Tips for studying for comprehensive final

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It's in my fundamentals & pharmacology class...Our pharmacology class teacher gave us a study guide to follow, & she pretty goes exactly off that; however, our funds teacher doesn't give us study guides.

What's the best way to study? We have to get over a 75% on the test to pass the class. I've passed all my previous tests with flying covers; however, when it comes to recalling that information I may struggle.

I have do have a mountain stack of flashcards for my fundamentals class, & was just thinking of going through all of those again, would that be a good idea? I was also going to alternate every other day, study funds one day & pharm the next day.

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Specializes in CVICU.

My final is comprehensive too. It's over Med/Surg, Peds, and OB/L&D (100 questions total). I just found a lot of NCLEX questions that are relevant to what we studied and made a big deck for each topic, like GI, Renal, Neuro, blahblah. I'm also gonna go over my powerpoint handouts that I took notes on throughout the semester but mainly my method of studying will be NCLEX questions.

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Specializes in Hospice, Palliative Care.

Good day:

I'm not sure how good the advice is because I've not been in such a position yet, but I just caught

the other day. The foundation appears sound.

Thank you.

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My final is a comprehensive final as well. I made my own study guides after each lecture throughout the semester so I have a review based on the power points and reading but its a lot to review! I have learned the main concepts over this course of time but as we all know, it can be easy to forget little tie bits here and there. Its too early so I am not sure if there will be a blueprint given to us to facilitate our studies but regardless, I will split it up and review each section and then practice some NCLEX questions.

Last year they gave us a list of topics to review (very broad like F/E or CV, etc.) and then told us how many questions (out of 100) would be on the test over that topic. There were a couple topics that I didn't even review because there were 1-2 questions on them and I knew the material fairly well.

I would just allot yourself plenty of time to review the material and focus more on ensuring you have the content down before you practice the NCLEX questions. My concern is when people start with questions and only memorize those answers rather than actually studying/understanding. Part of it is learning style though.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

The whole rationale behind a comprehensive test is that cramming at the last minute is probably not going to work... if you haven't learned each section as you go, it is very hard to pass a 'comp'.

Best of luck to you all.

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The whole rationale behind a comprehensive test is that cramming at the last minute is probably not going to work... if you haven't learned each section as you go, it is very hard to pass a 'comp'.

Best of luck to you all.

Not sure the OP is implying cramming as the study method here -- I also get apprehensive that I may not remember all the information for the comprehensive final.. especially since we take the HESI finals and our instructors does not make the final themselves..

That being said I did very well on my finals last semester -- Patho, fundamentals, assessment.. so all the worrying about having to learn everything apparently did pay off :)

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Thanks everyone, finals are next week. I'm still studying my butt off for both classes; however, it's my Fundamentals one that I'm starting to freak out about now because the DON just decided less than a week before finals to let our instructor go, & someone else is going to make up our final, even though our original teacher already gave us a study guide....

So ya....

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