What the heck is up with nursing school tests??!!

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OK, I just had my first test of my second semester of nursing school. I was thinking that maybe things will be new and the faculty will learn how to write a decent, straight forward test this time, but no......I studied 12 hours last night for the test (they did include a test matrix to guide study) and thought I had everything down pat. Wrong! I missed 21 out of 62 questions! Other people in the class many questions also, ranging from 15-27. One girl did only miss 7. And as you guys may already know, a 75 is passing...and I made a 66. This was a common occurrence last year where the questions were badly written (as in not leading to a clear answer) and the rationales in the key made no sense. Thankfully, I made it through last semester with all As and 1 B, which made me think that maybe I had it down. Wrong! I'm going to need a minimum 6 questions nullified just to pass. And I was thinking I was going to get a least a mid B. :crying2:

Long story short: does anyone else have his problem in their nursing program where the questions to your exams make you go "huh?" And on top of that, included typos and rationales that don't even match up with the supposed correct answer? And then include stuff that you hardly went over in class or in reading? Please don't tell me school has messed up testing skills. Even if they aren't the only, that's still pretty bad.

At the school I go to the teachers make their tests. So some teachers are known for fair tests and others are known to have really hard unfair tests. Many times at least 1-3 questions are being removed after grading. One teacher is just known for the majority of his classes to fail. My question is who is watching out for students by making sure that tests are fair and comparible between teachers teaching the same subject. I wonder if the teachers are actually taught how to write good questions. I wish that the head of the department or dean would gather all the tests given in a semester and review them, just to see what is being expected from teacher to teacher, and see which teachers could use some help in writing better questions. Don't get me wrong, I think our teachers are very knowledgeable and have a lot of great information to share with us, but that does not mean that they are experts at writing test questions.

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At the school I go to the teachers make their tests. So some teachers are known for fair tests and others are known to have really hard unfair tests. Many times at least 1-3 questions are being removed after grading. One teacher is just known for the majority of his classes to fail. My question is who is watching out for students by making sure that tests are fair and comparible between teachers teaching the same subject. I wonder if the teachers are actually taught how to write good questions. I wish that the head of the department or dean would gather all the tests given in a semester and review them, just to see what is being expected from teacher to teacher, and see which teachers could use some help in writing better questions. Don't get me wrong, I think our teachers are very knowledgeable and have a lot of great information to share with us, but that does not mean that they are experts at writing test questions.

What do you mean by fair though?

My idea of a fair exam is that it covers material that I was assigned to learn (either in lecture, Case Studies, research or other readings). I've heard to many fellow students complain about "unfair exams" where they weren't unfair.....they were just hard.

I'm not saying that this is what you're saying, but just a common experience I've had.

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I am not against hard tests. You must know your material. When a class with 30 people in it has 17 fail the test, where did things go wrong? Were the topics covered on the exam covered in the classroom? Were the students able to figure out what the question was asking? Were the questions prepared for a novice nurse? I am not saying that is all the fault of the teacher, the students have to hold up their end too. When using NCLEX-RN review books (such as Saunders) the questions are fair in that they are asked in a way that the student knows what is being asked. It is not that the Saunder questions are easy, but they are asked in a certain way, I cannot put it into words. Some tests given by teachers do not ask questions like those in the review books that have been written by professional writers. The questions from teachers just may not "flow" like those written by professional test makers and can be difficult to figure out what is being asked. And I am not saying that this is true of all teachers.

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Specializes in IMCU.

I have to say I have done alright -- but this is more because I seem to be able to decode the instructors language in the test. I can see what the book answer is and then I see what she wants (nope they are rarely the same). It doesn't seem fair. Nor does the use of poor spelling, grammar etc.

With a new instructor next semester I may be up a creek without a paddle.

I prefer when instructors use questions from the test bank. They have already been edited.

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
I am not against hard tests. You must know your material. When a class with 30 people in it has 17 fail the test, where did things go wrong? Were the topics covered on the exam covered in the classroom? Were the students able to figure out what the question was asking? Were the questions prepared for a novice nurse? I am not saying that is all the fault of the teacher, the students have to hold up their end too. When using NCLEX-RN review books (such as Saunders) the questions are fair in that they are asked in a way that the student knows what is being asked. It is not that the Saunder questions are easy, but they are asked in a certain way, I cannot put it into words. Some tests given by teachers do not ask questions like those in the review books that have been written by professional writers. The questions from teachers just may not "flow" like those written by professional test makers and can be difficult to figure out what is being asked. And I am not saying that this is true of all teachers.

I understand what you are saying.

I am one of the first people to get annoyed with students that take no responsibility for themselves, everything is the fault of the teacher. One student regretted when she came to me to go in on a petition against one of our teachers. I was so appalled. It was not because the teacher was a bad teacher, these group of girls sat in the back and chatted amongst themselves all during lecture, always asked, is this on the test, argued every question they got wrong even when the answer was right there in our notes. Wanted everything spoon fed to them and really tried to egg students on in the negativity of everything and wanting them to follow their motto of the students being bad teachers and it having nothing to do with them. All but one of these girls have since failed. So I am usually one that is more on the mind set, what is YOUR part in this, to a student.

That said, if MAJORITY of a class is failing every test, I think maybe we need to look past just the students and evaluate the teaching as well.

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I took the second test yesterday. My raw score is a 72.5 after looking at the key. The final grade depends on what questions she throws out and whether they were the ones that I got wrong. I'm hoping to get a 80. Here's to wishful thinking! :sigh: And I felt really confident about it too and ended up making stupid mistakes. I jumped to my first answer a little TOO quick. Thought I was a making a high B to an A. Yeah, right!

Does anyone ever check the test keys when they are done or do you just leave? Is it even available?

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.

I always check, I like to know what I got wrong and why so I can learn from it.

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My teacher approached me while I was with my advisor and said that she needed to talk to me. She thought I had failed, but had the wrong student. Nonetheless, I only made a 77. :( Then I sat and talked with her for like an hour about everything in the course and clinicals. She told me she expected so much of more of me. Wow, way to go for me disappointing expectations. then she found out we haven't taken patho yet, so it put a lot in perspective for her. She said we (my class) still need to read. She knows already and that we are making it hard on ourselves. I guess that's what happened to me. I used to be so good and then I just went lazy. I read for my other nursing course, but not this one, and this is fundamentals!!!

I feel so dumb, but I know I'm not. I just got an invitation to join the Alpha Chi honor society. So apparently, I'm good enough to be in the top 10% of my class. I'm just not applying myself. I need motivation.

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Specializes in Family Practice, ICU.

Honestly, the best way I've found to do consistently well in nursing school is to read everything given to you. There are some that say they don't ever read the books and do just fine. I believe that those people are the minority. There are other factors that go into their performance too, such as life or work experience and prior education.

A safe bet is to do the assigned reading and take good notes on what you read. Make an outline. Then read lecture notes. And if there are any NCLEX style questions in the back of the chapters, do them. Make your own questions, without answers in a Microsoft Word document, then the day before the test go through and see if you can answer them. If you can't, look them up.

I find the times when I bomb a test are the times when I haven't read the chapters and tried to get by on lecture notes alone. That's how it is for my nursing classes, anyway.

And it also depends on the subject. For general nurses classes (med/surg, Peds, OB), reading the book is a huge help. For pharmacology, however, I find that reading the book can sometimes be almost too detailed for what we need. I still read it, but I find that making flash cards and memorizing names, mechanisms, indications, contraindications, adverse reactions and nursing considerations is the best.

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Does anyone have any tips on reading really huge chapters on little time? I know there are some tips and tricks out there! How can you get the gist of the information without wading through the whole book? I guess the chapters were shorter last semester. Even though I was taking 5 nursing classes, I still somehow found time to read for (most) of them. I couldn't make myself read Health Assessment and Math. Those seemed like things I actually had to DO and SEE rather than just read. It just seemed odd reading a math problem or how to use a penlight.

Anyway, this semester is only 2 nursing courses along with 2 general education courses. For one nursing course, the reading is incredibly easy. It's just that I can't get into the Fundamentals book.

I have the previous edition of the Med-Surg book that we will most likely be using next semester in the fall. I will start looking over it during the summer to get a head start. That way I will have an idea, even if it is an older book from '04 and has the whole chapter on burns ripped out. They were throwing it out at the hospital my mom was working at, so they said she could take it since they didn't need anymore. She saw it laying in the trash :p

So, how do you read long chapters?

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.

You said you only got a 77% what is your minimal passing grade? Ours is a 77% so I was just wondering. I am terrible about reading the books, but when I have tried to force my self I usually read the key points and do the activities in the books. For some reason that isn't ever as bad to me. Or go through your notes and make sure you have a good understanding of the things you talked about and if not read those more in depth in the book. Usually the topics we go over in lecture, are the ones on the test. They don't USUALLY for us anyway, add in topics they didn't touch on at all. The book always has way more information and topics than what we do, so I focus on the ones we are going over.

Our teachers also give us guided reading, so they give us specific pages for us to focus on and charts and stuff instead of whole chapters.

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There's no quick way through reading....it's the grunt work of nursing school. It's really about buckling down and doing it.

As far as making sure you're being effecient with your reading time, I do take notes as I read to make sure I'm getting the main points. I then use these notes to study from, along with my class notes, when it's exam time.

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