NCLEX Techniques

Not exactly sure what you're asking, but I taught NCLEX reviews (all med/surg sections plus the final exam review section) for years, and here's my take on why allegedly smart people have a hard time c NCLEX.

It's because they are terrific at memorizing data points but they absolutely suck in critical thinking. They know data points and definitions, but they don't know how to apply them. The best example I ever saw on AN was the student who knew everything there was to know about diabetes, but when she ran into one in the ER didn't have the first clue about what to assess and completely decompensated. She was a straight-A student but had never run into this kind of experiential learning before, and literally had no idea what to do with it.

What you're calling "technique," i.e., test-taking skill, is something we taught, of course. But I always taught it emphasizing nursing knowledge, not data points. There are always, of four, two answers you pretty much know are wrong. You have to discriminate between the other two to know what's the best NURSING answer (not just "the best answer") because even though both may be factually true, only one is the best NURSING answer, the one the best NURSE will identify.

The people that teach students how to think like nurses are called nursing faculty. Believe me, it's harder than it looks. If I had a dime for every test question I got asked to throw away off the test "because they're both correct!!!!" I could take my sweet husband to Paris. There are just those students who have made up their minds and will not, WILL NOT understand this idea.

And that's what NCLEX is all about. Not whether you know data points (though of course you have to know some) but whether you are that reasonably prudent NURSE. Those whiners will never be reasonably prudent nurses because they just don't get the concept.