My NCLEX Study Tips

[MaroonTX]

Hey everyone, I took my test on the 25th (75 questions in about 1 1/2 hours) and found out I passed! Since I really appreciated the advice people posted after taking the test, I thought I would pay it forward! Every test is different, so of course none of this is set in stone, but this is all based on my personal experience with NCLEX! Since we aren't supposed to post test content I thought I would focus mainly on what resources I used, how I used them, and areas that were prominent on my test.

• Saunders- Used this as my basic overview of facts source. Many people have covered the strengths of this book, so instead of mirroring their praises I will describe where I feel it is lacking. While it contains lots of information, I sometimes struggled with actually learning from it. However, this may just be due to personal learning style (I like to focus more on how a disease process works and derive S/S from there, along with HOW the interventions serve to alleviate or reverse these processes -- Memorizing lists of S/S and interventions is just not something I'm particularly good with) During my test I encountered a few questions where not knowing the answer really irked me because they were some of the few pure fact regurgitation type questions that don't really require any critical thinking (usually the give-me questions). After I left the testing center I got into my car and immediately opened up Saunders to look up the answers to these questions and was disappointed that the book failed to contain the information. This could have just been a case of bad luck, but it leads me to recommend having more than one source of information (one book can make up for another's shortcomings). Another recommendation I have is while Saunders does a good job of providing you with a list of interventions and client education (good for SATA), it rarely goes deeper into which one is best (bad for priority)-- I would occasionally refer to your text books or school notes and star which would be a priority and add more detail to client education points. If time is an issue, then stick with Saunders because overall it contains plenty of useful information that will more than likely allow you to pass!.
  

• LaCharity - WOW am I ever glad that I read this forum and decided to purchase this book at the last minute (well like a week before my exam date) -- As many have mentioned before prioritization and delegation are pretty important and this book does a stellar job IMO in helping you learn how to work through these questions. I didn't manage to get through the entire thing, but what I did manage to get through helped tremendously!
  
  • Delegation: My approach to using this book was finding what I like to call patterns & constants. I started off by labeling separate sheets of paper with each role (nurse assistant, RN, LVN/LPN, physician, NP etc). Initially, as I went through the questions I would assign each answer choices to their appropriate role by writing it on their role paper. Since this would be way too time consuming to do for the entire book, I then read over what I had written and started noticing certain keywords that seemed to pop up over and over again when a certain task belonged to a certain role (I posted some of these earlier on this discussion board). I proceeded to continue answering questions based on these list of keywords I made and found that I was doing much better on the questions! From there, instead of every adding single answer choice from every question, I would just add instances when these keywords failed to help me come up with the right answer (the exceptions to my "rules"). I also added a can/can't column on the role papers. In these I would fill in tasks certain roles (primarily LVN/LPN and nursing assistants) could or couldn't do (ie. a nursing assistant CAN take out a foley but CAN'T insert one). Yes, this process was initially time consuming, but in the end I was flying through questions with much greater accuracy.
    
  • Prioritization: Had a little more difficulty finding a methodical approach to these questions. The test and this book rarely give you a blatantly obvious answer choice. Multi-patient questions will never present you with one critical patient on the verge of death and 3 stable patients. It is mostly discerning which "stable" patient is least stable and which critical patient is most critical. ABC and Maslow are difficult to apply in these instances, so don't solely rely on these concepts to get you through this. Don't just answer the questions, look up the answers and move on. Read the rationalization and make note of things you overlooked. Focus on trying to truly understand why the correct answer is right and why the others are wrong and what clues are given in the question.
    
  • Case Studies: Extremely helpful with single person prioritization! When reading the scenarios I would write down what I believed were the most relevant facts (the abnormalities). Then after looking at these I would think about the pathophysiology of the condition (what's causing this to happen) -- this helps me differentiate between which abnormalities are likely turn deadly most quickly (does the patients condition or health history suggest they lack certain compensatory mechanisms? -- if so that abnormality may be much more urgent than usual), which ones are typical of the condition and therefore less relevant (ie. hypercapnia in a patient with COPD is normal). It is also good to distinguish which abnormalities are always an emergency (although, as I stated earlier I found in NCLEX that they rarely give you something this obvious -- you're usually competing with at least 2 major emergency and need to derive the relevant facts presented in the scenario to discern which one is the bigger emergency). My biggest difficulty was not so much which abnormality to attend to first, but when you are focusing on treating one aspect of the condition and given a list of interventions. I think this is b/c what we see during our clinical experiences rarely reflects these NCLEX situations. Real life: you usually will be implementing more than one intervention at once. NCLEX world: everything is done in 1-2-3 type steps. Luckily, my test didn't really focus so much on these type of prioritization questions and interventions for a single condition were more in the form of SATA -- but obviously every test is different.
    

  [*]Other Tips Based on My Test:

  • Learn the signs of symptoms of common complications/emergency conditions (ie. pulmonary embolism, pleural effusion, anaphylaxis, pneumothorax, aspiration, atelectasis, DVT, thyroid storm, cholinergic crisis, infection, peritonitis, AMI, stroke, spinal shock, autonomic dysreflexia, severe electrolyte imbalances, infiltration, transfusion reaction -- just to name a few) -- Know who's at risk -- Know what to do to prevent -- Know how to intervene if such complications appear to be arising. This will also help on multi-patient prioritization questions!
    
  • Electrolyte and Acid/Base Imbalances: S/S, risk factors for (basic drugs, common conditions etc.), interventions, which foods to eat or avoid, and which medications to take or avoid -- I studied this the day before my test and am REALLY glad I did!!
    
  • SATA (I had tons of these!)- Transmission precautions, delegation (much like LaCharity), question physician orders and interventions
    
  • Did I mention learn interventions??? I don't know why but these are the questions that stumped me the most -- Many answers look right and sometimes things seemed strangely worded leaving me second guessing the validity of the answer
    
  • Client education -- sometimes pretty straight forward, other times another case of all right answers but which one is best?
    
  • Pharmacology (4-6 ?s)-- I tend to be strong in this area, but I felt like I was given more NOT obvious drugs than the common stuff -- My perception can also be off as I tend to have a better memory for questions I did not know, and quickly forget questions I instantly knew the answer to. Know indications, contraindications and side effects. When should you question a prescription? -- Other than that I don't really have any direction to give regarding which classes are most important as mine were kind of all over the place.
    
  • I totally neglected to study or review pedi/OB/psych material, and can't say that it was at all detrimental -- take this as you will
    
  • Only had 1 diagnostic procedure question -- didn't know the answer as I had never heard of it before
    
  • Everyone mentions the importance of delegation, prioritization and transmission precautions -- They weren't lying. I would say Prioritization > Delegation > Transmission ... My test wasn't particularly transmission heavy, but these things are simple to memorize and will guarantee you some easy right answers!
    
  • Had 1 audio question, 1 hot spot, 1 ECG (which I actually studied a lot, and somehow had no clue what what that thing was showing),couple of pictures, 1 calculation and tons of SATA as I've already mentioned. Other than that no other alternative format questions that I can remember.
    

Okay, think that is enough NCLEX talk from me! Hopefully I can help someone out (if they can make it through all of my rambling). Just remember to relax, don't over-analyze the questions and start second guessing yourself -- You probably know more than you think-- If your subconscious mind is telling you an answer looks right or wrong but you're not sure why -- Go with it! -- Your brain is probably telling you you've seen this before even if you can't exactly remember all of the details. Study hard, and stick to methods that helped you get through nursing school because they worked for a reason. After the test, many people don't feel like they did well, but try and STAY POSITIVE! I felt terrible after taking that test, but decided rather than focusing on it I would go out and do all of those things I had been missing out on while studying. Besides, if I did end up failing I wouldn't want to have missed out on the opportunity to relax a little before starting the studying process all over again. Anyway best of luck to everyone :-)

[illbeanrn]

:hpygrp::ancong!::hpygrp:

[strawberryluv, BSN, RN]

Congratulations! So you only studied with Saunders and LaCharity?

[winsome08]

:ancong!: Thanks for the study tips and good luck in your job hunting!

[MaroonTX]

Yes those were the only 2 things I really used. I would occasionally look at the ATI books as well since we had them for school, but they weren't a huge part of my study process

[babanie]

:ancong!:

Thank you for the study tips. I'm studying Saunders cuz I need content.

[nomoreschool]

Thank you for your post. And congrats!!!

[caliotter3]

:ancong!:

[JuanderfulNurse]

CONGRATULATIONS! You made me motivated again. I took my first exam last month and unfortunately I failed. Ill be starting studying again and read the whole Saunders book and will try to do questions as much as I can. Thanks for the tip!

[djavaross]

Congratulations! I am using Saunders and Kaplan as of the moment, I hope these works for me.. :)

[RandyN]

Congratulations! I am using Saunders and Kaplan as of the moment, I hope these works for me.. :)

djavaross,

I just took my exam this past Friday (3/11) and passed with 75 questions. I mainly used Saunders and Kaplan for studying but spent the majority of my time doing the Saunders' Nclex practice questions on the CD. Doing as many questions as possible and reading and understanding the rationales for each question helped me more than anything else.

Best of luck on your exam (it wasn't as difficult as I was expecting based on everything I've heard/read).

[babanie]

djavaross,

I just took my exam this past Friday (3/11) and passed with 75 questions. I mainly used Saunders and Kaplan for studying but spent the majority of my time doing the Saunders' Nclex practice questions on the CD. Doing as many questions as possible and reading and understanding the rationales for each question helped me more than anything else.

Best of luck on your exam (it wasn't as difficult as I was expecting based on everything I've heard/read).

RandyN - :ancong!:

I'm also studying from Saunders but I'm a little nervous when I heard the Saunders CD questions are easier than the questions on the NCLEX. As a result, Kaplan qbank was being purchased. Are the questions in Saunders easier than the NCLEX? Thank you.