How could one exam possibly define an entire life’s worth of you?
I spent an entire week studying for this exam. I wrote up my notes, studied alone, studied with my weekly study group and I even paid for an online tutoring type of course. I did everything I do with all my other exams and I was super confident with the information.
Then I get to the exam and these questions are hard. I mean hard. They were harder than the practice questions I do that are based on our national RN board exam. You know the board exam that determines if I will get to practice as a nurse.
Well, in my nursing school our exam grades auto populate on our screen once we hit the submit button.
I wasn’t expecting to receive an A but after all the time I put in I also didn’t expect to see the grade I saw on my screen.
When I submitted my exam I was greeted with a big fat 70 on my screen. Now I know what you’re thinking, Clarissa I am pretty sure a 70 is passing. Well in the wonderful world of nursing school passing grades are anything above 75. Meaning if you get a 74, you failed.
But what was more surprising than my grade was the way I reacted to it. I didn’t blame myself, I didn’t dwell on it. My immediate response was… Ok, I accept you. You do not reflect how much I truly know and what kind of a nurse I will be. Then, I let it go.
The truth is the only thing an exam can really tell you is your plan of attack for your next exam. It says nothing about you as a person or your intellectual capacity. Don’t let it define you because its just one exam, one class, one moment in time.
Here are 3 things you can do to deal with a bad grade and move forward from it:
- Tip #1 Acceptance: Accept the grade, whatever it may be. Accept that this grade only belongs in this one moment. It does not mean anything outside of this one exam. Do not generalize it. Do not let your mind wander to thoughts of “because I failed this one exam I will fail all my other exams”. That is not true and that is actually just fear talking. As I said before, this one test does not impact your overall life or even college life.
- Tip # 2 What can I learn from this?: What do you think went wrong? Was the test harder than you expected? Did you cover all the material that was going to be on the test? Did you know the material? Did you allow yourself enough time to study and prepare or did you cram? Were you nervous or anxious? Ask yourself, what can I learn from this experience? How can I improve for the next test? But also remember, especially if you don’t normally fail tests, sometimes it was just a hard test and there was really nothing you could have done to change the outcome.
- Tip # 3 Apply What you Learned: If you applied the first tip, you’ve accepted the grade and moved on from it and you are focusing on the next test. What did you learn from that last test? Did you need to give yourself more time to study? Do that. Did you experience test anxiety? Make sure you visit the school counselor and get some tips on how you can deal with the anxiety. Did you have trouble with the material? Try meeting with a tutor, your professor or a study group to get a better understanding of the material. Take some sort of action to do better on the next test.
And hey listen, if you were one of those people who determined it was just a hard test. Keep doing what you are doing because again it’s only one test. You have so many others where you can show your abilities.