Test Help

[Esther08]

Hello y'all , this is my first post and I had to join the site out of desperation. I always enjoyed reading posts and benefitting from the vast amount of experience and knowledge in this forum. I am a first semester nursing student , I have previous degrees in accounting and finance but i realized late I wasn't a 9-5 person and I needed a lot of flexibility regarding working schedules. My issue is in my nursing classes , specifically health assessment and fundamentals of nursing. We have had 2 tests so far and I am a B-average on both courses , this is giving me sleepless nights , literarily. I stay up studying most nights and go into the exam knowing all the material in the text books , but my professor brings the most ridiculous questions. THey are almost not related to anything she has ever mentioned in class or anything that is reflected in the text books . She doesn't even explain her rationale , a lot of times it becomes a power struggle for her when she is asked why a question is a certain answer. I plan on making a 4.0 this semester but the same lady teaches Health assessment and fundamentals and I have the same problem in both courses. I need resoureces or ideas fo where i can get practice questions for her tests. Her questions aren't patterned after the questions in the text book (kozier) neither are the patterned after saunders or any other review questions I've ever seen. I consider myself to be a well above average students , I'll be very hurt to end up with a B on these courses 'cause I'm studying harder than I've ever studied in my life , someone please help me. I spoke to the professor but she was of no help, she just gave me useless information and I am taking classes at a community college so there isn't anyone I can voice my concerns and frustrations to among the faculty about this issue - pls help

[Esther08]

I knew you would get it. It really is a matter of understand the different testing format isn't it? Throughout nursing school you will continue to improve on nursing process because you learn to think that way, no matter what you are doing.

Good luck and I'm sure you will do wonderful!

rags

thx so much rags , I really appreciate ur insight

[angelwingsamy]

wow. im not sure one person in my school stresses about getting A's. we all just seem to care about passing. but we need at least a B to pass our classes though. C's are failing grades its rough but we all know that we are at least B students....lol.

[midcom]

Esther,

Last time I went to school, I put the same kind of stress on myself. Actually, my aim was to be the best in my class & I accomplished it. However, that was way too much stress to put myself through. All I was concerned about was getting the grade, not necessarily what I was learning. I just needed to know it for the test. Guess what, at all my interviews, I was never asked about my GPA.

This time I decided to do my best but not to stress over A or B. So far I have A's but if I slip into the B range I won't be upset because I am learning this time.

One of my friends from first term decided she had to have A's. She owudl stay up almost all night studying before quizzes & then not understand why she didn't do well while half asleep or why she overslept & didn't make it to class at all. She is no longer in my clas as she couldn't handle the stress she put herself through.

As far as yor teacher's style of questions, I suspect she is expecting you to use your critical thinking skills, taking the facts that you know & applying then to real life problems. One of my teachers will give us a list of things to know for a test and we work hard at knowing those fact but when it comes to the test, you have to apply that knowledge to be able to anser the question. It really frustrates some of my classmates who are still expecting cut & dried questions. Know the fact & you get the question right. They are having problems applying what they know. That's what you will need to do when you are working.

Hang in there. You'll get there with or without all A's.

Dixie

[trixie8]

The first semester is NOT easy. They're weeding people out. The nursing school doesn't want to waste their time with people who aren't completely committed. This is not a major for someone who just wants a degree or their MRS.

My first suggestion would be to get an NCLEX book that organized by subject. (ie clusters of question on different diseases/disorders). That way you can go over what you've discussed in class. Lippincott's NCLEX review is a good one, but I'm sure there are others. You'll often find that professors questions are very similar to one's in these NCLEX books. I suspect many of them of use NCLEX books to write questions.

Second, unfortunately in nursing school, tests are not always a great indicator of what you know. You may have 2 or 3 right answers, but you have to pick the best answer. So the answer you picked may not technically be wrong, but it was not the "best" so it's marked wrong. So, try to learn from the one's you get wrong, but don't be too hard on yourself. And don't beat yourself up for Bs. You're in a completely new field with very difficult material. There is no reason you should be devastated by a "B", actually you should see it as an accomplishment.

[nd deb]

The tests test your critcal thinking skills. I am in 2nd semester and I found the tests got harder. I have heard they get harder with each semester. The reason so is because the development of your critical thinking skills. With each semester your critical thinking skills are getting better. Supposely anyways.