Lab practical...any tips??

Nursing Students LPN/LVN Students

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Hi all!! I am taking A&P this summer and just had my first lab practical. I BARELY got a B (79.8%). Luckily my professor rounded it up to an 80%. I have a BS in Sociology and decided to go back for nursing since I have been wanting to switch fields for 10 years now!

I usually get A's easy....But these classes are on a whole other level of thinking!! I guess because Im not just memorizing but retaining the info!! I know about the Made Incredibly Easy and Visual series which is awesome! I also use Youtube videos to help me learn bones, muscles, etc.

I want an A on the next test...any tips are welcome and appreciated!

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Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg, Psych, Geri, LTC, Tele,.

A&P 1....

I read the chapters at least twice. I made picture flash cards for lab. I reviewed them a couple of times before the exams. I bought models for use at home--a mini skeleton, a mini skull, a mini brain. I quizzed myself for lab practicals with those. I also studied on real bodies. Like I named my boyfriends muscles as we cuddled--sorry if TMI-- but I was literally saying names of his muscles to myself. One of my teachers told me she used her cat to name all the muscles. I taught my kids who played sports at the time what each muscle they used was for. I touched my own body to ID each muscle.

I did different stuff when I took A&P2.

BTW: I dropped A&P 1 one time during summer session and went on to earn an A. You can do it!!

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Specializes in None yet..

Second vintagemother's tips. I got a skull and a preserved sheep's brain to dissect at home on my own after my lab partner destroyed ours in class one. Later, there always seemed to be extra hearts or whatever and I brought those home to work on as well. Always stayed late at lab on those days when it was possible to skip out early and spent the time using the models and skeleton. Used as many different parts of my brain to learn as I could. Read before class, listened actively in class, reviewed right after class and then reviewed, reviewed, and reviewed again to get it into my brain. Having a schedule with regular, repetitive review was important. A&P is not a class you can cram at the last minute. I found the Anatomy Coloring Book useful and I drew structures and processes as much as possible. Make "compare and contrast" charts. Make up mnemonics to remember things like the cranial nerves. Make up stories so you have analogies to help your memory.

The good news is it may take time but it's doable.

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This website helped me a ton

Anatomy Drill and Practice

I also printed off labled diagrams for whatever section I was working on...whited out the labels...put them in a plastic sheet protector so I could label them over and over with a dry erase marker

those are the things that helped me the most

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Thanks ladies!! All those are great tips!!!

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Specializes in None yet..
This website helped me a ton

Anatomy Drill and Practice

I also printed off labled diagrams for whatever section I was working on...whited out the labels...put them in a plastic sheet protector so I could label them over and over with a dry erase marker

those are the things that helped me the most

That's a great little drill site. Thank you, tesouthern!!!

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Specializes in Hospice, Palliative Care.

Good day, Scorpiochic26:

For AP lab practicals, spend as much time in lab as possible; if your school has a model/lab room you can get into outside of class, then do it. For me, I found touching, feeling, working out landmarks (bones, muscles, circulation, etc.) helped tremendously. By treating most things like a map where you can identify key areas, the moment you see a key area on an item, just start shifting to the pointer/flag/etc. Work out the patterns, and you can do it. For histology, look up "dichotomous key for histology"

Thank you.

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That's a great little drill site. Thank you, tesouthern!!!

No prob! For lab we used the Wiley plus online platform and it included these drills (with a slightly different set up) and a ton of other really helpful tools....I'm not sure which other ones might be accessible without having to purchase the online access but it's worth looking into because there were a TON of tools for studying

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Yeah the Wiley Plus code came with our books but our instructor never registered our class on the site. I heard from another student who has a different instructor that their teacher uses wiley plus online and they said it was SUPER helpful....Urrgggghhhh.... And my teacher just moved lab practical 2 from july 30 to July 21!!!:madface:

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This website helped me a ton

Anatomy Drill and Practice

I also printed off labled diagrams for whatever section I was working on...whited out the labels...put them in a plastic sheet protector so I could label them over and over with a dry erase marker

those are the things that helped me the most

This website is AWESOME!!!!! I have a test tomorrow and this is perfect! Thanks so much!!!

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Flash cards always helped me and if you have a relative that will let you label them, for a visual, that might be helpful.

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