 Hi, welcome to Nursing School Explained and this video on how to prepare for exam day. Now this is not a specific video on test preparation and test taking strategies, actually I have another video about that, but this is specifically designed to help you get through the exam day, the night before, the morning off and the actual exam and strategies on what to do to help lower your anxiety and be successful on that exam. So if we take a look here, no cramming allowed, so Nursing School is not one of those things that you can study the night before and then forget everything after. You need to be able to schedule your time to study, prepare for class, prepare your assignments and then schedule time to study, but not the night before but throughout the week leading up to the exam. Make sure that you have your calendar, that you mark it, that you set time aside to study for the exam and maybe even organize your calendar in such a way that you study for certain chapters on certain days whenever it fits your schedule. But please do not cram the night before. If you do not know the information the night before, you're not going to know it on exam day because it does not allow your brain to make those important connections over days and especially while you sleep that the connections that you make so that you can come to the conclusions and your brain actually remembers. But if you just cram in information the night before, it won't do that. Then make sure that you get a good night rest. So you probably know how much time, how much sleep you need per night. And this is not, oh, I only need three hours, but then on the weekend I sleep 18 hours at once. No, if you know you function well on seven hours of sleep, make sure you get seven hours of sleep the night before the exam because again, the more rested you are, the better off you'll be doing the exam. Do not drink alcohol the night before. Some people like to have a glass of wine or a beer to help them relax and go to sleep. That's all fine and dandy, but if you drink alcohol even only in small amounts, it does not allow you to get into that deep restful sleep because the alcohol kind of keeps you a little bit more on the awake side. And you won't get that good night rest and you'll wake up. You might even feel a little bit groggy or have a little bit of a hangover, even if it was in a small amount. And that's not going to benefit you on the exam. Make sure the morning of that you eat breakfast. And the best way to do this to fuel your brain, because that's really what it's all about, fuel your brain for the exam that's to come is to have a good combination of protein, carbohydrates, and fats. Examples I like to give are breakfast burrito, whole wheat tortilla, some eggs and some avocado and then throw whatever sauce or sauce that you like on top. It's very easy, it's simple, I can prepare it even the day before and then just quickly microwaved, things like that. Another example, some yogurt with some granola, some nuts, and some fruit. Protein, carbohydrates, and fats. And the reason is that you need to fuel your brain and you know your brain needs carbohydrates and fat to work. Otherwise, if you go hypoglycemic, it's not going to work. If you eat processed simple sugars, you're going to get that sugar high and then it's going to drop and your brain is not going to function well. So if you have a good combination of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, it gets the proteins and the carbohydrates released into the blood stream slower, especially if you have some fiber there. That way you sustain your brain, you can continue paying attention and focusing throughout the exam because some of them might take several hours from the time that you eat. And then get there early. There's no worse thing than having to rush, get stuck in traffic, not finding parking, so allow yourself enough time to get there so that you can arrive prepared and rested and not all amped up. Know your login info. If this is a computerized test, make sure you know your user name and your password, even if you haven't used that website in quite some time. Because again, it's going to cause some stress that you don't need the morning of the exam. Have your utensils ready? So whatever that is, if you wear glasses, make sure you have those. If you like to wear ear buds, make sure you wear those. If those are allowed, have a pencil, a paper, a pen, whatever they allow you to have ready. Also make sure that you have some water there, even if you have to leave it at the back of the classroom or whatever is allowed so that you can go there, take a sip of water, take a breather and then refresh. And this is probably one of the most important things. Take a deep breath. Test days, exam days can be very stressful and a certain amount of anxiety is good to have because it gets our body working. It gets us focused. But if you're feeling extra aimed up and hyped up, it's not going to help you if your heart is racing. And if you sit there and you just close your eyes for a moment before the exam starts, takes three to five, slow, deep breaths with your breath, with your belly button engaged at diaphragm to help stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. You all know the science behind it. Slow down the sympathetic fight or flight response, lower down the heart rate, feel refreshed. And that really works for any circumstance that you are maybe a little bit anxious or hyped up about to really just slow everything down and help you focus. Don't let others amp you up. We all know those classmates that come in last minute. Oh my God, do you remember this? I don't remember the value for that. Can you help me? What about this? What about that? Just tell them, no, I don't want to talk about this right now. I prepared for my exam up to the last night and I'm ready to go. Please don't distract me and, you know, we can talk about it after the exam. And then don't stress over one question. And there might be a question that you come across that you have no idea what they're asking you. You might have not had one of the answer choices or you might not even know what they're asking you. So don't stress over it. Flag the question, skip it, come back to it later. Many times late on in the exam, there will be something similar or a similar topic or a different question about the same topic that you didn't know here, but you know the answer so that you can come back to that question. So don't spend too much time on something that you don't know, but flag it, skip it and come back to it later. And if you don't know, that's okay. It's just one question. And then over here, use your scratch paper. Most of the time you'll be allowed some scratch paper and a pencil that you can use during the exam. And that is not like a cheat sheet. That should be a blank piece of paper that you bring or that your instructor will provide to you so you can use it to write down things. This is particularly important if you're a visual or a kinesthetic learner. So if you memorize certain things and you want to write those down lab values, for example, or you want to write down A, B, C, D and then go through a checklist. So you have A, B, C, D and as you're reading the question, you write down the keyword here. And then you say, well, it's not A and it's not C. Now it's between B and D and then you can go about a process of elimination and eliminate D and choose your answer B. And this is particularly important if you have a computerized test, because sometimes it's hard to kind of keep track and organize your thoughts if you can't write anything down. I know that's the kind of learner I am. So a scratch paper has helped me tremendously in my nursing school career. And then use your time wisely. Know how much time is allowed per question. Know how much time you typically need to answer one question. And if you are a learner who needs extra time to be successful on an exam, make sure you tell your instructor ahead of time so that they can allow that, but make sure they know ahead of time and not during the exam. That will not benefit you at all. So use your time wisely and know how much time you typically need per question and how much time you are allowed per question. And then this is probably one of the most important ones. Do not change your answer. You might come back to a question that you were between B and D and now you'll go back and now you think, hmm, maybe D is the right one. Don't change your answer. Research has shown that I think it's over 80% of the time. If you change your answer, you'll still be most likely to choose the wrong answer choice. And so you might as well just go with that answer that you had right away, that gut feeling that prompted you to choose that answer and just stick with it and hopefully be successful. This is one of the things that many students that I have counseled in the past, this is the reason why they have not done well on exams because they went back, they doubted themselves and they changed their answer. And then it was incorrect in the first place. So thank you for watching this video on exam day strategies on how to help you remember that the most important parts are no cramming to fuel your brain, take a deep breath to kind of slow down everything and then do not change your answer. And don't worry, good luck and you got this. Thanks for watching Nursing School Explained and I'll see you soon right here on Nursing School Explained at the next video. Thanks so much for watching.