test bank questions

[julimom]

Any one know if using test bank questions with rationales to study for exams is cheating? Someone in my class bought the test bank questions for our book and some are studying them and doing better than before. I haven't done it because I don't know if it's legit.

[Jamjewel]

Where did you purchase your test banks?

[JustBeachyNurse, LPN]

Jamjewel said:

Where did you purchase your test banks?

You haven't started school yet but you want to find out how to get instructor test banks to cheat before you start (and you have posted in threads as to which school/cohort you will be attending) ? Read the thread. Only unscrupulous sites sell test banks to students/prospective students. Reputable sites require verification of instructor/professor status at a valid nursing program.

Please reconsider purchasing test banks. There are hundreds of study guides and reputable supplemental material available to students

[springchick1, ADN, RN]

I was in school with a guy whose wife was a nursing instructor at another University so he access to all her testing material. He made high A's until 4th semester when our instructor wrote all the test.

He had never learned to study or how to actually take the test so he ended up failing.

We had others the year ahead of us who uses test banks and were QUICKLY dismissed from the program.

[dreamer30]

I'm not an advocate for cheating but why would you tell someone you have the answers.... there is no way they would know you where using it. Now your out the. program and money.

[pep.tan]

Hi student nurses:

You picked a great career and one I have been part of for over 30 years. As a nursing instructor, I created my exams in my last University (corporate creates them now). Various sources were used: lecture, text, ATI book, NCLEX book and internet questions.

For fun I would include 4-5 test bank questions. Prior to the exam I would review the general content-- except test bank questions.

When the exams were graded, the least correctly answered questions were from the test bank. The test bank questions were selected for the material covered but sometimes not clear or fair---however, if the students had the test bank questions, they would have selected the test bank answers. Only 10-20% would get some of the test bank answers but never a significant number which indicated to me that they did not have the test bank questions.

My question: Are the students able to access test bank questions? If so, this was not proved on my exams. Generally, the fail rate was so high on test bank questions, that I was forced to delete them from the exam.

Professor T.

[nursingstudent556]

Here's a novel idea for nursing educators. Be an EDUCATOR; write your own test questions. I was a educator for 30 years and did not need a textbook company to write questions for me. Test banks are nothing but a lazy way for nursing instructors to make out tests.

[brinkk]

pookyp said:

My friend reported a classmate of ours. The school did nothing. They said it's not cheating and that if he were to be using the test bank AS he was taking the test, then yes that would be cheating. And every test he makes 90's or more. Makes me sick to my stomach but oh well.

That is ridiculous!

[AliNajaCat]

nursingstudent556 said:

Here's a novel idea for nursing educators. Be an EDUCATOR; write your own test questions. I was a educator for 30 years and did not need a textbook company to write questions for me. Test banks are nothing but a lazy way for nursing instructors to make out tests.

Here's a news flash: Many people who are excellent teachers find writing valid test questions incredibly hard. Perhaps they didn't take education coursework in their graduate program; perhaps they never had the opportunity to work with a professional testing company to see how a psychometrically-valid examination is constructed.

I have done it all ways-- developed my own (including for national certification examinations), vetted others' submissions for test banks, and used test banks with validated questions. The best banks are huge, and the items in them are labeled as to difficulty: hard, medium, easy. I used to make my exams include 25% hard, 50% medium, and 25% easy. I was able to run the scantron answer sheets to see how my class did vis-a-vis hard-medium-easy, and they came out pretty close every time. Well, except for the year I taught in a really weak school, and ended up (after consultation with the other faculty) in amending my percentages to 10% - 70% - 30%, or too many people failed. Sheesh.