In this instructional YouTube video, the presenter outlines three core areas that appear on virtually every nursing school exam and offers concrete strategies to master them. First, she emphasizes dosage (med‑math) calculations, urging students to abandon memorized formulas in favor of dimensional analysis and a six‑step, practice‑driven process, supplemented by a downloadable Dose Calc box containing workbooks and flashcards. Second, she tackles pharmacology, recommending that learners focus on medication class suffixes (e.g., –artin for ARBs) to quickly recognize drug actions, side effects, and assessments, and provides a free pharmacology cheat sheet and a Pharmacology box with flashcards. Third, she explains critical thinking as the ability to connect pathophysiology, assessment findings, interventions, medication administration, and patient education, urging students to “connect the dots” across all concepts when answering exam questions. Throughout, she promotes additional paid resources (Nursing SOS Membership, nursing school boxes) and standard YouTube calls‑to‑action. The video aims to boost confidence and exam performance by delivering actionable study methods and resource recommendations.
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What are the three things that you need to know for every nursing exam? Seriously? You will be tested on these three things every single time. And after you watch this video, you'll be a lot more confident for your nursing school exams because you'll know what's coming and how to answer the questions better. I have a lot of great tips to share with you in this video, so be sure to stay until the end so you don't miss any of them. Now hit that subscribe button and click the notification bell and let's dive in. The first thing that will show up on every one of your nursing school exams, you've probably already noticed this by now, is dosage calculation questions. Or some schools call them med math questions. This is where you'll get a math question and you need to calculate how much of a medication you would give to a patient or something to that effect. And like we just talked about in this video, you'll have a dosage calculations exam before every term in nursing school. But not only that, there will also be dose calc questions on each of your exams, including the nclex. Yikes. So it's super important that you understand dose calc and understand it well. Now the key thing to know for dose Calc is to always use dimensional analysis to solve the math problems. So many nursing students try to use different formula methods but ultimately end up getting stuck. Stuck because they either use the wrong formula or the question is too complex for the formula to actually work. That's why I always recommend that you use dimensional analysis. Throw away your formulas please. Don't worry. I have a simple six step process that walks you through how to ace dose calc step by step using of course, dimensional analysis. And it's foolproof. When you follow these steps, you will get every single dose calc question right? I outline it all in this video right here for you. It's going to help you so much. Now you'll also want to check out our Dose Calc Nursing school box that has a full workbook, flashcards and other goodies for you to help you become a master at dose Calc. Now the link is down below for you to check that out. And really, doscalc is all about practice. The more practice you get answering dose Calc questions, the more confident you will become. Just follow our six step process, do the practice questions in the workbook from the Dose Calc box, do any practice questions that your school gives you and just practice, practice, practice. The more practice you get, the more confident you'll become and you will pass. Now, the second thing that will be on every single exam is, of course, medications. You'll pretty much be tested all the time on how well you understand pharm on most of your exams. If not every exam, you'll get a question about a particular medication, what it does, how to give it, or how to educate your patient on it. But if you're not familiar with that medication, then you're kind of out of luck, right? So here's my number one tip for you. Learn the endings of the most common medication classes. A med class is a group of medications that do roughly the same same thing. They act similar in the body, their side effects are similar, and what you will assess for is similar. So learning the classes makes it way easier to remember all of them rather than just wasting time memorizing them individually. So as you're studying your list of medications, the first thing you should do is to categorize them by class, not individually. So for example, if you need to study both Losartan and Valsartan, you can look up the medication classes that they belong to and you'll find that both of them are angiotensin II receptor blockers. That's their medication class. Now you know that by the ending of their name, Artin, Losartan, Valsartan. Meds that end in artin are angiotensin 2 receptor blockers or ARPs. Now this makes it way easier to study because all medications in the same class act similar. They have similar side effects and have similar things that you'll assess for. Now I have a free pharmacology cheat sheet for you with these medications endings. Now that way you can take it with you to clinical. You can have it with you all the time. Now the link is down below in the description for you to download that and if you need more help learning pharmacology and all of those meds faster, download. Do not miss out on the nursing school pharmacology box that we have for you. It has a full farm guide, flashcards and other goodies to help you learn your meds faster and easier. Way easier. It's gonna help you so much. Now the link for that is down below in the description for you to check out all the details. Now, of course, nursing school exams are always going to test you on how well you critically think and think like a nurse. How many times have you heard that phrase phrase? Right, Think like a nurse or critically think. But what does critically think actually mean? Let's talk about it. The biggest part of critical thinking is connecting the dots between everything that you're learning, connecting the dots that when what you're learning in nursing school clinicals, you're writing in your care plan or on a paper on your patient that you understand the disease processes and disorders that your patient is facing and you're able to tie them all together and connect the dots with things like what you need to assess for, the interventions that should be done to help them, the medications that you'll need to give, and the patient education that you'll need to do and the patho behind it all. Critical thinking in nursing just goes way beyond learning about disorders like heart failure, COPD or stroke and all those other med surg disorders. You'll need to understand all of that stuff, sure. But critical thinking in nursing takes it a step forward. Further, you need to apply that knowledge to your patient and figure out how that disorder relates to the other health issues that they have and decide what you need to assess for to figure out what interventions should or shouldn't be done, what education needs to happen, all those things. So when you're taking your nursing school exams, be sure that you're always connecting the dots between all the concepts that you're learning and thinking through through the pathophysiology, the signs and symptoms, the nursing assessment and the nursing interventions for everything. Now remember, there are three ways that I can help you more through nursing school. Download this free pharmacology cheat sheet that will help you learn all of it faster. Now don't miss that and be sure to check out our nursing school boxes that we have available for you. They are loaded with resources to help you succeed in nursing school. You are going to love them. And of course, if you want me to hold your hand through nursing school through throughout your nursing school journey, you know I'm here for that. Don't miss out on joining the Nursing SOS Membership community. It's filled with step by step nursing school lectures to help you understand everything faster so you'll be more prepared for your nursing school exams. Now the links to all of those things are in the description box below. And if you liked this video, be sure to hit that like button. Leave a comment below to let me know that you loved it. Share it with one of your nursing school and of course click subscribe and hit that notification bell so you never miss a video. And click on one of these videos right over here so you can keep rocking nursing school and go become the nurse that God created only you to be. And I'll catch you next time on the Nursing school show. Take care, friend. Bye bye.
