ATTENTION: Prenursing students who did well on the NLN exam

Thoc_123 · Jun 21, 2006

what were your scores and what did you do inorder to prepare for the exam?your advice is desperately needed.thanks!

i'm not sure which score your school will use but mine uses the ad composite score and i scored a 93 on it.(which i was told was pretty good) i bought the nln study guide off of amazon (used) and just studied it a few times. my school also provides free refresher courses once a week for 6 wks before the test is administered. honestly, if you can read and have pretty good grammar skills you will score fine in that area. (although there were some pretty wierd vocab words on mine) you do need to be up to date a bit on chemistry, geometry and tons of ratios and proportions. (mine anyway) i also had a couple of questions about weather and electricity.

good luck!!!

RNursingStudent · Jun 21, 2006

what were your scores and what did you do inorder to prepare for the exam?your advice is desperately needed.thanks!

i have never heard of this test. is it a nursing entrance test (net)? is it for bsn maybe? i had to take the net in order to be accepted into the nursing prg. let me know about this other test, just curious. knowledge is power! lol

rebecca

kecapen · Jun 22, 2006

Hi,

I got a composite score of 99, so I did well enough (it's as high a score as you can get)...so here's my advice:

Science: Review the NLN study guide as best you can. I didn't kill myself on this, and I actually thought I bombed it. Of all questions you will answer, only a portion count towards your score (eg. Math has 80 Q's, but only 60 count). I blew it in my opinion, but it appears every one else did too (your score is basically a bell curve, i.e. if no one gets more tha 40 of the 60 correct, then 40 is the highest and the scoring is reflected as such.)

Math: Know your decimal/fraction/percentage conversions like the back of your hand. Most of the test will be based on these and other very basic algebraic/geometric skills. Also, be sure to brush up on your long division, since calculators are not allowed. If you study this stuff, you should do extremely well.

Verbal: I relied on my own existing skills for this part, because in my opinion it was just too random, I was not about to memorize the entire Webster's Dictionary. If you have a good command of the English language and feel good about your reading comprehension skills, this section will be a breeze also.

Lastly, it appeared that pretty much every question had only 2 possible answers, the other 2 were really OBVIOUSLY wrong, so you will always have ~50% chance of getting your answer correct...and answer everything, there is no penalty for incorrect answers.

Can't think of anything else other than I worried myself sick, but really didn't need to. Oh, and we were not allowed to take a break at all for the 4 hours we were in the room, so I wish I had eaten a bigger breakfast...

GOOD LUCK!!

K.

BeccaznRN, RN · Jun 22, 2006

I'm not sure what my composite scores were but I know my scores for all the NLNs I took ranged from the 80th to the 99th percentile.

I did absolutely nothing special to study for the NLNs. At our school, if a student scores below the 50th percentile on three or more NLNs then he/she must do remedial work before graduating (and an instructor at the school will usually provide this). I remember a lot of fellow students absolutely freaking out right before NLNs and I didn't treat them like that. I used them as a sort of "guide" to let me know how well I learned the material and what areas I needed to work on. And our school used them for the same reason - to make sure instructors were teaching us the material and to give students help (if needed) so we will have a better chance of passing NCLEX after graduation.

chestrockwell · Jun 22, 2006

I just found out I need to take this exam as well. How do I register for the online test? Are the science questions difficult?

Race Mom, ASN, RN · Jun 23, 2006

I scored a 124. I used the study guide by MacDonald. Excellent book--uses old test questions. My advice is to keep track of time. I ran out of time on the 1st section and had to quickly mark "C" all the way to the end (to not leave any blank and possibly pick up a few "right" answers. This was the reading portion, the one I scored the lowest on. Still ended up with a 124! We had to have a composite of at least 100 in order to be considered.

Good luck!!!

barbnyc · Jun 24, 2006

I scored in the 95th percentile on the AD composite (97 verbal, 93 math, 80 science). My composite score was 139.

I used the McDonald book -- did every practice question and every practice test over a one month period.

If you practice with the McDonald book and time yourself, you will be able to pace yourself better during the test. The more math practice you do before the test will enable you to do math problems faster during the real test.

For the science section, review the suggested topics in the McDonald book. About 10-15 questions were non-biology (physics, electricity). I did not devote too much study time for the science section. Many questions were topics covered in A&P.

There were some questions on the test that were in the practice book.

Good luck.

Faith213 · Feb 26, 2008

I scored in the 95th percentile on the AD composite (97 verbal, 93 math, 80 science). My composite score was 139.
I used the McDonald book -- did every practice question and every practice test over a one month period.
If you practice with the McDonald book and time yourself, you will be able to pace yourself better during the test. The more math practice you do before the test will enable you to do math problems faster during the real test.
For the science section, review the suggested topics in the McDonald book. About 10-15 questions were non-biology (physics, electricity). I did not devote too much study time for the science section. Many questions were topics covered in A&P.
There were some questions on the test that were in the practice book.
Good luck.

I scored the same composite score and percentile for the AD composite, and I used the study guided offered by the NLN. GOOD LUCK!

1luvbug · Jan 7, 2010

i wasted time and i did not finish the test and ended up with a 6 can you beleive that man i feel sooooo crummy and i studied my buns off. the reading is what got me.

jo'ee · Jan 9, 2010

Here is some advice for the reading portion. Read the question and the possible answers first, before you read the passage, that way you know what you are looking for. If you do this, you can sometimes just skim the passage for the answer. This saves a lot of time. I did this and did fine on the NLN I think. I scored a percentile score of 94. I don't know if that is great or not, but I only needed a 55% to be eligible for our school's program. Heres another reading tip....for the questions that ask you what is the best title for the passage.....look at the end of the passage for the citations...most often...it has already been titled and you should choose the one that best correlates with the original title. When they ask...what is the main point of the passage...look for the thesis statement..most often, it is the last sentence of the first paragraph....that will give you a good clue what the passage is about. You might want to try these tips on the practice test and see if you improve your score..if so, you found the secret to acing the NLN.

Also, for the math portion, if you are having difficulty with a problem, try to work the problem backwards with the answer that appears to be the most likely one.

For me, science was the real bugger. I had a hard time on the earth and physics questions, but just used reasoning to really see what the question is asking and pick the best choice. Sometimes, although it seems like you don't know the first thing about the topic, the question is really pretty basic. Although sometimes, you just have to guess and move on.

For my test, it was a paper test. When I worked a question, and began to eliminate answers, scratch out the letter for the answers you have eliminated. That way, if you are spending too much time on a problem, you can move on and come back to it when you finish the test. Keep note of how much time you have left....and give yourself a few minutes if you wind up rushing to go back to those questions.....that way the marks you have made will tell you which answers will not be one of your quick guesses. I hope that isn't confusing.

Remember, the questions are really designed to not see how much you know...but how well you can reason and think. So use some reasoning skills on the answers for which you are unsure.

Good luck to you and I hope I have helped you somewhat crack the code of the NLN or any pre nursing test you need to take.

blueyesue · Jan 9, 2010

During the test you have to pace yourself. Don't get stuck on one question. Move on to the next question coming back to the hard ones later. Remember though that in the end, a guess is better than leaving it blank.