Nursing NCLEX RN Review Video: Strategies for
Test Taking on the NCLEX exam
In this video I am going to talk about a few test
taking strategies that enable you to have a
systematic approach to answering very common
types of questions on the NCLEX exam.
Visit my website www.simplefiturse.com for more
NCLEX content review and a free E-BOOK where I
shared my study schedule for passing the NCLEX
exam.
The NCLEX exam has various testing patterns
which require different strategies for answering
them.
In this section I hope to share with you strategies
on identifying these question types and how to
best answer them.
Once you identify these patterns and trends, you
are better able to answer questions and ultimately
pass.
These strategies work almost every single time and
you will improve your test taking skills by
continuously doing practice questions with these
concepts in mind.
Before I begin I want to mention that in my previous
videos I talked about how the exam is going to get
more difficult over time due to the inherent
structure of the exam.
As a result it is important to remember that when
you are writing the exam you will constantly feel
like you are not doing well and this is quite scary.
However, now that you know that this exam is
designed in a way that constantly challenges you,
causing you to think that you are doing horribly or
failing, you know to control your emotions and
focus on trying your best in answering each
question.
I want you to just remember that this exam was
designed to continuously challenge you and this
often causes a feeling that people are “failing” or
doing “poorly” because they aren’t confident in
their answers.
This gets to people's heads and makes them panic
and deviate from the strategies that I am about to
discuss.
OK, so now that I have mentioned this, let's move
onto talking about the nursing process.
I am sure you are familiar with the nursing process
at this point.
You have to remember the acronym ADPIE and
always ask yourself, is the question asking me to
recall ADPIE?
The best way to know if it is, is by looking at the
key terms from the question itself or the answers.
For example the exam will frame ADPIE questions
by usually asking if “this” happens, what should
the nurse do first or what is the first thing the nurse
should do.
So what is ADPIE?
ADPIE stands for Assessment, Diagnosis, Plan,
Implementation and Evaluation.
I recommend looking at a list of common nursing
diagnoses to get a hang of what they exactly are.
Here are a few examples and if you would like more
there is a link in the description to my blog post
with a list of them.
Risk for urinary tract injury ….
Related to [etiology/related factor] as evidenced by
[signs and symptoms]
Risk for impaired skin integrity … Related to
[etiology/related factor] as evidenced by [signs and
symptoms]
Ineffective airway clearance … Related to [etiology/
related factor] as evidenced by [signs and
symptoms]
Sometimes the exam will be tricky and give you the
nursing diagnosis, and there will be questions that
ask about the next step but they will put
"assessment" in one of the options to choose from.
In that case you have to recall the ADPIE acronym
and remember that the next step is "plan" not
"assessment" if that makes sense.
They want to know that you follow the steps
chronologically.
This is important as they do try to trick you by
doing this. .
So make sure you identify which PART of the
ADPIE you are in and see if the answers RELATE to
Before I go onto speaking about strategies for
prioritization questions I would appreciate it if you
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Prioritization Questions:
You will get a "priority" question on your NCLEX
exam.
It is imperative that you have a strategy that you
utilize when answering these types of questions.
There are two concepts that are important for you
to remember for answering these questions:
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Primary Assessment Survey
Think of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a
pyramid in which the most important needs are at
the base of the pyramid and need to be met before
the next category of needs can be achieved.
For example basic needs of food, water, warmth,
rest and safety need to be met before the safety
needs are met.
This picture is a great summary of what the
maslows hierarchy of needs are, starting from
bottom to top in relation to most important to least
If you want to be successful at priority questions
you need to recall this diagram in your head and
utilize it systematically remove possible answers
from the question you are answering.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs | Simply Psychology
Secondly,using a primary assessment survey is a
way of ensuring the safety and stability of a
patient's condition.
It is the initial assessment that needs to be done
when seeing a patient and there are certain
assessments that are prioritized than others.
Airway
Breathing
Circulation
This is key for you to remember the "ABC's".
This will guide you in choosing the correct answer.
If there are answers where it talks about an airway
being obstructed, then you need to focus on
opening the airway.
Common assessments indicating problems in
ABC's:
Airway:
* NPO, gag reflex, breathing, water after surgery,
dysphagia after stroke, airway
Breathing:
* Breath sounds, O2 administration, O2 status,
pulse ox, raise HoB, spirometry
Circulation
* HR, BP, CPR, fluid status (fluid deficit or
overload), IV fluids, TPN, central lines, bleeding
hemorrhage
The only exception to this is if they have
uncontrolled bleeding that takes priority over
anything and typically you want to “control the
bleeding” whether that is putting pressure or tying
a tourniquet.
Provider Questions:
A common question type on the NCLEX exam are
provider questions.
These are going to test your ability to communicate
to the provider.
To answer these questions you need to think of life
threatening conditions and situations, whether
those lab values or clinical presentations indicate
severe complications that need to be reported to
the healthcare provider or not.
Unfortunately these are among the most
challenging questions as they often require a high
amount of memorization on generally everything.
This is where they test your ability to remember lab
values and a few life-threatening conditions.
This is the strategy I used to answer these types of
questions, apart from memorizing common lab
values.
Be sure to subscribe for my lab values NCLEX
video.
The first question I ask myself is:
Does the patient have any of these life threatening
conditions, using a head to toe method?
Neurology
* Stroke?
* Overdose?
* Drug interaction?
(think of the mental health drugs)
Throat:
* Esophageal Varices?
Respiratory:
* Tension pneumothorax?
* Asthma exacerbation?
* Pleural Effusion?
Cardiac:
* Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm?
* Myocardial Infarction?
* Cardiac Tamponade?
Gastrointestinal?
* Profusely bleeding - GI Bleed?
* Perforated organs, appendix, pancreas, spleen
etc..?
Metabolic?
* Diabetes
* DKA?
* HHNS?
* Hypoglycemia?
Impact injury?
* Spine injury?
* Loss of rectal tone?
Pregnant?
* Ectopic pregnancy?
* Hemorrhage?
Is there anything I need to do BEFORE informing
the provider - think ADPIE?
This has helped me organize my thoughts in a
systematic way and tackle these provider
questions more effectively.
Let's move onto talking about the dreaded SATA or
select all that apply questions.
SATA - select all that apply:
These questions are the most challenging
questions on the NCLEX.
They require a serious amount of knowledge and
unfortunately the better you do on the NCLEX the
more of these questions they are going to give you.
Therefore having a strategy to utilize can help
guide you on how to answer each question.
There is no trick that will get you results, these
require you to know a lot but there are a few tips I
can share which help answering these questions.
Number one go through each answer and ask
yourself if it is a true statement.
Use the process of elimination to determine if that
answer can be correct.
If any part of the answer makes it false,then cross it
off.
Number two compare the answer options with each
other.
If there are very strong opinions such as ALWAYS,
NEVER, NONE you want to avoid those.
These can be correct but rarely are.
As mentioned there aren’t great strategies other
than doing tons of practice questions that are
going to help you with those.
Now let's move onto prefixes and suffixes.
Prefixes and Suffixes
These are incredibly helpful for you to know when
answering questions as there are certain
conditions that you may not remember.
However knowing the prefix and suffix can help
you get an idea of what the condition/situation of
the patient is.
Here is a video I made to provide better guidance
on what to do.
NCLEX Video #3: Useful Prefixes and Suffixes that
will help you on the nursing NCLEX
Video web content titled: NCLEX Video #3: Useful
Prefixes and Suffixes that will help you on the
nursing NCLEX
Duplicating Statements:
Duplicating statements are huge hints on the exam.
They are actually more common than what you
might think.
If the answers have two that mean the same thing
they can't be correct.
You will get some questions that have the same
meaning but are worded a bit differently.
If it is a single choice question and answer then it
can't be correct.
That is going to be the end of this video.
Be sure to check out the links in the description for
various resources and check out my blog at
www.simplefitnurse.com where I have various free
content to help make nursing simple for you!
Here is a preview of my website.