How To Prepare For Fundamentals HESI Exam

[Spangle Brown]

Our course used Evolve for case studies, which also writes the HESI. This gave us access to HESI practice quiz and pretest.

Best not to stress. IT's about using the knowledge you learned by applying it. Kinda like the case studies. The best 'study' is to take HESI or Nclex style questions and reading the rationales. This will get you use to testing that way and understanding how to answer the questions. HESI fundamentals is basic. Don't over think it.

[Charlie Don't Surf]

Hesi practice exam on the site, study your fundamentals from lecture. It's very unlike your tests, but it's all the same info...presented differently. We couldn't study for it, other than what we knew or didn't already. I hit a 97.3 conversion 1204 score....it's not that bad

[Shelby, BSN, RN]

I received the highest fundamentals HESI score in my nursing class-- over 99%. Here is what I did:

I didn't study a lot for it, but I did review a "Quick Facts" or "Just the Facts" handbook that went along with my fundamentals textbook. (It wasn't required, and right before the HESI was the only time I looked at it.) It was useful because it quickly ran through the most important ideas that you need to know. Too often, people get hung up in the details and do not realized that if one understands the major concepts and why things are done a certain way, then the details of what needs to be done can be figured out.

I highly recommend you know the positions patients can be placed in, basic anatomy (especially what is located in the quadrants), major normal lab values (like WBC count; don't worry about memorizing a long list or things like creatinine for the Fundamentals HESI; just be able to tell if the nurse needs to do something because there is something seriously wrong with a lab value), and safety safety safety!!! They want to see if you can recognize an emergency and what to do (just very basic interventions like sit the patient up or apply oxygen). Always go with the safest and least invasive answer (if a patient can't urinate, turn on the faucet first so the pt can hear the water-- not immediately catheterize him/her).

Meet with your fundamentals instructor (or the instructor in charge of the HESI exams) and ask, "On past fundamental HESI exams, what areas do students struggle with or do most poorly in?" This is very helpful information because this shows what information most students are either missing in class or is not being adequately covered. You can study your personal class notes 24 hours a day, but if the teacher never taught it and you didn't read about it, you are probably not going to know about it. HESI tests nationally, so you are supposed to know what everyone else is supposed to know. That is why you need to find out if you are missing information. (Btw, the instructor receives performance reviews on the class as a whole and can usually see how individuals perform. Instructors do not know specific questions (don't even ask!), but they can see how the class as a whole performed on the major test topics.)

If you have access to the HESI practice tests, I highly recommend you take them. Don't just take it and look at the answers of the missed questions. Read the rationales! The rationales will help you understand the "why" and "how," so you can figure out the "what" and "when."

Always answer the questions based one what you think HESI wants to hear, not based on your personal experience or opinion.

Hope this helps someone!

[FutureRN2396]

Does anyone knows how many questions on the fundamental hess exam?