Patience

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” –Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Tonight I am trying very hard to have patience.  Although I don’t know that I am being all that successful!

I took my NCLEX-PN exam today.  Thanks to lots of prayers, I went into the test feeling very calm.  I was ready for what it would throw my way!

The test doesn’t have a certain number of questions.  It can be anywhere from 85-205 questions in length.  It is a CAT test, which means:

CAT successively selects questions so as to maximize the precision of the exam based on what is known about the examinee from previous questions.^[1] From the examinee's perspective, the difficulty of the exam seems to tailor itself to his or her level of ability. For example, if an examinee performs well on an item of intermediate difficulty, he will then be presented with a more difficult question. Or, if he performed poorly, he would be presented with a simpler question. Compared to static multiple choice tests that nearly everyone has experienced, with a fixed set of items administered to all examinees, computer-adaptive tests require fewer test items to arrive at equally accurate scores.^[1] (Of course, there is nothing about the CAT methodology that requires the items to be multiple-choice; but just as most exams are multiple-choice, most CAT exams also use this format.)

The basic computer-adaptive testing method is an iterative algorithm with the following steps:^[2]

1. The pool of available items is searched for the optimal item, based on the current estimate of the examinee's ability
2. The chosen item is presented to the examinee, who then answers it correctly or incorrectly
3. The ability estimate is updated, based upon all prior answers
4. Steps 1–3 are repeated until a termination criterion is met

Nothing is known about the examinee prior to the administration of the first item, so the algorithm is generally started by selecting an item of medium, or medium-easy, difficulty as the first item.

As a result of adaptive administration, different examinees receive quite different tests.

(above info can be found here)

Once the test makes a determination of passing or failing, it shuts off.  And when I say “shut off” it does just that.  I answered the minimum number of questions, 85, and my screen just blacks out!

Talking about feeling queasy and sick to you stomach! That is a gross understatement to describe the way I felt and STILL feel at this moment. 

Many have asked me today how I thought I did.  Really…I cannot answer that.  I know it is hard to believe that one could take a test and not have a feeling one way or the other.  But ‘tis true. 

I now must try to have a little patience as I await my test scores.  I’m praying the are posted tomorrow morning.  As soon as they are available I will post them and hopefully get a little sleep.  I have a feeling it will be a very restless night tonight!

And a BIG thank you to all you for your thoughts and prayers today…that were greatly appreciated!!!