What are they REALLY testing us on?!?!?!

[mrigas]

My classmates and I are struggling in our med-surg class! Yesterday we had our third test, 50 questions, only half of which were disscussed in lecture/read in books/nclex review. The other 25 questions were "random" questions from material that we had never touched before!!! We are given "reading assignments" and "objectives" for each topic we are responsible for, but 9 times out of 10 they don't reflect the material discussed in class or in the book.

The only thing I can figure is that the objectives were written many years ago (when the professor started teaching it) and although she has changed the page #'s for the reading assignments for new editions I think she has failed to look at the content of each chapter to see how the layout is and which concepts are disscussed where. What do we do!?!?!

[acgemt]

Good morning,

The way my school does it is that each textbook we use has a "bank" of test questions. These are the questions that the instructors choose from. So they may not be entirely related to the objectives in our study guides, but they are related to the material in the book. Don't get discouraged.

[rosendalemj]

How much do you study for the tests? You can't just study the night before the test. You can't just study 2 days before the test, not even 3 or 4 or 5 days before the test, not even a week before the test! Your studying must be an ongoing process. Study as you go. Read the chapter before lecture. Go to lecture, listen, and take notes. Ask any questions if something isn't making sense to you. Then after lecture read the chapter again, do the study guide with the book, do the CD that comes with the book (if there is one), answer the questions at the back of the chapter. Then read the chapter AGAIN, read your notes again. Do this for each chapter. Yes it's a lot of work and VERY time consuming.... but that's nursing school.

There is definately something wrong with the diploma program I'm in. I'd love to have enough time to do what you described above!!! The program I'm in moves so fast that there's hardly time to just read the material. And I study constantly 10 to 14 hours per day. Yikes there's definately something wrong with my instructors/school!!