In this instructional video, the presenter shares practical strategies to improve nursing school exam performance. The core advice is to master medication class endings, allowing students to infer drug actions, side effects, and patient education without memorizing each drug individually. The speaker demonstrates this with beta‑blocker examples, emphasizing the time‑saving benefit. The video then shifts to critical thinking, defining it as two components: (1) connecting the dots among pathophysiology, signs and symptoms, nursing assessments, and interventions; and (2) planning ahead by anticipating patient needs and prioritizing actions, especially in exam scenarios that test priority setting. The presenter provides a step‑by‑step study framework that incorporates these components. Additionally, the video promotes a free medication‑ending cheat sheet and a paid Nursing SOS membership that offers a comprehensive medication database and deeper critical‑thinking training. The content concludes with typical YouTube calls to action.
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If you want to get better grades or maybe you've even failed an exam before, this video is for you. I am giving you my best tips for how to pass your nursing school exam. So if you want to raise your grades in nursing school, hit that subscribe button and click the notification bell and let's dive in. The first thing that will be on every single nursing school exam is medications. You will pretty much always be tested on how well you understand pharm. And on every exam, there's bound to be at least a handful of medications that you had to learn that you will be tested on on that test, 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 and we do not want that to happen, right? But friend, I wouldn't leave you hanging on this one. So here's my number one tip for you. Learn the endings of the most common medication classes. Now, you might be thinking, well, what is a medication class? A medication class is a group of medications that do roughly the same thing. They act similar in the body, their side effects are similar, and what you will assess for for them is similar. So learning the classes makes it way easier to remember all of them rather than just wasting time memorizing them individually. So by learning the pharmacological or the therapeutic class, you will cut down your study time and help you out. So so much with learning medications when they show up on your exams in nursing school, right? So you're able to work through what the medication does because you know what that pharmacological class or the therapeutic class does and is. So as you are studying your list of medications, the first thing that you should do is then categorize them by class that they are in, not learning them individually. So let's break this down into really quick examples so that you can see really what I'm talking about here. So, so let's say that you're learning about hypertension and you have a list of medications that include metoprolol, labetalol, propranolol, carvedilol, and bezoprolol. Now, first, what is the one thing that all of these have in common? Right. Yes, the olal at the end of them. They all belong to the same class of medications called beta blockers. So instead of learning all five of those medications individually, let's learn the mechanism of action for beta Blockers as a class. So what do beta blockers do? Well, they block the beta receptor sites. There are beta 1 receptors in the heart. And when those beta 1 receptors are stimulated, then the heart contracts more and it beats faster and harder. But then when these are blocked by the beta blockers, that blood pressure and the heart rate both decrease. So now we know that the beta blockers are going to cause the heart rate and the blood pressure to decrease. It blocks those beta receptors. So now you can critically think through any nursing school question on a beta blocker because it has that medication ending the Oll in it. So now you know what a beta blocker does, you can more critically think through it so you'll be more confident when working through medications on your exams. But also it's going to save you a ton of time studying. That's why we want to cut down our study time to learning five different medications, essentially learning one that class of medication instead of all five. So it's really a game changer for you. Now I have another super helpful cheat sheet for you to help you get started with learning the medication endings too. And it' so that way you can take it with you to clinical have it with you as you study all the time. So the link is down below in the description for you to download that free cheat sheet. And if you need more help learning pharmacology and all of the medications that you need to know for nursing school, if you want to learn them faster, don't miss out on joining the nursing SOS membership community the next time enrollment opens because we have a complete nursing school medication database for you with over 120 medications that we walk you through step by step and exactly what you need to know about them. So be sure to hit the link down in the description to check out all the details on the Nursing SS membership community. So now I know what you're going to think when I tell you this tip. Stay with me. When you are studying, you will need to study so that you can actually critically think. Now, what does critical thinking mean? Let's break it down so that you know exactly how you can do this and how this tip will really change everything for you as you study. Now, of course, nursing school exams are always going to test you on how well you critically think. And think like a nurse, right? We've all heard that phrase. How many times have you heard the phrase think like a nurse, right? A thousand. You will never see a nursing school exam question ask you about what are the signs and symptoms of a disorder no, they're going to ask you instead how to apply what you have learned and critically think about those signs and symptoms, not just the list, but what does critical thinking actually mean? So let's break it down. There's two key parts to critical thinking in nursing school. Connecting the dots between everything that you're learning and then planning ahead. So let's start with connecting the dots. So thinking about what you are learning when you're at nursing school clinicals, or when you're writing a care plan or a paper on your patient, or what you're learning about in class, and understanding the disease process and the disorders their patient is facing. And you're able to tie them all together and really connect. Connect the dots between the things. So what you'll assess for, the interventions that should be done to help your patient, the medications you're going to give, and then the patient education that you'll need to do, connect it all together to the pathophysiology. Now, how do we do this when we are studying? Right. So the four things that I always recommend that you study is the pathophysiology, the signs and symptoms, the nursing assessment, and the nursing interventions for everything, all the disorders that you have to know in nursing school that is going to help you apply your learning so that you can figure out how the disorder relates to the other health issues that your patient has, decide what you need to assess for and figure out what nursing interventions should or shouldn't be done for your patient. So by doing this, you will understand the disease process of your patient, the path of physiology, understand how that disease process is causing those signs and symptoms that they're showing, how it connects to what you will assess for and then what nursing interventions you can expect to do for them. So connecting all the dots between all of those things, putting it all together, this is going to help you with the second part of critical thinking, that planning ahead so that you can best provide the best care possible for your patient. So planning ahead is a little more thinking about what you are going to do at clinical. So it pretty much means, like it sounds, right? You're planning and the next thing for your patients to help set them up for a positive outcome. You're always thinking about your next move as a nurse. So if you are going into a patient's room, for example, what are you going to do? Do they need water or an extra gown? What supplies do you need to bring in there? What are you going to do when you are actually in the room? You've got to have Your plan down. Planning ahead also applies to your nursing school exams too though. So thinking ahead for your patients. So say you get a question where your patient is showing signs of edema, complaining of shortness of breath, and maybe saying that they haven't taking their diuretics as often as they are supposed to as it's prescribed. So the question asks you, what would you do first? So this would be a priority question. Now with these types of questions, they want you to think ahead and plan ahead. So what is the biggest risk to the patient's health? So think the ABC's airway breathing circulation. So with this question we would be thinking, okay, these symptoms are all pointing toward flu, fluid volume overload, and the patient is complaining of shortness of breath. So I'm going to be worried more about their respiratory status. And then you would answer that question with all that in mind. So do you see kind of how planning ahead and thinking about what your patients needs are, what might come up with them in the future, can really help you out here? Right. So this is the second part of critical thinking. You always need to be one step ahead and know what you are going to do next. Planning for what could happen with your patients and then taking steps to monitor or avoid any negative outcomes or complications. Now we talk a ton about critical thinking inside the nursing SOS membership community. So we never give you a list of things just to memorize. No way. That is not helpful for you, right? So we walk you through the why behind everything that you're learning so you can actually critically think about it and be more prepared for your nursing school exams. So enrollment opens a few times a year so definitely don't miss out on joining the next time enrollment is open. You are going to love, love, love it. So the link is down below in the description for you to check out all the details. And my friend, if you like this video, hit that like button. Leave a comment below to let me know that you loved it. Share it with your friends and of course click that subscribe button and hit the notification bell so you never miss a video. Click on one of these videos right over here so you can keep rocking nursing school and as always go become the nurse that God created only you to be. And I'll see you next time on the Nursing School show. Take care. Bye bye.
