Any books I should buy for school?

gladiola · Jul 27, 2008

Our instructor highly recommended buying "Saunders Comprehensive Review for the NCLEX-PN Examination". He can't say enough good things about it!

NICUplease · Jul 27, 2008

I bought a HUGE NCLEX Exam Prep book for PN and RN at Borders. It was only $40 for pretty big book. It has questions at the end of the chapters with practice exams and a CD too. I think its great, and the questions are in NCLEX format. I hear a great way of studying for the NCLEX while in school is to read the same topic in the NCLEX book with what you're learning in school at the same time.

BeverlynBama · Jul 27, 2008

So we should buy and exam prep book at the start of our classes?

YugoGirl · Jul 30, 2008

CONGRATZ ON GETTING INTO A LVN PROGRAM!!! I AM WAITING TO HEAR IF I GOT IN :) MY SCHOOL WILL HOPEFULLY START SEP 5TH!!!

Anyways I had the same question... several of my friends are nurses and they are all telling me to get in as much fun with my friends and family before school starts and not to stress about school until I start :):) But I am so excited that I went out and bought some books I got a book called "How to survive and even love nursing school" which i think has a lot of great information!! and I also got a book called "Nurse" which is a story of a life as a nurse I havent really got into it yet but so far it seemed very interesting I hope this helps and GOOD LUCK!!!!!! :nurse: :nurse: :nurse:

:yeah: :yeah:

1uvakindmom · Jul 30, 2008

Thanks so much! I hope you get in!!!!

Missy

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Jul 30, 2008

the reason for having a nclex preparation book is because they review all the pertinent information in your nursing course in a nicely outlined form. this helps you study and organize your study for your school exams. the other major feature of these books is the application (critical thinking) questions in the books. they give you the reasoning behind the answers to these questions to help you begin to think critically. the nclex exam and many nursing tests questions are structured this way and many students have difficulty figuring out how to get to the correct answers. these books were written to help students do that.

there are also two web sites where you can get a free nclex style question each week with the rationale of the answer explained to you:

http://www.learningext.com/students/qofweek.asp - question of the week. every monday a question from the online nclex-rn examination course from ncsbn and its answer is posted here on this page.
http://www3.us.elsevierhealth.com/cgi-bin/mosby/cdonline/saxton/question - mosby's question of the week from mosby's comprehensive review of nursing. also has archived questions that you can access.
some of the nursing textbooks have online companion websites that you can access where there are student resources that include learning games and flashcards. this is part of the cost of the textbook, so if one exists, use it because you paid for it.

allnurses also has test taking information on this sticky thread:

https://allnurses.com/forums/f50/looking-test-taking-stratagies-224581.html - looking for test taking strategies

i do not recommend that you buy any supplemental books until you start running into a problem understanding a specific area of your nursing studies and you can't find information on the internet because books are expensive if you are only going to need them to look at a couple of pages. the only exception is that i think everyone should have a good medical dictionary chosen from either:

taber's cyclopedic medical dictionary
mosby's medical, nursing, & allied health dictionary

in the sticky threads on the nursing student assistance forum and the general nursing student discussion forum you will find all kinds of helpful weblinks to help you with your nursing studies, i strongly suggest that you go through the posts on those links and explore those weblinks because a lot of them are going to be extremely helpful to many of you. i have many of those threads posted onto a word document and broken down by post numbers with important weblinks copied and pasted onto the document with a short title next to them, so i can find and access them quickly. you can also bookmark them. some of them i posted myself so i know what is there. there are several members who work to add to these threads as we find useful websites so you don't have to run out buying books all the time. i'm a book hoarder and i know how hard it is to avoid buying a good title! and, believe me, i've got what i believe are some good ones here at home that i use to answer questions on the student forums. but i've also been through an aa and a bsn nursing program and been an rn for 30+ years. some subjects in nursing are important to know and some won't be important to focus a lot of attention on--trust me.

1uvakindmom · Jul 30, 2008

Thanks!!!!

BeverlynBama · Jul 31, 2008

I have found this forum so helpful and I don't even get started till August 25.

Tomorrow I will be at a book store looking at the NCLEX books.

Daytonite YOU ROCK!!

YugoGirl · Jul 31, 2008

:yeah:I GOT IN!!!!!!!!!!! THANX I AM SO EXCITED!!! CANT WAIT FOR SCHOOL TO START I AM READY FOR WHATEVER I HAVE TO DO TO COMPLETE THE SCHOOL!!! GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE!!!

missjennmb · Aug 1, 2008

I bought a Mosby's book, and my school requires a different exam prep guide, Saunders I think, but I am still very glad I got it. I disagree that its not worth it, because I have learned so much from it, before school has even started. I don't read the book very much because I don't want to feel like I'm in school already, but the CD has really been invaluable. I just do the test questions and every time I find a word that I don't understand, I look it up on the internet. Its really helped me to understand in detail what illnesses/proceedures are as well as various complications and things to watch for etc. And as far as them being "too expensive" I would also suggest that they hold their value VERY well in general so you can usually sell it for a decent percent of what you bought it for, after graduating.

1uvakindmom · Aug 1, 2008

YAY!!!! :smokin: