The Honest NCLEX Exam

[caroladybelle, BSN, RN]

What would the NCLEX be like if our employers designed it.

1. The test should start with all participants clocking in before the time, not one second later and no more than five minutes late.

2. While the participants are getting instructions, they are interrupted repeatedly to find charts, scattered throughout the site, whereupon they return to find their computer taken, and they have to log in repeatedly (the password must be at least 12 digits long, contain a consonant, a vowel, an uppercase and a lowercase letter, a number, a punctuation symbol, contain no recognizable word or name, and Egyptian hieroglyph, and a math equation).

2. At three to eight minute intervals, there must be at least one call bell/phone call from another department/code bell/physician yelling furiously, a JCAHO inspector or a pumps and pearls administrator grilling them on the latest Press Gainey results, the 5 for 5 initiative and how fabulous the hospital's program of patient centered care or planetree rollout is. The participant will have to return to a different computer, and login again.

3. At the one hour mark, the administrator will walk in, tell 1/4th of the participants that they are low censused but oncall for the next four hours to finish the test, if the questions pick up or new questions are brought in. 1/4th of the participants will be sent to a different room to pick up another participant's test, which requires all new passwords, and new and different distractions. The remaining participants in the original room, have to do their test as well as the test of one of the participants that were pulled.

4. At that point, two of the test computers code, requiring all of the students stop, get it back running and transfer them to a different room, while simultaneously receiving two repaired computers that were "repaired but still do not function and start the test over.

5. There will be no eating, drinking or using the bathroom during the test. Foleys with leg bags are encouraged.

6. At various intervals, various artificial odors will be piped in to simulate the nursing environment. regular stool, c.diff stool, GI bleed stool, peanut butter or Dorito emesis, liver failure or drug abuse BO. Add in some stale coffee or diet coke breath. And not to be missed, the odors of delivery pizza, takeout Chinese or Indian food, or the microwave smells of popcorn or heated fish/seafood.

7. Participants will be required to identify the contents of the a unit refrigerator and the approximate age of the contents. They will be tested of on the expiration dates of opened salsa, queso, butter, cream cheese, various salad dressings, coffee cream and hot sauce.

8. During the testing at least ten irate family members will call, five for the same patient, none of whom will speak to one another and no one has the "password".

9. At least once during the test, the wife and the CNA girlfriend of one of the participants will get in a hairpulling fight, knocking five of the test computers out, requiring another log in with the password on a different computer again.

10. Some participants get busted not using appropriate hand hygiene technique when they log back in and automatically fail. Others will lose points for not remembering to use the scripted responses to "five for five" questions after they login.

11. And those that were low censused are brought back one hour before the end of the test and required to start and finish the test in the time left or fail.

12. Everyone will get a required lecture on their poor time management.

Please make your additions as you see fit.

[Surprised1, MSN, RN]

I'm laughing so hard!!

At 10 minute intervals, test takers will be interrupted by requests from complete strangers for Sprite. After trekking to various other floors to find Sprites, the test takers will return only to find that the computerized testing system is down.

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses

[ixchel]

13. Instead of being graded on your merit, your pass/fail status will be determined by patient satisfaction scores.

14. A patient fall will mean mandatory remediation.

[malenurse69, MSN, NP]

15. The proctor elopes through the building falling down intermittently, and with each successive fall he degrades the testers score by a point

[That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

in lieu of 5. Students must down 32oz of mtn dew and a 16oz cup of coffee immediately prior to testing. May the odds be ever in your favor.

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

16. There is a new type of question which require an applicant to contact third party by phone to ask for the "clue". The applicant gets list of five persons to contact, only one of them able to give applicant the required information and other four randomly yell at applicant, give the wrong info, the info which has nothing to do with the question, etc. The applicant has 60 seconds to do this sort of question and right/wrong answer is half determined by how professionally and quickly the applicant was able to reach the right person to obtain the clue.

[Simba&NalasMom, LPN]

Haha!!! Sorry about the Sprite thing. I'm an LPN and work in a group home for medically fragile DD adults. When one of my individuals is hospitalized I spend time hanging out in the room on my days off and there's just something about that hospital air that makes me so doggone thirsty! I only ask for Sprite if I see staff going into the pop room, though.

[Farawyn]

Haha!!! Sorry about the Sprite thing. I'm an LPN and work in a group home for medically fragile DD adults. When one of my individuals is hospitalized I spend time hanging out in the room on my days off and there's just something about that hospital air that makes me so doggone thirsty! I only ask for Sprite if I see staff going into the pop room, though.

17. 10% of the students must stop test and find "the pop room".

[Caffeine_IV]

Instead of the test beginning on time, you have to wait for the proctor to do the following: have coffee, go the cafeteria for a biscuit, text his/her spouse and children to ensure they are en route to school/work. And then the test will begin 15 minutes after scheduled start time.

At some point during the test, there will be an unscheduled downtime. You will have to complete questions on the emergency back-up paper version and then input them into the computer when it restarts

[Julius Seizure]

At hourly increments during testing, all students must get up and circle the room reciting the proper rounding scripting to the assorted testing staff in the room (the proctor, the pearls & pumps administration, the yelling doctor, the wife, the CNA girlfriend, and the LPN in search of sprite). Each of these persons must have the scripting recited to them exactly, or points will be deducted. There will be no exemptions to this, even if the testing staff have already yelled, questioned, or requested something of the student in the last five minutes prior to the rounding time. All requests made of the student by the testing staff must be completed before returning to testing, which will resume on a different computer, as the one that the student was using has already been taken. This process may take anywhere up to 59 minutes to complete.

[Surprised1, MSN, RN]

At the beginning of the test, all test-takers will be required to don isolation gear (in the correct order) and to place a phone in their pocket. The testing room is heated to 93 degrees, as the proctor is very cold-natured. At approximately 43-second intervals, said phones will ring. The test-takers are required to answer their phones without actually touching them, doff isolation gear (in the correct order), and exit the testing room to perform one of 3 tasks: 1) Locate the beeping machine in one of 24 rooms and trouble-shoot it; 2) Adjust the thermostat in another room while random proctors watch you from the sofa; or 3) Take a Sprite to another perfect stranger. After performing each task, the test-taker will don a new set of isolation gear (in the correct order), find a new computer, call the Help Desk to obtain a new password, and await the next q-43 second phone call.

at Simba&Nala's mom - no hard feelings!

[ixchel]

The monitor tech calls you every 4 minutes to let you know the patient in question 27 has a lead off.