Boy I really had my eyes opend today. A co-worker put on an NCLEX review for the students she teaches at a local nursing school. She asked me to review dosage calculations with the students and I agreed to do so.
After i did my bit one of the other instructors brought in her nephew (Tim, not his real name) who is a graduate student in mechanical engineering at the university of Wisconsin.
Tim has zero medical background. He told me that he has never even taken a first aid course. I wached him get passing scores on 3 NCLEX practice exams from popular NCLEX prep books. Then he told the students how he did it. He explained what he called "test taking rules". Basic things like the longest answer wins, odd man out, same word in question and answer and others. He then gave them practice exams that were jibberish but demostrated his rules. Then they all took practice exams and scored very well (of course they just graduated from nursing school). Tim claims that he can teach anyone to pass any test. He claims that he has taught his fellow engineering students to pass practice NCLEX as a demonstration.
