New Nursing Student!

Editorial Team / Admin · Jan 22, 2015

Every student is going to learn differently, and I recommend that each student find their own learning style to help them find compatible study methods. There are many different tests that can help you determine your learning style, and my personal favorite is The VARK Questionnaire | VARK

nursephillyphil, BSN, RN · Jan 22, 2015

what worked best for me was group studying, group discussions helped us see the topic from different viewpoints, and explaining it to others helps reinforce content. although, this wont be applicable to every nursing class. Some, like anatomy, are pure memorization; physio which is conceptual, would work well with groups. just be open to different options, if you can find a cheap voice recorder you can use that, pair it with powerpoint slides if you have those provided for you, print out, highlight the hell out of your textbook.

on a side note, don't expect yourself to memorize every. single. detail. understanding > memorization. and get enough rest and exercise! good luck on your journey ahead.

k011408 · Jan 25, 2015

Exams in nursing school are going to be different than your "traditional exams". They might start out pretty basic, but will progress to application questions, rather than knowledge questions. They want to prep you for the NCLEX, which is a totally different beast of it's own. Whereas you normally get options a, b, c, or d and there's only one right answer, nursing exams like to have more than one right answer is listed, but ONLY ONE is the BEST answer. That being said, it involves more critical thinking and you really have to read the question carefully...

Some tips that helped me through the program:

-figure out what the question is asking for. Teachers like to throw in questions that have WAY too much detail to confuse you. Figure out what the question is asking first and keep steady at that to not lose your place

-WRITE ALL OVER THAT TEST!! Seriously! Circle, highlight, cross out anything that will help you keep in mind what you are looking for, e.g. important vital signs, weights, assessment findings, anything relevant to the question you are trying to answer.

-watch out for words/phrases such as "all except, NOT true, priority, first, last", and others similar to that. This goes back to the whole "there could be more than one right answer, but only ONE is the MOST RIGHT". They LOVE these questions...them tricky, tricky teachers...

-try to get you options down to 2. Cross out the ones that are really, obviously wrong. This narrows down your options and at that point you got a 50/50 chance

Finally, relax, breathe, get a good night sleep and a good breakfast. Have confidence in yourself and NEVER change an answer on the scantron unless you know, 100%, that it is wrong. Your gut feeling is right a lot of the time. So long as you stay on top of your studying, you should be fine. I feel like exams are 50% knowledge, 50% just reading the question.

Hope I didn't scare you! Good Luck!