I am having alot of trouble with adjusting to nursing exam questions

Katie71275 · Sep 26, 2012

It's a hard process to learn how to take nursing test.

Let me give you a few hints.

1)Use Maslow's hierarchy of needs to help you. Have ya'll gone over this yet? Basically if their respiratory system is being affected in a negative way, it doesn't really matter if they get nutrition or their self esteem needs met.

2)READ the question. Are they asking what is correct or incorrect(I use a highlighter and highlight key words on my tests!)

3)Know the material. For the most part nursing exams are about prioritizing but in order to prioritze you need to know the material. For example, you need to know the signs of SIADH before you can determine your priorities kwim?

I hope that helps a little bit.

LaurenRay1983 · Sep 26, 2012

Just remember you always want to assess first. No matter how much pain your patient is in, always assess first. For example: patient states "I am having severe pain behind shoulders and I know I have pain meds prn." The first thing to do is assess the patient and locate where the patient says the pain is located. Plus, ABC's first. Check physiological status first. For example.. A patient presents with severe bleeding. What should be the priority action? Obviously you want to stop the bleeding first. Then, call HCP. Bec if you call HCP before assessing the bleeding, then patient loses more blood while you are calling the HCP. Feel my thinking?? I hope this helps.

DysrhythmiaRN · Sep 26, 2012

I agree with the other posts. Think ABC's if it applies (airway, breathing, circulation). Meet physiological needs before pschosocial needs ( maslows hierarchy of needs). Think safety too, which will do least harm to patient, assess your patient first before equipment. Follow the nursing process such as assessment, if it does not apply go to the next step and so forth. Know your content. Hope this helps.

nurse2b013 · Sep 26, 2012

Hang in there, it is definitely an adjustment! I agree with the previous posters about Maslow and the ABC's. I always follow that! What I also found helpful was doing lots of practice questions in NCLEX books, the ones that give you the rationales. I think the more you practice the critical thinking nursing questions, the better off you will be.

Good luck to you!

LCinTraining · Sep 26, 2012

I did a lot of NCLEX practice questions and the questions in the back of the chapters. I didn't get to get through all chapters involved due to an insane work week, but squeaked out a solid B. There is an iTunes app through lippencot that you can set up NCLEX quizzes up based off of what you have covered already. I used that every time I wasn't in apposition to actually write out answers. Maybe this will help you too?

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Sep 26, 2012

This is advice I give to people about to take NCLEX, the licensure exam. Read it anyway, because it addresses a lot of your concerns about nursing school tests being different from any you have taken before. You're right. They are. That's because in addition to knowing the right answer, you have to apply critical thinking to pick the BEST answer. This is a huge part of nursing education, to get you to think a lot about problems and situations, not just know that A+B=C.

There are a lot of really good books ith sample questions to study. Whatever resource you use, make sure it gives you the rationales for why the wrong choices are wrong as well as the right ones, right. This is where most people fall down-- they pick an answer that is factually true but is not the best answer for the situation as it would be assessed by a good RN. This is how you start to learn that absolutely vital skill for any nurse.

NCLEX items are developed in part from knowing what errors new grads make and how. They tend to be of two kinds: inadequate information, and lack of knowledge (these are not the same thing). The goal of NCLEX is to pass candidates who will be acceptably SAFE in practice as NURSES. So-- they (and your faculty) want to know if you know what the prudent NURSE will do.

1) When confronted with 4 answers, you can usually discard 2 out of hand. Of the remaining two,

-- always choose the answer that (in priority order) makes the patient safer or gets you more information. "Can you tell me more about that?" "What do you know about your medication?" "What was the patient's lab result?"

-- NEVER choose the answer that has you turf the situation to another discipline-- chaplain, dietary, MD, social work, etc. It's often tempting, but they want to know about what the NURSE would do. See "always..." above.

2) "Safer" might mean airway, breathing, circulation; it might mean pull the bed out of the room and away from the fire; it might mean pressure ulcer prevention; or improving nutrition; or teaching about loose scatter rugs ... Keep your mind open. It might also mean "Headed down a better pathway to health." For example, while telling a battered woman who has chosen not to leave her partner that "studies show that he will do it again" is factually true (and that's why this wrong answer is often chosen), the better answer is to acknowledge that you hear her choice to stay and say "now let's think of a plan to keep you safe." This doesn't turn her off from listening to you so she will trust you, it acknowledges her right to choose, and it helps her along a path to better safety. This is NURSING.

3) Read carefully. If they ask you for a nursing intervention answer, they aren't asking for an associated task or action which requires a physician plan of care. So in a scenario involving a medication, the answer would NOT be to hang the IV, regulate it, or chart it; it would not be to observe for complications. It WOULD be to assess pt knowledge of the med/tx plan and derive an appropriate patient teaching plan. Only that last one is nursing-independent and a nursing intervention.

Again, they want NURSING here.

4) The day before the test, do not study. Research shows that your brain does not retain crap you stuff into it at the last minute-- musicians learning a new piece play the first part on Monday, the second part on Tuesday, and the third part on Weds. Then they do something else entirely on Thursday; meanwhile, behind the scenes, the brain is organizing the new info into familiar cubbyholes already stuffed with music, putting it ready for easy access. On Friday, the whole piece works much better.

What this translates for in test-taking land is this: The day before the test, you go to a museum or a concert, go take a hike, read a trashy novel, make a ragout, do something else entirely. Take a small glass of wine, soak in a nice hot bath in a darkened tub with a few candles on the sink, get a nice night's sleep.

5) Read the mayonnaise jar and do what it says: Keep cool, do not freeze.

shanda0305 · Sep 27, 2012

If this is the first class get the book "fundamentals success" newest version it helped me...GOOD LUCK!!!

Staragate, ADN, ASN, RN · Sep 27, 2012

Get to know the test language.

Most important = first = priority.... these are synonyms and key words you want to underline in your exam.

Example: You find a patient laying flat in bed, struggling to breath. What is your priority action?

A. raise the head of the bed 45%

B. Administer oxygen

C. call the doctor

Answer: A. This is the fastest, most effective thing you can do. Getting the oxygen supplies will take more time. Calling the doctor is also important, but not until you help the patient.

All 3 are correct, but there is 1 that would happen before the others. There are a lot of questions like this.

Sometimes we look at a question and think... "well that would have already been done so this other thing is the answer."

The obvious answer is the RIGHT answer. I have a friend that keeps falling into that trap.

Also, in the choices, there are 4 possibilies, and 3 of them are almost the same thing. chances are, the answer is the one that is DIFFERENT.

AspergersRN · Sep 27, 2012

All of these answers here are good.

I did extremely well in nursing school, but the first few nursing exams I took I didn't to so well either. Your not alone.

1. Read the question, and make sure you answering the question that is being asked. Key words are important.

--any answer that contains a word that is an absolute is ALWAYS wrong because nothing perfect. For example, if the answer says always, never, or any word that tells you an absolute.

--look for multiple answers that say the same thing but in different ways, possibly a negative version and a positive version.

--don't add information that is not there.

-- Airway, breathing, circulation.

THE NUMBER 1: The most important thing is find out why you got the questions wrong you got wrong, and find out the rationale of why the right answer was right. Ask the teacher to come in and go over the test and ask why your answer was wrong and why the right answer was right.

Feel free to ask me about any questions and I or any of the people here can help you to understand why the answers are what they. If you do not find out why your getting things wrong, which means you are not understanding a concept correctly, you will just continue to get answers wrong.

Calm down, check your answers, and find out whats right.

AspergersRN · Sep 27, 2012

This is extremely good advice and precisely correct.

alex1987 · Sep 27, 2012

Are you using NCLEX books to do practice questions before the test? if you're not then you should be doing that!

As everybody already said you need to think about your ABCs, prioritization, and all that stuff when taking the test. But to really learn and get use to do that in the test without feeling so anxious you need to practice! It doesn't matter if you know that airway and breathing are a priority (and almost always the correct answer) because if all the answer seem to be right then the anxiety is going to make you choose the answer that you think is more correct than the other totally ignoring that breathing is always the priority.

I use the Success series book to practice for my tests. I like these books because there's one for every subject: med surg success, maternity, pharm success... They divide everything into chapters and you get a fair amount of practice questions in the book and most of them come with a CD with lots of extra questions. Also, if your book comes with an internet resource website (like Evolve) then check it out because you can usually find NCLEX style quizzes that you can use to practice. It may be difficult at the beginning and you may get most of the questions wrong even though you study and understand the material, but keep practicing because it will eventually get better. Always read the rationales for the answers no matter if you got the questions wrong or right. Try to understand why an answer is more correct than the others and why some of them seem to be correct even though they are totally wrong. After much practicing you'll start to think critically without even noticing it!. Good luck :)