Kaplan's credibility

yalpog · May 3, 2007

Their strategy book says:
1. Assume you have doctor's order for everything.
2. Never "explore" patient's feelings, you're not a junior psychiatrist.
It makes sense, but:
all other test programs (Saunders, Springhouse, Delmar etc) often identify "call a doctor (for example, you can't administer a drug because doctor's prescription is necessary)" and "explore the feelings" answers as right.
Whom to believe? Does Kaplan base their advices on information obtained directly from NCSBN?

I am almost sure that KAPLAN does not base its information from the NCSBN.

What I do believe is that most of the materials to get prepared for the NCLEX is based on the scope of practice that the NCSBN says is safe for practicing nursing, so here is where all those year spent at NS help you in your answering NCLEX actual questions.

I; sure, go with the Saunders, Springhouse, Delmar etc because these books have been written and edited by nursing scholars and not only by a company like Kaplan whereI have found difficult to get the references from nursing books.

kcalohagirl · May 3, 2007

When I took the NCLEX (and passed) a year ago, I took the Kaplan course. One thing they told us is that the NCLEX tests you based on you having all the staffing you need, all the orders you need, etc. Therefore, should you get a question like. . . . . .

Patient Y has a BP of 190/92. What do you do?

a. give .1 mg Clonidine

b. call the doctor

c. panic

d. reposition the patient. (yes, I know this is really oversimplified) lol

The correct answer in NCLEX-land is a. Supposedly, if the med is listed as an answer, you are to assume that you already have an order for that med. Only if none of the other orders were anywhere close, (say a. = Give patient 30 mg lansoprazole) woud you resort to "call the doctor".

One of the other "rules" we were told was to never "pass the buck" to another health care provider in a situation. "calling the doctor" = "passing the buck" in a sort of way.

In reality, we know that if you have the clonidine, you would give it, then call the resident on call (I work at a teaching hospital) to let him/her know what is going on and get further orders or parameters. If you don't have an order for the clonidine, you would call the res, tell him/her what's going on, ask for orders. If you page the resident and they don't call back, that's when you panic. (Just kidding)

About the "explore the feelings" bit. I think that is probably based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Psychosocial needs are fairly low on the list, and therefore if any other answers are correct, they are therefore "more" correct. For another horribly oversimplified example:

Patient Z is bleeding from a huge slash across her abdomen. She is weeping hysterically, and was the victim of a random attack. Your first priority is to:

a. apply pressure over the wound

b. call the doctor (sorry, couldn' resist)

c. start NS @ 50 ml/hr

d. ask her how she feels.

It was explained to us to break the question down and ask yourself. "If there was only one thing I could do, and then go home, what would that one thing be?" Therefore, the most important thing you could do would be to stop the bleeding. She can't explore her feelings if she's already bled out.

Hope that helps a bit. I know I used insanely silly examples, but it is almost 5 in the morning here, and that's all my brain could come up with. NCLEX will not be THAT easy, but I think you will usually find that if you break down the question to find out what the "real" question is, take a deep breath, look at the answers one by one, and "think critically" (are you tired of hearing that phrase yet?) you will find you can throw at least 1 potential answer out immediately. Then just work through and figure out the rest. There were a lot of times when I came down to more than one answer that was technically correct, and had to figure out which one was the most important.

Best of luck! Welcome to nursing!:welcome:

Sheri257 · May 3, 2007

The reason Kaplan tells you not to get an doctor's order in most cases is because the NCLEX wants to see what you will do, not how you will pass the buck to somebody else.

And, of course physical needs always take priority over psychosocial needs ... that's basic Maslow.

I studied a bunch of NCLEX guides and they do tell you different things but, IMO, Kaplan was the closest to the actual exam. I saw content on the NCLEX that I only found in Kaplan.

Personally, I wish I had just focused on Kaplan ... everything else was a waste of time.

:typing

RN60453 · May 5, 2007

Kaplan Q-trainer questions are very similar to those on the nclex. some of kaplan is confusing, actually most of it is and i found the course useless and a waste of time, QBank was the only worthwhile part of the course i paid $350 for. best way to explain how nclex world thinks is they want to know how YOU will react and YOU are not to react by "passing the buck" ie call the doctor, ask another nurse, etc. when it comes to the junior psychiatry, that only really pertains to questions that deal with psychosocial (and remember in nclex pain is psychosocial not physical) so if the question does not pertain to psychosocial just scratch those answers. my best suggestion for preparing for nclex is PRACTICE, the more questions you answer, the more you get used to what is being asked. in my few weeks of preparing for nclex i must have answered close to 6000 questions.

john83, BSN, RN · May 5, 2007

Their strategy book says:
1. Assume you have doctor's order for everything.
2. Never "explore" patient's feelings, you're not a junior psychiatrist.
It makes sense, but:
all other test programs (Saunders, Springhouse, Delmar etc) often identify "call a doctor (for example, you can't administer a drug because doctor's prescription is necessary)" and "explore the feelings" answers as right.
Whom to believe? Does Kaplan base their advices on information obtained directly from NCSBN?

Don't know about Kaplan, but ma'am Suzanne4 only recommends one book as the source of reference/review material for NCLEX exams:

Saunders Comprehensive Review for the NCLEX (latest edition as much as possible)

Nothing more, nothing less.

pagandeva2000, LPN · May 6, 2007

Each person has a book or several that assists them in studying for the exam. I used CDs that I burned from friends from Saunders, Delmar's, Mosby, Incredibily Easy and Lippincott, but used Delmar's Comprehensive Review Book as my primary book source. Also listened to Helen Feuer's Nursing Review CDs to go over concepts that were especially difficult for me. Helen Feuer was an excellent resource because I used to listen to the CDs on my way to and from work as well as during lunch breaks, and placed notes in Delmar's book when I had a chance. I did purchase Kaplans Stragedy for Success and it helped me a great deal with ruling out what I clearly didn't know. I remember once, Saunders second edition CD definitely had the wrong answer for one of their questions and really pissed me off (making me question the whole package). I did different CDs because I wanted to view different styles of questions from low to high level questions. Not sure about the credibility of ANY of them, actually, because I do think that all of these review courses and books capitalize on our fears and encourage people to purchase them all. Not saying not to get one or two, but, try not to get too carried away. Just make sure that you do a great deal of questions.