Dosage Calc

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Specializes in Telemetry.

I had a quick question regarding dosage calculations on the NCLEX. When are you supposed to round. For example, 1.75 round to 1.8, or do you leave it alone. Also 0.88 round to 0.9. Can anyone help me with this, I don't want to miss a question on the exam just because of some silly rounding. Thank you very much.

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Hey I just took the NCLEX on Friday and had a few dosage calcs. Rounding isnt going to be a problem because they tell you that they want a whole number at the end. For example, if your calculating a ml/hr question that answer is going to have to be a whole number. Regardless if you round the weight (from lbs to kg) in the beginning to two or one decimal places, the answer will still be the same. Trust me, I calculated them both rounding to 2 decimal places and/or leaving the numbers alone in the calculator. (If that makes sense)

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Specializes in Telemetry.

So prior to even answering the questions, they will state if they want a whole number or a decimal? Are most of the calculations whole numbers?

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Yup, all five of mine were whole numbers. Cant speak for everyone else though.

But it doesnt mean you round of to whole number in the beginning of your calculations. Just the answer.

For example, if its a weight based question and the patient weighs 100lb then working with 45.45 kg or leaving it 45.454545454545454545 in your calculator comes up with the same answer.

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I think mine said to round to two decimal places, which means write 1.75, not 1.8. I'm almost positive it was this way, but then again I was stressed...

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Specializes in Telemetry.

yeah I'm confused, cause I'm doing Kaplan questions and I get dosage questions, and sometimes I don't round and I get it wrong and then I do round and I get it wrong. I just hope on the NCLEX they have some uniform way of answering calcuations. The rules that I learned in school aren't applying.

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I had 3 math questions and each one stated to round to the nearest whole number.

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Specializes in Telemetry.

Thank you everyone for responding, I'm starting to feel a little better about the calculations portion of the exam. Now to just worry about the rest of the test (which just so happens to be the bulk of it, lol).

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Specializes in ICU.

I had one drug calc question and they were asking me to round the answer to 1 decimal...

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I had one calculation. The question at the end said to round one decimal place.

If I'm not mistaken, during your tutorial when you start the NCLEX I believe it said that the question would tell you how to round (ie: to the nearest whole number, one decimal place, two decimal places etc)

I just checked the NCLEX tutorial and the part where the calculator info comes up they give a sample question and it states in the question "round to the nearest decimal.

From the looks of it, all of the math questions will tell you how far out to round (or to round to the whole number)

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