An English summary of a study on nursing education which was written in Swedish is presented. Standards of medical and surgical knowledge required of student nurses were evaluated based on all written test items in medical and surgical nursing set during one year at Swedish schools of nursing. The views of teaching staff and student nurses on grading, educational measurement, and desired content in test items were also surveyed. As background to the study, the organizational and administrative limitations of education were considered along with the influence of changing views concerning evaluation. Nursing theories and the history of nursing were reviewed, and the education and evaluation program in the basic nursing course were described. Two nursing education research efforts, which concerned the nature of basic training in medical and surgical nursing, and patient-centered nursing and efficiency concepts were outlined. Data collection methods and classification systems for test items in the medical and surgical courses were identified. Three systems of classification for demands on information acquisition were developed: subject coverage, the health care process, and disciplinary origin. Requirements with respect to the complexity of information processing were analyzed. The classification system is based on the amount of facts the student has to handle in order to answer the questions and the type of reasoning required. Teachers' and students' opinions were surveyed in terms of the importance of grades to society, the procedure used when awarding grades, and the relevance of the tests. A bibliography is included. (SW)