NCLEX Techniques

[Ben_Dover]

Hi Fellow Nurses and RNs alike!

I'm writing this and hoping that one of the veteran/seasoned nurses who are in the field of teaching can enlighten new students or even myself as RN in regards to the NCLEX.

Based on what I've read and from my own personal experience, there are still some people struggling to pass the NCLEX and some of these people are actually smart, intelligent, and for some, nursing is even their 3rd or 4th degree.

I mean, some of these people have taken the board at least more than 10 times and have used several companies which claims they have a high passing rate but you'll need to fork out almost $2,000. Yet still unable to pass.

But the way I see it is, when you're taking the NCLEX, it isn't simply all about the knowledge. What I personally think the problem or lack thereof is the technique. There has to be a prep. school that also concentrates/focuses and teach these students on how to properly analyze the questions. and I'm hoping that some of the newer companies, aside from Kaplan/Hurst, will just not feed these test takers the knowledge but rather teach them how to breakdown or what to look for when reading NCLEX questions.

Shrugs!

[AliNajaCat]

Not exactly sure what you're asking, but I taught NCLEX reviews (all med/surg sections plus the final exam review section) for years, and here's my take on why allegedly smart people have a hard time c NCLEX.

It's because they are terrific at memorizing data points but they absolutely suck in critical thinking. They know data points and definitions, but they don't know how to apply them. The best example I ever saw on AN was the student who knew everything there was to know about diabetes, but when she ran into one in the ER didn't have the first clue about what to assess and completely decompensated. She was a straight-A student but had never run into this kind of experiential learning before, and literally had no idea what to do with it.

What you're calling "technique," i.e., test-taking skill, is something we taught, of course. But I always taught it emphasizing nursing knowledge, not data points. There are always, of four, two answers you pretty much know are wrong. You have to discriminate between the other two to know what's the best NURSING answer (not just "the best answer") because even though both may be factually true, only one is the best NURSING answer, the one the best NURSE will identify.

The people that teach students how to think like nurses are called nursing faculty. Believe me, it's harder than it looks. If I had a dime for every test question I got asked to throw away off the test "because they're both correct!!!!" I could take my sweet husband to Paris. There are just those students who have made up their minds and will not, WILL NOT understand this idea.

And that's what NCLEX is all about. Not whether you know data points (though of course you have to know some) but whether you are that reasonably prudent NURSE. Those whiners will never be reasonably prudent nurses because they just don't get the concept.