meds you've never heard of?

[mustardseed]

So I've seen posters on this message board say that they got medications that they've never even heard of on the NCLEX. I'm studying the medications from the Kaplan RN Course Book. I mean, I know they're probably not going to have every single medication in existence in that book, but is it really possible to get SO many questions about medications that you've never even heard of on the test? Do you think it's because they didn't focus on studying medications, or they forgot what the med was for? Anyone have some insight? LOL I haven't taken the test yet, but I'm just kind of baffled and freaked out when posters say that.

[caliotter3]

I do not remember being able to identify any of the few meds that appeared on my exam so I did the best I could with flat out guessing.

[Boog'sCRRN246, RN]

I think it's completely possible. There's a vast number of medications out there. NCLEX uses both generic and brand names in its questions and when one generic drug has 5-7 different brand names, it's almost impossible to anticipate what med will come up.

[Rednights]

I took it 3 days ago, I had a ton of med questions, more than I would have liked. Anyways for the medications I did not know I COULD HAVE KNOWN if I actually studied the medications better ... I don't think the medications were unfair, most of it either antibiotic related or for "common" medical conditions.

[LETRN]

I would estimate that I didn't know about 50% of the meds I had questions about, and I studied my ass off. I had several HIV med questions and a couple chemotherapy ones...and just had to flat out guess. It worked, though because I passed :)

[tmarti09]

I just took the NCLEX yesterday; and I too had studied with Kaplan. I got what seemed like way too many med questions... in comparsion to how many Kaplan puts in their question trainers etc... and I too told my mother I had never heard of more than half almost all of the meds... I wouldn't waste my time trying to learn meds... learn everything else really well and hopefully it will be enough. I find out tomorrow but so far the pearson vue trick worked... so im praying that means i passed it turned off at 75.

[HeartsOpenWide, RN]

Forget studying medications. If you are going to fail you are going to fail, a few medication questions is not going to shut your machine off with a failure. Learn the important core part of the cardiac and abx, and some of the main drugs for each area of the body, but nothing individually...HURST Review does a very good job at teaching what you need to know as far as medications for the NCLEX.

[Leonardo Del Toro, RN]

There will be some number of drugs you wont know in the test, but there will also be a number of questions you wont know. In fact about 20% of the test will be made of material you don't know. The trick is to eliminate wrong answers first, the remaining you will guess, however you must guess randomly, don't go on a hunch or you could fall in the trap planted by NCLEX writers who will put answers that "sound" correct so you feel like you got it.

[Flames9_RN, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

I wrote Nclex July 2009. I didn't know any of the meds on my exam,mind you i didn't spend a lot of time on meds, as thats what the recommendation I had received from others. I didn't guess, just tried to cross out the "wrong" responses

[08sunloverRN]

I took my RN boards today. There were a few meds that I had never heard of. According to the info my school gave us, the NCLEX contains 200 different types of medications. I would review your meds. For the most part, even if you have not heard of a particular med, you can take parts of the name and figure it out. I'd suggest reviewing the classifications and some specifics (i.e. -prils are ACE Inh, cause cough, etc. ; -olol's are beta blockers, can mask B/S s/s, etc; -pines, Cleocin causes diarrhea; Amp B is nephro/hepato toxic, ancef with food; no dig/ED meds; etc, etc, etc.). It is impossible to remember every side effect, use of, contraindication of every single med but you should at least review so you are familiar with them. Just my opinion for ya.

[pers]

Most of the meds on my exam I had heard of but there were a few I didn't recognize at all.

What I found more challenging was prioritizing the meds (these four meds to these four patients, which do you give first?) and selecting the appropriate SE. One question was to choose the appropriate SE for a med I didn't recognize with my options being nausea, vomitting, diarrhea and headache! Even if I knew the med it's unlikely I would have known that answer since those are the most common SE of virtually every drug.

I had a lot of pharm on my exam though, significantly more than most people I know. I had something like 15 or 20 pharm related questions (don't remember the exact number) and most people I know had maybe 1/4 that.

[luvbug080688]

My advice for studying medications is to know the basics of the categories of medications. Know the endings, what they are for, and side effects. I just took my test and I knew about 40% of the medications and I didn't study medications other than what I mentioned above.