I am writing my exam in 4 weeks. I have gone thro most of the Saunders comprehensive book (minus med chapters).
My pharm knowledge is very low. I feel that if I focus on that it will take up a large chunk of the 4 weeks. Plus I have heard from multiple ppl that they only got around 5-8 pharm qs. The highest number I have heard was from a friend who had 240 qs and got 13. Thats still a pretty low number.
Anyone who wrote the exam have some insight into this? I feel like it is a gamble to do this but I am in crunch time and would like to focus on larger topics.
Study smart. Know your major drugs catagories and the side effects...be able to recognize things like -olol are beta blockers and will affect the heart rate as well as the blood pressure...and things like ACEs (-prils) don't affect the heart rate. Diabetic meds. Know the antidotes to meds like narcotics and benzos. If you really are running out of time, focus on the meds that can harm or kill someone if you miss something or administer wrong (that means skip colace and protonix). The NCLEX is a safety test. You are going to be using meds for the rest of your career...yes, you can look them up in micromedex if you don't remember something but it is easier to just start learning as many as you can now. You are legally responsible for knowing what every med you pass does and what side effects to be watching for. Pharm counts. That said. I was weakest in my pharm going into the test and passed in 75 questions. I had maybe 5 pharm questions and although I there were several I had no earthly idea, I was able to rule out multiple answers because I did know what those drugs were and they didn't answer the question correctly.
Ok thats what I will try and do. But see out of 75 you only got 5 that is nothing. Even if I got all 5 wrong I could still pass the NCLEX. But I will try and study pharm for a week and if that is not enough than so be it.
Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.
Ok thats what I will try and do. But see out of 75 you only got 5 that is nothing. Even if I got all 5 wrong I could still pass the NCLEX. But I will try and study pharm for a week and if that is not enough than so be it.
That's what that person got, you could get more. It's the NCLEX & it's random. As a nurse you need to know your meds, so study pharmacology. It may not be your most favorite subject but if you want to be a nurse you need to be up to date with pharmacology.
I just passed the NCLEX and had alot of pharmacy questions! Make sure you study the endings of the drugs and adverse effects. What about the drugs can cause harm to the patient if not taken correctly
The best study strategy is to study your weakest areas the most. There's no point in reviewing your strong areas. Why review what you already know? Study your 3 weakest areas and you'll do much better.
Ok thats what I will try and do. But see out of 75 you only got 5 that is nothing. Even if I got all 5 wrong I could still pass the NCLEX. But I will try and study pharm for a week and if that is not enough than so be it.
Except that you CAN'T pass that way. You don't seem to understand how the NCLEX works. It's not like a class exam where you just need an overall percentage correct to pass. You have to demonstrate the appropriate CI for all subgroups of the test or you fail.
Previous posters have tried to explain that we all take a "different" test, depending on what the computer throws our way. There is an element of randomness, especially to start, but the test doesn't stay that way. NCLEX is a computer adaptive test, so it's customized to you. The questions it gives you are determined by how YOU answer previous questions. If you get pharm questions wrong, it will start giving you more pharm questions, so you won't just have just 5 questions. OR if you get all of the first 5 pharm questions wrong, the computer may decide that you don't meet the CI for pharm, and you fail the exam. Either way, you can only pass after getting 5 pharm questions if you do well on them.
Except that you CAN'T pass that way. You don't seem to understand how the NCLEX works. It's not like a class exam where you just need an overall percentage correct to pass. You have to demonstrate the appropriate CI for all subgroups of the test or you fail.
Previous posters have tried to explain that we all take a "different" test, depending on what the computer throws our way. There is an element of randomness, especially to start, but the test doesn't stay that way. NCLEX is a computer adaptive test, so it's customized to you. The questions it gives you are determined by how YOU answer previous questions. If you get pharm questions wrong, it will start giving you more pharm questions, so you won't just have just 5 questions. OR if you get all of the first 5 pharm questions wrong, the computer may decide that you don't meet the CI for pharm, and you fail the exam. Either way, you can only pass after getting 5 pharm questions if you do well on them.
Thats not how our instructors explained it. But if that is the case than I see what your saying and I will review.
You start out with a question. If you get it wrong, the computer gives you an easier question. If that 2nd question is wrong, you get an even easier question, etc. Once you answer correctly, you have to answer enough correctly to get back up to the passing line. Sort of like digging yourself out of a hole. You have to answer progressively harder questions to climb your way back up to passing.
On the other hand, if you get the first one right, you get a harder question. Get that one right and you get an even harder one, etc. You stay above the passing line. Even if you get one wrong, you dip down here & there, but if you stay above the passing line, you're going to pass the test.
When we did our 4-day Kaplan review, we did a 75 question practice test where we charted our right vs. wrong answers on a grid. Every time we were right, we moved up a square on the grid, every wrong one knocked you down a square. You could see if you were trending above or below the passing line. Now, that's not exactly how NCLEX is scored, but it gives you a good, general idea.
So, being well-rounded with a broad understanding of general knowledge is going to pay off, rather than just focusing on a few areas. Does that make sense?
Specializes in Mental Health, Gerontology, Palliative.
Because I would like to focus on thngs that I feel are more important but I guess you guys are right. I shouldnt gamble on this. I just absolutley hate pharm and feel like itll take me so long to get it. I did horrible in my course and for some reason I cannot grasph the concepts well.
I will get that mastery app tho and see if it helps.
We had a health and disability case in the news recently where a child was given 80mg codiene post op.
Pharmacology is at the root of what we we do. We don't just to have to give meds. We need to know why we are giving meds, what they are going to do, what might happen if something goes wrong and what are safe dosing ranges
I just meant because i know it isnt a large bulk of the exam. And feel like if I focus on everything else and leave out pharm than I might be ok. Realistically how many specific medication qs could they give me?
I love all the advice I have gotten thus far. I will learn the major classes and their names and hopefully that is good enough.
I had 26 medication questions. They can give you a lot. Study pharm.
As another poster pointed out, NCLEX is designed to find your weak area and make sure you never get to practice if you aren't safe enough in all areas. Once it finds that subgroup of questions you just can't seem to consistently get right, it's going to keep giving you questions out of it to see if you can keep your head above the passing line. I could see pushing a lesser subject to the back of the stack and prioritizing it lower, but Pharmacological & Parenteral Therapies is one of the big subgroups that you know will be heavily featured on the exam. You would do yourself a major disservice to skip studying for it.
I just meant because i know it isnt a large bulk of the exam. And feel like if I focus on everything else and leave out pharm than I might be ok. Realistically how many specific medication qs could they give me?
I love all the advice I have gotten thus far. I will learn the major classes and their names and hopefully that is good enough.
I hope by now you are understanding what everyone is saying, it's valid information.
While pharm isn't "the bulk of the exam", you CANNOT PASS without successfully passing THAT SECTION. You ask how many questions you might get, after being told that you might get a few or many. And you should not be focusing on the number of questions, you should be focusing on your competency in that area! If you are doing well, you will get the minimum number of questions the computer feels you need to prove you have passed that domain. If you are doing poorly, you will keep getting more and more of those questions until you either prove competency (and it moves past that to other things, or shuts off because you passed the exam) or incompetency (in which case it will shut off because you have failed the exam).
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nurse1990
93 Posts
Ok thats what I will try and do. But see out of 75 you only got 5 that is nothing. Even if I got all 5 wrong I could still pass the NCLEX. But I will try and study pharm for a week and if that is not enough than so be it.