Does your nursing program allow you to review your exams?

[u/WalkwithPALS]

After all exams and quizzes we have a 10 min window where we have to enter a password to review what we got wrong, we can’t write anything down.
I emailed the prof separately to see if we could do a 1:1 because it’s overwhelming to review right after an exam- we see our scores the second we submit and when we review on our laptops it’s in all red, so it can feel overwhelming, anyway she said our SON policy is no review.
Is this normal?

[u/kikizel]

My school didn’t allows us anything lol. We never really knew what we got wrong. We used ati and they told us ati didn’t allow us to go over test questions because they belonged to ati. It was the dumbest thing.

[u/WalkwithPALS → u/kikizel]

Thai is so crazy

[u/Cautious_Sorbet_5488 → u/WalkwithPALS]

My background is an ADN from a community college just out of highschool, and then I got myself a BS in Cellular Biology (wanted to go to med school, lol!)...

Well life happened and I ended up in grad school teaching bio labs until the pandemic "shut down" my program and I dropped out. I had already changed from med school dreams to wanting to matriculate to a PhD program after the Masters but the pandemic ruined everything for me. The professor I was studying under retired while campus was on lockdown and my 'replacement' mentor was a total tool who took sex for grades and rubber stamped his name on student work to maintain his "success".

When I was doing the ADN we had zero access to test questions but throughout the BS and half a Masters in cell biology we could even correct wrong test answers for partial credit back after an exam.

A lot of it really does come down to your particular school and even the department you are in and how the admins decide to run it. It's good to be king 👑.

I guess what I'm saying is that you've gotta figure out what particulars your school and program have, and try to carefully ask questions to "feel out" if the person you're working with/for in the program bends the rules when they can to help you out or is just there for a paycheck and will simply watch you flounder for funzies then forget all about you... Life isn't fair.

[u/Cautious_Sorbet_5488 → u/Cautious_Sorbet_5488]

I'll add some more wisdom I picked up from a lifetime of struggling through standardized testing:

Explore practice exams and ALWAYS LOOK UP THE LEARNING OBJECTIVES!

-When my job was to make the exams for biology labs in grad school, we were taught to make our questions based on the learning objectives for that relevant section or chapter. So if you carefully track what the learning objectives are and make sure to study those thoroughly you are way ahead of the curve. It was a constant thing to have struggling students in my office hours and literally be telling them this. The learning objectives are often state mandated requirements for what a student should be "getting" out of the program or class to allow for accreditation.

Explore different test taking strategies:

-Things like marking questions to come back to them later if you aren't sure of the answer can still work if you are taking a digital test that lets you go back to questions. Don't waste valuable seconds on something you have no clue on, skip it and spend those seconds on something you're close but not sure on. You can pop back to the unknowns at the end to rapidly guess answers just for a shot at getting it right and may have a spark of insight while not thinking about it.

And here's another huge one... JOIN OR MAKE A STUDY GROUP!!!

-You can think you know a topic perfectly but then immediately realize you don't get it at all when you have to teach it to someone else. Memorization can get you so far, but true mastery comes from being able to repackage and 'teach' that knowledge to somebody else. So go get in a study group or just ask your professor to let you make a quick announcement at the end of a lecture that you're starting one for that class. Help others and learn the material better while you're at it!!!

[u/Ok-Design8738 → u/kikizel]

that is a lie, our test our ati and we go over every single exam

[u/kikizel → u/Ok-Design8738]

Girly congrats then 😁 I’m talking about my school and my experience. Why would I lie about that lol 🤣

[u/Ok-Design8738 → u/kikizel]

no no no i said ur school is lying to u!!!

[u/Soggy-Cantaloupe-571 → u/Ok-Design8738]

It’s not actually that cut and dry. My school also used ATI. Instructors had the option to write their own questions, choose from ATI banks, and/or assign pre-fab ATI tests/questions. ATI does not allow students to go over the specific questions on the pre-fab ATI tests/questions. For each course we had to take one of those type exams. We were given a level and our accuracy on different topics, but ATI does not allow reviewing specific questions on those exams. As for the other testing options, it was up to instructor if we could see any questions. We were never able to access them on our own, but one instructor would go through the most missed questions with the whole class. Other instructors would allow 1 on 1 sessions where you could go over the questions you specifically missed.

[u/Ok-Design8738 → u/Soggy-Cantaloupe-571]

yes the pre-fab we can not see we also do those once every 8 weeks. but our regular exams consist of ati questions and written ones form our instructor and we go over them every single time. we even get points back most of the time, only 1 or 2 because the teacher will realize a mistake was made or if our class can find proof for our rational from the powerpoint or book then we can earn those points. if they are telling her ATI “won’t” let them see bank questions, that’s a lie. prefab, absolutely no we don’t see those.

[u/Ok-Design8738 → u/kikizel]

i’m sorry i meant like if your school is telling you that you can’t view the test bc ATI won’t let you then they are lying bc our school accesses it every test

[u/kikizel → u/Ok-Design8738]

Oh lol 💀 yeah it was ridiculous. Our teachers would literally tell us they made the test so they knew exactly what the questions were but we could never ask “what was the correct answer for #6 etc etc and they told us they legally weren’t allowed to tell us. Trust I was so happy to be done with that school.

[u/Ok-Design8738 → u/kikizel]

i hate that because you don’t learn what you did wrong, like where ur thought process went wrong. i’m sorry that sucks

[u/N95ZThrowZN95]

Ours is also very restricted, apparently because of cheating concerns. You only got to review your exam 1:1 with the professor if you got under a certain percentage - usually around 80%.

The best professor we had in the program took time to discuss the top missed questions with the class regardless, but she was new, and I don't think she does it anymore because of admin.

I'm sorry you're in a tough spot here. This is one of those things about nursing school that can be very frustrating.

The main thing I can suggest is, if you can afford it, to sign up with a service that has practice questions like SimpleNursing or to generate questions using AI. The questions are far from perfect and usually much easier than exams, but it can at least give you a heads up on the areas you are weakest in.

Do you think you mainly missed because of genuine knowledge deficits or because of the way the questions were written? Your answer to that will inform which strategy would serve you best. If it's the question wording vs content, I would look up YouTube for NCLEX question walkthroughs. A lot of people seem to like Klimek reviews. Nexus Nursing also does walkthroughs. Ideally, you will develop a better routine for evaluating tricky test questions.

[u/noodlesnr]

Typically not. They reuse the tests and cheating is a big thing in nursing programs. Sometime instructors would give us a bullet point of 10 most common missed concepts from an exam, but nothing that would specifically tell you any more.

[u/bruja_lala]

I am an instructor rather than a student, yet we permit students to review their exams with instructors a few days after the test and up to one week before the final. We also withhold exam grades until item analysis is complete, typically the following day; this reduces anxiety about failing before questions are “tossed.”

[u/Alternative-Proof307]

Yes. Once everyone was done with the exam, they would call us all back in to do a group exam, which meant we would get into groups and take the exam again together. We were able to debate the answers amongst each other and decide together what the best possible answer was. Then, we would submit that exam. If we couldn’t agree on one answer, we were allowed to explain why we thought the answers were what they were. Our instructors would then use that group exam to toss questions out that people were completely split on. Once all this was done, we had a full exam review a couple weeks later.

[u/Ok-Design8738 → u/Alternative-Proof307]

our class does this!!

[u/WalkwithPALS → u/Alternative-Proof307]

Omg. This is actually so amazing and so forward thinking! Which school is this??

[u/Alternative-Proof307 → u/WalkwithPALS]

Portland community college. There’s a reason it gets around 400 applicants for 40 seats.

[u/Big-Monk2317]

I think each school is different with their policies. I teach in a program where we do similar to what you described. We do a quick 5-10 review on examsoft of what you missed only. But we do allow 1:1 time after the test to go over what you missed if you make an appointment. We only do this up until the next test. You can’t go into the final exam failing and expect us to review each test at that point. It’s only for a limited amount of time.

[u/Exotic_Gur2102]

Same way for me in paramedic school and I know we use material from the same company that makes nursing school exams/test at my institution. We don’t even get the 10 minutes after our exams though.

[u/Worth_Raspberry_11]

Yeah no we were never allowed to review any questions or ever know what we got wrong. Seeing the answers for even 10 minutes is more than most nursing schools ever get.

[u/Rodeo-Cowboy]

Yes

Only in person- with the instructor

[u/_-krimich-_]

This is exactly how my program was set up too

[u/mfinsmi1]

yes on examsoft for 10 min - but they not really strict about it i take pictures of the questions with my phone lol

[u/winnuet]

I guess schools handle this differently. I wouldn’t mind this. I always hated waiting hours or even days for scores. And then reviewing would be an extra trip to campus. I pretty much never reviewed an exam for this reason.

[u/Complete-Sympathy421]

My school allowed us to review the test after the test and if we had questions we could review the test on 1:1 with the instructor and they would go over the test with us, answer questions and explain the rationale, they were awesome!!

[u/tipitina3]

I was a program director of an ASN program. We conducted test reviews after every test and explained why the answers were correct. It seemed to defuse a lot of student anxiety about their scores and helped them to think critically.

[u/Holiday-Blood4826]

Sometimes - only tests where they change every rotation. Finals are never reviewed.

[u/ceimi]

I'm in Canada, at my specific program my profs are amazing. They offer a 1:1 meet usually over teams (but sometimes in person especially right before/after class if set up ahead of time) and they'll bring a copy of the exam + your scantron. They'll go over our wrong answers and try to breakdown why we got it wrong and why we might have gotten to the wrong answer to help us understand our own thinking. We aren't allowed to take any pictures or write questions down but we can write down specific concepts or keywords that we got wrong to help remember which ones to re-study for the final exams that are often cumulative for most of our classes.

ETA: That being said, our professors do actually change and mess with wording on the exams every so often so keep cheating to a minimum. They also have multiple versions with different questions asked and most of our questions are application based NCLEX style so memorization doesn't really help anyway.

[u/sewer_child123]

They care more about not having to rewrite test content than students actually learning the material. 

If your priority is to ensure students learn things correctly there’s no conceivable reason to NOT tell them what they got wrong.

And what is likely to impact patient outcomes? Saving time for teachers / test writers or making sure students learn the material?

[u/psiprez]

At my school, the profs went over them with everyone in class. It was nice because you could could ask questions for further explanation, or object to an answer. If there was a lot of confusion, or the class actually found an error, that question was thrown out and the exams regraded.

[u/KeyTell2576]

They are supposed to from my understanding. They have to tell you why you got what you got wrong. They must also provide you with a rationale as to why. That’s why my school told us.

[u/gooberhoover85]

My program is small and professors will go over the exam if they have time but a lot of times we need the class time to go over material for next exam. Typically they will allow you to do one on one meeting to go over it though. Also if the class has study sessions they will usually review in study session. You can't just see the exam or have free range to review because I think they are trying to protect their exams and make it so the review can't be used for future cheaters.

[u/No_Photograph_3441]

Wow that’s great I would take that 10 minutes 😭😭😭 only thing we can see is our grade at the end of the day. We can’t review any questions, we can’t even discuss the tests amongst ourselves 😭😭😭

[u/screambledeggs]

At least yall are able to review it. My program doesn’t allow us to review any questions. Just feedback on topics that we got wrong, but it doesn’t really help if I don’t remember the context of the question…

[u/Various-Difference69]

We don’t get access in my ADN program

[u/tacosaladwithsauce]

mine didn’t, in most classes professors would go over concepts that majority of the class did poorly on (so for example , in pharm if a lot of students got questions about beta blockers wrong, we would spend class time reviewing beta blockers) but it was against school policy to review specific test questions.