best of luck. I am in South Carolina, what state are you in?

dorselm · Mar 18, 2008

Anjeleyes, Hey, I know what you're going through. I'm in my last of three Med-Surg rotations, 201. In the previous class, out of 27, 10 failed the class. Of those 10, for 5 of them, this is their second failed class and they are out of the program. I was so nervous about this that I was studying alot. I was comfortable with the material. So I went to my first study group the night before the test which was the Sunday before last. I was basically teaching the material to the group without barely using book or paper. Monday comes, the day of the test. I get out my highlighter and start highlighting all of the tricky words like always, never, first, priority. I even started writing the rationale beside the different answers. It was a 50 question test. We had one hour to complete it. When I looked up an hour was up and I was on #42 and had to hurry and guess the remaining 8!!!! I have never, ever been the last one at the end of class. I scared my into failing! :banghead: Wanna know the irony???? :no:The rest of my study group passed!!!!!! I honestly tried to keep it together but the mention of the word test and I busted out crying. I prayed on that test but then I started worrying and you know what God says, if you're gonna pray, don't worry and if you're gonna worry, don't pray. So it was no wonder I failed. When I got my test back I looked and I could see that I thought way too much into some of those questions. Now I have a test coming up again. This time it's on the lungs and ABG's. I can tell you about the ABG's with no problem. This time, I am going to pray on it and relax and do what I need to do. If you have faith, then you should try it and if not then maybe you should try to pray anyway and when you see that God is there for you, maybe your faith will be strengthened. When I trust God any other time, He always leads me right. When I say I'm gonna trust Him but don't, I always end up going left when I should be going right.

Stay encouraged, get some index cards and tape positive affirmations onto your bedroom mirror, your fridge, your bathroom window and say them over and over whether you believe them or not. Your subconcious is bound to kick in and without even knowing it, you're anxiety will begin to subside. We can do this, know that someone out there knows what your going through......:nuke:

Anjeleyes214 · Mar 19, 2008

I'm right there with you. I have two semesters to go and med surg is kicking my butt. I have read the whole chapters, highlighted everything, made notes, listened to pod casts they supply and I'm still getting stumped on questions. The tests seem tricky to me and some of the questions are on things that are not brought out in class and even some of them the instructor does not know the answer to. The school I am attending has high requirements and they even make you have an 80 to pass. I am only two points away from having an 80 average and unless I make at least an 85 on my final next monday, I'm out. I'm so down in the dumps because I have spent so much time studying and I've bought so many books to help, have used every practice test I can find and I don't know where else to turn. I'm already looking at another school because my confidence is shot down. The school I am attending has a terrible pass rate. And to make matters worse, they have made med surg nursing a mini mester. So every other week we have an exam and there are only four exams for the whole mini mester. I pray hard and I even sleep with my books but it seems no matter how hard I study, I can't understand the answers they are looking for. The bad part, I was a paramedic for 12 years and I never had this problem with that school. I blew it away. The nursing process is so much different than the paramedic's way of doing things and I don't understand it. I wish you the best of luck. I am in South Carolina, what state are you in?

Hey Im in NYC, My school is quite similar to yours. We get 4 semesters: 1st Semester is 12 weeks of Funadamentals of Nursing, 2nd Semester: 6 weeks Psych and 6 weeks of Maternity, 3rd Semester: 6 weeks Pediatrics and 6 weeks Med Surg 1 and Final semester 12 weeks of Med Surg. During the 6 weeks courses we also had an exam every other week. It was hard, but I've never felt like I've been feeling this semster. Today our professor gave us a little pep talk which was surprising cause she can be really "mean" for lack of a better word. She was telling us that even if we did bad on the 1st two exams we shouldn't be discouraged cause they are each only 10% of our grade and she's seen alot of people get low grades on all of 4 of the 10% exams and the Midterm worth 20% and Final worth 40% helped them pass so I'm just going to SUCK IT UP and move forward. I also study my butt off, and I don't think buying every nursing book on the Barnes and Nobles shelf is going to help. I think we get stuck on the pathophysiology and although we need to know it and understand it we forget that what our major focus should be on is, what the nurse needs to look for and what the nurse needs to do. It's not just knowing the information which Im sure you do know, it's learning how to APPLY the information when it needs to be. Prioritizing is also very important. So this is me saying, WE CAN DO THIS! WE DIDN'T GET THIS FAR TO HIT A WALL AND NOT CLIMB OVER IT! The first thing you have to do is get over whats already happened, crying over spilled milk isn't going to help us pass the class it will only bring us down and ruin it for the next exam. Just think positively, allow a bit of time for yourself to not stress out and do the best you can. I'm going to do the same thing. I'm hoping this test anxiety issue doesn't re-occur for the midterm so Im going to try to combat it with positivity. Good Luck and Study Hard, Harder and even harder! Keep in touch!

Anjeleyes214 · Mar 19, 2008

I used to have this in college... but not this time around in nursing school. I've found what helps is when I'm studying and I feel I am weak on things, I will write them down in a notebook. Then when I'm done with a chapter, I will take a break for 15 minutes, and then go back to the notebook and read what I have written down. The day before the test, I will read all of my chapters, and then take the notebook with me when I go somewhere (work, etc.) and when I have a break, I will look the notebook over. This helps me solidify the weak points. It has helped a lot.

I think I've exhausted every new type of studying technique you can think of...lol At first I would just read, read, read never make notes and never highlite, than I started writing notes and my hand would hurt, than I typed them cause I type faster than I write, than I stopped taking notes cause it seemed to take too much time so I switched to index cards, than I would have too many index cards so I stopped that and decided to just read and highlite again and now I thought of a new one today, lets see if it helps. A few of my friends and I sat in the libarary did the reading on a particular disease on our own and highlited what we felt was important and used the dry eraser board and put the main points about the disease. Causes, Clinical Manifestations, S & S, Diagnostic Tests, Meds and Nursing and summed it up and than discussed every everything we came up with and it seemed to work. Hopefully Im able to retain it and do that with the other 25 some odd diseases that are going to be on the midterm in just 12 days!! Thanks for your input, it's greatly appreciated GOOD LUCK