Practicing/preparedness for dosage exam

[pinkiepie_RN]

I did well on my medication dosage math exam last semester (95% on the first try) and am now in the process of reviewing for my upcoming math exam on day 1 of med-surg. For those of you who have taken it at the beginning of each semester, what was your studying process? I don't find it to be particularly hard, but I want to get in the habit of using the formulas again and to make sure I don't make silly mistakes (and that I catch them if I do). I think practice problems every day would be a little excessive, not to mention that I'd run out of problems eventually, but I want to be sure I'll be ready. Any suggestions? Apologies if this seems like a silly question. I'm not asking how to do the math problems, more like how do I know I'm prepared.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

i think you are wrong to think that practicing problems every day would be excessive. proficiency in math, any math, as any math instructor will tell you, is based on doing problem after problem after problem. you don't become proficient in riding a 2-wheeler bike by just looking at it and not riding it. i would take problems you already have and twist the terms around, make a different term the unknown you need to find and rework them. there are only 3 basic terms in a problem

• dose desired
  
• dose on hand
  
• dose to give

any problem is usually giving you two of the terms and asking you to find the third--usually the dose to give. however, sneakier problems can tell you the dose you are giving and ask you what the dose desired is! now, in the more difficult problems they make you do some side work to get to a term, but the information you need will be given to you and you need to recognize that it is there. in addition, you need to take a problem you've already worked and make one of the terms you already know the unknown. you'll already know the correct answer, so work back to it. this is how you'll also learn how these problems are constructed. the same three terms are always at the heart of most problems. it is how the wording of the problem is constructed that throws most people. you have to look beyond the wording and look for these three key terms and what you are being asked to do in relation to them.

in addition there are oodles of practice problems posted on the websites that are listed on post #3 of this sticky thread along with sites to brush up on basic math if you need that as well:

• https://allnurses.com/forums/f50/nursing-math-thread-264395.html - the nursing math thread in the general nursing student discussion forum

push yourself to do more and more difficult problems, so that the more routine ones will be like putty in your hands when you see them. honestly, i've been a nurse for many, many years. i can't think of many instances where dose desired divided by dose on hand multiplied by the amount the dose comes in gives you the dose to give hasn't worked--even for iv problems.