Your Guide to Nclex Success FREE - 2020 PDF

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nclex tips for your studying 2022 lets all pass this thing and become a RN and save lives together...

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Intro Thank you for downloading the FREE EDITION of Your Guide to NCLEX Success! We hope to be an invaluable resource to the newly graduated nursing student, and want to help you get that RN license you’ve been working so hard for. If you enjoy this free version, please consider checking out the PRO EDITION available at https://store.nursejanx.com/! In addition to this program, be sure to visit us online at https://www.nursejanx.com/. We have many helpful articles and free resources to further aid you in your studies and future careers as nurses.

About the author Hi, I’m David! I graduated from VCU’s School of Nursing with my BSN in 2013. About two months after graduating with my BSN, I took the NCLEX exam for the first time and passed. I spent less than 90 minutes testing and was cut off at 75 questions. I graduated from Maryville University’s Adult Gerontology Nurse Practitioner program in December of 2019 and I passed my NP board certification exam shortly thereafter. As a RN, I’ve worked across multiple hospital systems in psychiatry, med/surg, telemetry, trauma step-down, IMCU, and infusion. I started Nursejanx in October of 2015 and I currently act as a writer, editor, and manager for the website. It is my hope that programs such as these will be able to assist others in achieving success in nursing school and beyond. 2

Table of Contents Intro ....................................................................................................................................................... 2 About the author ................................................................................................................................................ 2

Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................... 3 How the NCLEX Works ...................................................................................................................... 4 Computer adaptive testing .............................................................................................................................. 4 CAT style & layout ............................................................................................................................................. 5 Rumor #1: Getting cut off at 75 questions means I passed ..................................................................... 6 Rumor #2: Getting cut off at 265 questions means I failed ...................................................................... 7 Rumor #3: If I got all 265 questions, the last question determines my fate .......................................... 8 Rumor #4: Select-all-that-apply (SATA) and prioritization questions are the hardest and weighted the most .............................................................................................................................................................. 9 Rumor #5: If I mostly got SATA and prioritization questions, then I passed ....................................... 10 Bonus Rumor: The Pearson VUE registration trick works ....................................................................... 10

Question Strategy ............................................................................................................................. 12 Prioritization and SATA questions ............................................................................................................ 12 Prioritization questions................................................................................................................................... 12 SATA questions ...............................................................................................................................................16 What to do when you have no clue .............................................................................................................. 21

Common NCLEX Pitfalls ................................................................................................................. 25 Safety & Maslow .............................................................................................................................................. 25 Maslow’s Hierarchy ......................................................................................................................................... 26 Except ................................................................................................................................................................ 26 Call the doctor .................................................................................................................................................. 29 The longest & most detailed answer choice is usually correct .............................................................. 30

How to Study ..................................................................................................................................... 33 Practice tests & questions ............................................................................................................................. 33 Where can I find practice questions? ....................................................................................................... 34

General Advice for Test Day ........................................................................................................... 35 My NCLEX experience ....................................................................................................................................35 Helpful Tips ....................................................................................................................................................... 37

Closing Remarks ..............................................................................................................................39 Feedback ........................................................................................................................................................... 39 Error! Bookmark not defined. Free future updates ......................................................................................... Error! Bookmark n not ot defined. 100% Money Back Guarantee .......................................................................

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How the NCLEX Works Before we get into how to pass this test, we need to look at how it works so you know what you’re up against. You will have never taken a test like this before in nursing school. Even preparation courses like HESI, Saunders, and Kaplan will not test you like the NCLEX will. The questions they give you will be similar in nature, but the structure of the exam will be completely different. The NCLEX is an epic test. Not only is its successful completion critical for your career, but it has a terrifying reputation associated with it. Nursing students everywhere fear this test… but knowledge is power. That being said, lets crack on.

Computer adaptive testing We now live in a digital age. Gone are the old-fashioned days of paper and pencil, and say hello to computer adaptive testing (CAT). So what? Why should we care? Are there any advantages? Absolutely! For starters, the tests are much shorter and faster now. With standard written tests, you would have to answer every single question on

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the test. With digital tests, the computer can accurately determine your performance to a near certainty without making you take all those questions. Pretty cool, right? Or maybe just downright frustrating and confusing… Computerized grading is also 100% accurate… and fast! In just a few days you can have your final results, compared to the months it took during the dark ages.

CAT style & layout CAT freaks a lot of people out because it can make you second guess your performance. But if you understand what it’s doing and how it works, it really shouldn’t scare you. It’s designed to find your average predictable performance so it wants to ideally have you answer one question right, and the next one wrong. It works by assigning each question a designated level of difficulty. Your first question is likely a medium difficulty level or a higher difficulty level question. If you answer the question correctly, it will give you another question of equal or increased difficulty. It will continue to increase the difficulty of questions until you begin to get them wrong, then it will start giving you questions of lower difficulty until you begin to get them right, and then the cycle repeats. Check out the graph for a better understanding of what CAT is trying to do.

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Notice how at the beginning the up and down swings are large, but as you answer more questions the swings become smaller, and get closer and closer to a forming straight line. When the computer believes it knows your performance range (the closer to a straight line, the better the predictability), it will stop you. You need to fall at or above the assigned passing level to pass the test. Simple as that.

There is good and bad information out there regarding how the NCLEX works. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at some of the common NCLEX rumors and get to the bottom of this!

Rumor #1: Getting cut off at 75 questions means I passed 6

FALSE

I have seen countless people say that if you get cut off at 75 questions that you definitely passed the test. The truth, is that you could have passed or failed. The reason you were cut off was simply because the computer had met a threshold of certainty of your testing level. What does that mean? Basically the computer has determined your performance average, and has predicted that you will get the same results if you stop now or stop after 100 more questions. If your performance is at or above the passing cutoff line, then you passed. If it lies below it, you failed. So, if you passed your NCLEX and the got cutoff at 75 questions, then you did a great job. If you failed at 75 questions, then you really made of mess of it.

Rumor #2: Getting cut off at 265 questions means I failed FALSE

Similar to rumor #1, you can pass or fail at the 265-question mark. If your final tally places you above the passing threshold, you passed, and if not, you failed. Getting drawn out to 265 questions can mean multiple things, which leads us to rumor #3.

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Rumor #3: If I got all 265 questions, the last question determines my fate TRUE or FALSE

If you have been drawn out until the last question, it can mean one of two things. Either the computer has not yet accurately predicted your testing level, or it has, but you’re so close to the cutoff line that it wants to give you a little more room to improve. In the first case, maybe you have answered all of the questions so erratically that you’ve simply confused the computer. In this case, regardless of if you answer the last question correctly, you could pass or fail depending on your total question tally and the weight of each question (i.e. fancy computer maths). On the other hand, you could be at the 50/50 pass/fail border, and if you get the last question correct, it will push you over the threshold and you will pass.

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Rumor #4: Select-all-thatapply (SATA) and prioritization questions are the hardest and weighted the most TRUE

SATA questions are generally the hardest questions on the NCLEX. The number of correct responses is unknown and getting partial credit is not an option, as it is either pass or fail. Prioritization questions are also very difficult, as all of the responses are likely correct answers to a question, but rely heavily on critical thinking skills to find the correct order. Because of this, SATA and prioritization questions are given the most weight when scoring the NCLEX final results. It’s similar to saying a correct SATA question might give you 3 points while a correct easier question might give you 1 point.

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Rumor #5: If I mostly got SATA and prioritization questions, then I passed TRUE or FALSE

Kind of like rumor #1, whether or not you passed will largely depend on whether or not you actually got these questions correct or not. If you get all SATA and prioritization questions AND you think you aced them, you probably passed. If you got all SATA and prioritization questions AND you think you got the majority of them wrong, you could have failed. However, even if you have failed many of the SATA and prioritization questions, you could still pass so long as you are above the passing threshold, you just might get extended past the 75 question cutoff.

Bonus Rumor: The Pearson VUE registration trick works TRUE 10

Assuming your results were actually delivered (which can take some time after you walk out of the building) you can try the Pearson VUE trick. If you go to re-register for your NCLEX after taking the test and get a pop-up stating “Our records indicate that you have recently scheduled this exam. Please contact your member board for further assistance. Another registration cannot be made at this time,” then you have passed your NCLEX! Congratulations! Disclaimer: This is a totally unconfirmed statement. Pearson VUE does not state that this is a fact, but the general concusses among the public is that it does work, and you can rely on it. It worked for me, and I trust in its validity, but if it doesn’t work for you, I’d like to know. So as you can see, there are a lot of complicated and possibly confusing elements to the NCLEX. In the end, try not to fret so much about the number of questions you got cut off at, or the amount of SATA and prioritization questions you received, as they don’t necessarily indicate a pass or fail. Instead you’ll just drive yourself crazy for the few days it could take to get your test back. Instead just wait a few hours and try the Pearson VUE re-register trick! You can learn more about the PVT on our forum post here: https://forum.nursejanx.com/t/pearson-vue-trick-2020-nclex-does-the-pvtstill-work/214

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Question Strategy Prioritization and SATA questions The majority of the important questions that can make or break you, are prioritization and SATAs. What you need to remember is that the majority of these questions are designed to test your critical thinking first, and your knowledge second. Always ask yourself, what is the safest choice for the patient, because this is always the correct answer. The people who wrote the NCLEX questions understand that you aren’t an experienced nurse yet. Quite the opposite... you’re brand new! You aren’t expected to know EVERYTHING, but you do need to be deemed safe in order to practice nursing.

Prioritization questions When you’re faced with a prioritization question, you need to understand that most if not all of the answer choices are going to be correct responses to the situation at hand. Bummer. So what you need to discern next, is which of these correct choices is the most crucial for the immediate safety of the patient.

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This is similar to how they teach ACLS and CPR, and I’ll use an example on that very topic:

Question

You are faced with the following situation: You have just witnessed a car accident on a crowded highway. The victim of the crash exits his car and collapses in the road. What should you do first? A. Call 911 and begin CPR B. Check for a pulse and signs of breathing C. Assess the scene and assure that it is safe D. Call a Code Blue Before we even get into answer choices you should be thinking, what is safe and what isn’t? Let’s go through the choices and see.

Answer & Rationale

You are faced with the following situation: You have just witnessed a car accident on a crowded highway. The victim of the crash exits his car and collapses in the road. What should you do first? A. Call 911 and begin CPR* — at a first glance this seems like a great answer. You would ideally like to have someone call 911 to get help on the way, and if the victim is unconscious, CPR may be indicated. However, this answer doesn’t state anything about scene safety 13

which is always the first step before performing CPR. For example, you would never do CPR in the middle of a busy highway, near a potentially burning car, outside in the middle of a hurricane, etc., because they are not safe options for the person performing CPR, nor for the victim. B. Check for a pulse and signs of breathing* — This is another slightly correct response, as it is one of the first steps of CPR. However, like the previous option, it says nothing about scene safety, so let’s move on. C. Assess the scene and assure that it is safe — Bingo! This is what we should do first in a few quick moments before calling 911, or starting CPR. It assures that the outcome can be safe for both the victim and the person performing CPR. D. Call a Code Blue — This is just wrong since we aren’t in a hospital setting. However, if you were in a hospital and someone became unconscious this could definitely be one of your first responses. * Something you should always look for in answer responses are nearly identical choices. Both of these answer choices above are descriptions of the first steps of CPR. They are either both correct, or neither is correct. In this question where only answer choice can be a correct response, you can automatically assume that they are both wrong answers, and move on.

As you can see, these questions can throw you off since all of the responses seem like possible

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answers. Just keep thinking... Safety, safety, safety! Let’s try another one:

Question

Your patient has just come back from a cardiac catheterization, and has a right groin puncture site. Upon arrival, you noticed that the dressing is completely saturated and there is significant active bleeding from the site. What should you do first? A. Call the doctor B. Get a set of vitals including BP, pulse, and O2 saturation C. Apply firm pressure to the catheterization site D. Call a Code Rapid Response Once again, we’re faced with some good answer choices and you may want to do all simultaneously, but alas, this isn’t real life, this is the NCLEX. You’ll just have to pick the one that matters most first.

Answer & Rationale

A. Call the doctor* — Probably something that needs doing, but if you take the time to do this right now, your patient could bleed out. Never 15

leave an unstable patient to do anything. B. Get a set of vitals including BP, pulse, and O2 saturation — Also important, but you wouldn’t do this first either. C. Apply firm pressure to the catheterization site — Correct, the best way to stop the bleeding is to apply immediate firm pressure to the site of the bleeding. With a groin catheterization site (punctured femoral artery) the patient could bleed to death very quickly. Applying steady pressure is what you should be doing the second you notice it, and then you should call for help, get vitals, etc. D. Call a Code Rapid Response — Depending on how severe the bleeding is, and how the patient tolerates it, you may need to get a bunch of nurses and a doctor in the room ASAP. They could lose consciousness, or go into a code blue situation. This is something you would have to decide based on your individual situation, but it is not your first priority. * Just as an aside on questions/answers regarding the “Call the physician” or “Call the doctor,” you should know that these answer choices are rarely the correct response. Usually there are other options that you can do prior to calling the doctor, and the only time that this answer response is correct is when there is literally nothing you can do first!

SATA questions The priority questions are hard, but then you’ve got select all that apply (SATA) questions to deal with. Similar to the priority questions you are often faced with multiple correct answer ch...