 Welcome to nursing school explained and this video on test prep and test taking strategies as you know in nursing school There are many exams and at the end of nursing school You're going to be studying for your NCLEX your national certification and Licensure exam so the best way of preparing for that big exam at the end of your nursing school career is to prepare and Really practice these things as you're going through school Now what I've written down here in this video and what I'm going to be going over here shortly are strategies that I talked to my Students about all the time because my job was when students did not do well on an exam to sit down with them and Evaluate see how they study what the strategies they use and What techniques they use and then there are typically always? The same kind of things that the students needed to support them and so I've summarized them here for you to hopefully So hopefully they can help you as well So let's get started here So critical thinking is the first thing we need to discuss critical thinking in and nursing are really Interrelated you've probably heard the term a lot and it's not foreign to you Don't think about this as a nursing concept only critical thinking is something that you use in everyday life In when you go shopping when you drive somewhere When there is a problem that arises in the tasks that you have then you use a critical thinking to solve that task And that really all critical thinking is it's designed to solve problems As well as make decisions and then in nursing we follow the nursing process our assessment Planning implementation and then the evaluation in the end and you do that a lot already So don't think of it as foreign and these other strategies here will help you get better in your critical thinking and Then it is super important to prepare for class many nursing schools now They do not provide traditional lecture anymore Which is why I'm hoping that my videos with the content actually help you but in order to prepare for class You need to come in and know the topic No will have read at least a little bit about what you're going to learn in class because the instructors many times Do not have time to just go over certain things that you can just acquire the knowledge for by watching videos or reading your textbooks so prepare for class and any assignments that there are So that way when you're in class and when you're discussing these disease processes or whatever it is that you are learning that you can Participate in the discussion and you already know the very basis And then can kind of take it to another level as you're discussing a patient care scenario in a case study for example And then study group study groups are super important That's one of the things that I tell my students all the time get together with your classmates But keep the group small maybe three four maximum of five people And it really helps to bounce ideas off of each other because one person heard an Additional detailing class that maybe you didn't hear the other person thinks about it differently And when you're discussing these things it helps your critical thinking it helps you remember those discussions during your exam and that will benefit you tremendously and Then the very important part the types of questions that you encounter on your exams And they are basically divided in four categories. So first of all there are knowledge questions So these are pure memorization So this is something like normal values for vital signs normal lab values the landmarks for your apical pulse Oscultation those kind of things things that you're just going to have to memorize Now taking it a step up is Comprehension so now you have to show that you're understanding the memorized information So this is kind of still requires you of course to memorize certain pieces But now it's not just reciting that but it's to actually understand why is it why do we assess the apical pulse? at that fifth intercostal space at the mid-clavicular line Next level up would be an application question So now you have all this memorized information, but you utilize the information in a patient care scenario So now it's it gives you an apical pulse through it And you have to determine whether or not it is safe to give a certain medication for example And then the highest level of question is the analysis question where you actually now have the acquired the knowledge You understand it and you know how to utilize it But now you're also able to compare and contrast the information Interpret the data come to conclusions from that interpretation and understand relationships and differences of things that occur in this particular question and So from top to bottom here from knowledge to analysis these types of questions increase in difficulty and they also increase in the percentage that you're going to see them on your exams as you advance through your nursing courses So in your very fundamentals class you're going to have questions that are mostly Knowledge and comprehension questions and then some application problem analysis If you're just about to graduate you have already acquired the knowledge and you comprehend the material Now you need to show that you can apply and analyze the information given That's why later on in your nursing school career the questions get more difficult And here's the important part every nursing school They have policies and procedures that they follow and they also have a test plan where they say okay You know a first semester 80% questions are going to be knowledge and comprehension and 20 are going to be application and analysis and typically these two are kind of a Together and then these two are kind of lumped together Where so 80 20 in your first one in your last semester you might have 20% knowledge and comprehension and then 80% application and analysis because now you've been through the knowledge Acquisition you have memorized the information now You need to show that you're ready to take that nice national licensure exam And that's what most of the the questions are going to be on application and analysis because now you're getting ready to practice as a as a registered nurse and To to prove to the licensing body that you're actually able to apply the information that you've learned And so the tidbit here is ask your professor about a test plan or a blueprint Because they might give you an analysis where it says okay for this topic We have so many questions of knowledge and comprehension and so many questions for application and analysis Or at the very least you can ask them what their policies are going forward in the nursing semester So that you know the percentage of questions that you should expect on the exam Now when it comes to actual test taking there is something that we call the race model so a race is an acronym here that we use and When you're actually faced with a question now It's very important to recognize key words and those are usually in the question as well as in the answer If you have a piece of scratch paper there Or maybe if you even take an exam on paper and pencil it's you can highlight those or underline these words If it's okay to write down or write these key words down on your piece of paper so that when you might get confused with reading through the answer choices that you can come back to that key word and And figure out what it is that's actually going on in this question. What is key to this question? And then a ask yourself. What is the question really asking because let's be honest questions can be confusing They might have an introduction might be two three sentences long and by the time you get to the answers You don't even remember what they asked you so we maybe reword the question for yourself What what do they really want to know? What do they want me to answer here and Then see critically analyze every option in a relation to the question and all the other options So that's when you go back and you say, okay a Maybe be absolutely does not apply see maybe and then D I don't think applies so then you're usually left with two options And then you have to critically analyze it in relationship to the question because maybe a and C are right But C doesn't really apply to the question. It's a right correct statement But it doesn't really reflect back to what the question is actually asking you which is very important That you are reading the questions in every answer choice very carefully and then reflect back to these keywords What are they asking you and then in the end you're going to eliminate the incorrect options and come up with the correct answer number six do not ever change your answer Unless you find out that you misread the question you missed the keyword You didn't see the not which one does not apply something like that Then you can change your answer But if you were between option a and c and you picked a but now you go back and you review it and now you want to go with C, please do not change the answer Many times or actually research has shown that I think it's the percentage is greater than 80 percent If you change your answer, you're still going to have the wrong answer So might as well stick with that first gut feeling that you had and just stick it please don't change your answer and Then number seven practice practice practice and practice some more Practicing these type of questions is going to what's gonna get you ready for your exams the more you do it the more used You'll get to the types of questions and the better you'll get at answering them And the best way is to do these type of practice questions Now here is another thing There's a company called F.A. Davies They're a book publisher that mostly does health care Professions and they have a lot of different nursing books and what I found over the years is really really helpful Is their success series and that is specifically for nursing students? So they're called the Davies success series and there's a variety of books there. There is Test success fundamental success, which is more applicable to your first semester or introductory foundations classes in nursing school and then they have success books for Pediatrics, MedServe, Psychiatric, Maternal Health, Pharmacology Really any specialty that you can think of and then they also have an Anclic success book Which kind of summarizes everything that you need to know in one book and this success series? I have example of it right here looks like this Davies test success These are the test taking strategies for beginning nursing students and actually some of the information I put down here like this race model comes from this book So they tell you how to approach these questions and that really really nice thing is that they have tons of practice questions They are available in hard copy and they also have availability to online resources Which is called Davies Edge and these questions online are updated constantly So if you go back later, then you might see a question that you haven't had before and as the NCLEX changes they can update These online questions and so it gives you more opportunities for practice And the best thing about it is they give you the Rationals for the correct as well as the incorrect answers because now if you got stuck here between option A and C and A was the correct option But you chose C for example, then you can read why is A the right answer and C is not So they give you the rationales for why one one answer is right and the other ones are not right And that I think is the biggest learning impact that this book series has because otherwise if you just know This is the correct one and here's why but you don't know whether incorrect one is not correct Then you're not really going to get as much learning out of it And that's why I really love this success series so much and I have another example here of the fundamental success And then again with this Davies Edge here for the online resources and keep in mind They don't actually review material in their books the test taking strategies has some strategies that you can go over But actually they don't actually give you information where there's like a couple pages of the information for the chapter like a summary It is these are strictly questions and answers with rationales And the thing is I like them so much so I've contacted FAA Davies and They know that their products are good So through nursing school explained you can get 20% off all of the resources Well, that's digital or hard copies and free shipping if you use the coupon code Petra 20 So that's my name and then 20. I will put the information about All of this in the description of the video below so you can have access and I also need to let you know That this is an affiliate link So when you use this coupon code not only do you get 20% off plus free shipping But also I get a small percentage for the referral and know that these are resources that students over the years have found very helpful So I hope that they will help you too. And here's a little extra bonus with having a little percentage off here and Then once you get done with all your practice questions you take your exam And then it's very important to reflect after the exam and before the next exam What went well what didn't go so well? How did I score on my exam? What can I do better next time and then most of all it's important to be and stay positive nursing school is super stressful There are so many exams and assignments and clinical and places to be and family to take care of at home So just stay positive even if you don't do as well as you would have liked on a certain exam If you follow these test-taking strategies and reuse the resources You will be successful also ask your professors stay in touch with them see with other advice They can give you but like I said before these are kind of like the things that I find are Have found very helpful over the years Just for students and then they have succeeded through their nursing school Now there's also another video that I'm going to put on about what to do on exam day to actually prepare for exam days That you're mentally and physically prepared to take that important test So thanks so much for following nursing school explained also check out my Instagram account Check the description below regarding the information on FAA Davis and I hope this video has helped you See you soon right here on nursing school explained. 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