For those who fail the NCLEX or NLE..i agree with the old-timer who passed a looong time ago : same tenet applies nowadays. The same cognitive learning modalities exist today and existed a long time ago too. We learn by memorizing facts, a lot of those, then we become cognizant of relationships for all the facts memorized, analyze such relationships and then apply what we know.....sounds like Piaget's principles of children learning..yeah...it's basic... Nurses taking the NLE or NCLEX have to memorize a lot of factual info and then apply it; however, keep in mind that all interventions - hence every answer for any question on these exams- is the most correct answer only when it reflects a 'safe' and 'effective' intervention. Some answers may have an 'effective' intervention element, others the 'safe' intervention element and therefore only partially correct. All nurses taking the exams, granted they have to have memorized most nursing factula info in four years of schooling, have to stick to the selecting answer by the safe and effective duality on intervention, today as in the past.....loooong time ago. Nclexmaster