Med Calculations

[sunshinern78]

Hi! So I am going through Kaplan questions and wanted to know if anyone can give difinitive answers regarding when to round/not round when doing the fill in the blank med questions on NCLEX. Some questions I have left as ex: 8.3, and it says wrong 8. Other times I leave ex: 3, and it says 3.2.

Thank you :)

[CT Pixie, BSN, RN]

If I'm remembering correctly, the very few med calc questions I got specified how far/(what tenth etc) to round

[caliotter3]

I would look for instructions on the test, or use the rule I was taught in school if no instructions given.

[insideout]

I was wondering the same thing, so I emailed Kaplan about it. I also searched the threads on here and everyone seems to say that there are instructions either at the beginning of the Kaplan test or in the actual question. I'm not sure if those people are talking about an older version of Kaplan, but there are no instructions anywhere.

Here is the reply I got from Kaplan, which I unfortunately didn't find helpful at all (but maybe you will!)

Here are the rounding rules from the National Council.

National Council will list rounding rules on the math questions, so just follow their directions. The rounding should be done at the end. Whether the nurse rounds depends on whether the medication can be administered in the dose calculated. Example - 0.88 ml can be administered in a tuberculin syringe because it is marked in both tenths and hundredths. If the dose is 1.88 ml, it will be administered in a 3 ml syringe which is marked to the tenths place so the nurse would round. If the dose is 3.88ml, it would be administered in a 5 ml syringe which is marked two tenths (.020). If you round up, it would be 3.9 which puts you in-between 3.8 and 4 so you would drop the .08 and administered 3.8 ml.