POWERFUL HACKS to Pass Your Nursing Exams

I know what you're thinking. How in the world do I answer these nclex style questions correctly when every answer seems correct? Seriously, tell me about a friend. Been there, done that. I get it. Nclex questions are tough, but there are some super powerful hacks that you can use to choose the most correct answer even if you're not 100% sure what that is. We're also going to go through some practice questions just to make it fun. Let's, let's do it. Let's start off by going through the types of questions that have an umbrella answer. Now an umbrella answer is one where there is an answer that contains pieces of other answers. See umbrella. It covers more than one answer. It's usually one of the longer answers and it contains parts or pieces of one or two of the other answers. Now this answer is usually the correct one. Now you may be thinking, but Christina, the questions always seem to have more than one. How do I pick the one that covers them all? Well, friend, let's break this down and go through an example practice problem for you. Now this is not necessarily a true nclex style question, but it is really simple example to walk through how you would use this umbrella answer approach. So for example, if you get a test question on a subject which vital signs you would assess for a patient with a patient with asthma, maybe it may look like this. This. Now you would want to go with the umbrella answer of respiratory rate and heart rate since it includes a piece of another answer and combines the two things that you would be assessing for in a patient with shortness of breath. Now you know that you will want to assess the patient's respiratory rate and then most likely you would want to assess their heart rate as well to see if that is a contributing to that exasperation. So you would, you would answer that umbrella answer that combined those two things together. That's what you would want to assess for. So when you are taking your exams, keep an eye out for this umbrella answer. It looks like this contains pieces of the other answers. Now most of the time this one will be the correct answer. So try it out next time you're practicing your nclex style questions. See how it works for you. Now the second type of question that we get so many, there's like so many questions about our SATA questions. Select all that apply. Right, the dreaded SATA questions. These are becoming more and more popular and they are some of the hardest ones that you'll see on your nursing school exams and of course on the nclex as well. Now these are of course the ones where you'll see a checkbox next to each answer instead of a circle and it will allow you to select multiple answers. So yes, there are actually multiple correct answers on these and you have to decide which ones are most correct and which ones are just almost correct. Now with SATA questions, in order to get the question correct, you need to select all of the correct answers. So here's the exact strategy I use for SATA questions and I recommend it for all of our students. Seriously helps so much with selecting those select all that apply questions answers correctly. So here's the best strategy I found with this look at every individual answer and treat it as if it were a true or false question. So what does this mean? Go back through after you've read the question. So read the question. Read the question again and then look at the first answer and ask yourself is it true or false as it relates to that question being asked. And then if you decide that it's correct or not, you will do this for every answer individually on its own merit. Select them as true or false questions as they relate to the question itself. Now, important thing to note here is that you must treat every answer individually. Some answers might be very similar, and that's okay. You can select both of them if you think they are both correct, even though they're basically saying the same thing. As long as you are approaching each option as an individual answer and not comparing them to all the other answers, this will work. Now let's walk through an example so you can see how it is actually done with an exam question. So as you are helping one of your patients, your other patient is calling out asking for assistance, ambulating before they are discharged this afternoon, which would be an appropriate task for you to delegate to the nurse's assistant. Select all that apply. Are you ready for this? Check in on the patient. Change the surgical dressing that is falling off. Help the patient ambulate in the hallway again this morning. Empty the patient's drains and record output and get the patient the Tylenol they are requesting. Now let's go through and read that question again. So take a look at the question and look at each answer and think of it as if it's a true or false question. So check in on the patient. True. Change the surgical dressing that is falling off. False. This isn't within the nurses Nurse assistant scope of practice. Right? Then help the patient ambulate and the hallway again this morning. That one's true, right? Empty the Patient's drains and record the output. Good thing to do, get the patient the Tylenol they're requesting now. False. This is not within the scope of practice of the nursing assistant. So you see how this works. So our answers would be all that we said were true, A, C and D. Right. At first glance this might seem a little overwhelming, but when we break each answer down individually on its own merit, it is way more manageable. So, so remember, with any SATA question, treat each individual answer as true or false as it relates to the question. Break it down, go step by step. You can do this. Now, since we're talking about all of these tips to help you work through nclex style questions, I also have a super helpful cheat sheet that walks you through some of the amazing study tips to help you learn things faster in nursing school when with way less stress. That way you'll be more prepared. Knowing what to study in nursing school for your next exam and then how to answer NCLEX questions on your exam because you'll know what to study. It's called the Nursing School Study Checklist and it's free, totally free for you. I'm going to put the link down in the description below for you to check that out. Matthew always makes fun of me when I do my fingers like this, so I'm just going to throw this in there for you, Matthew. Alrighty. Now onto our next type of NCLEX style question, priority questions. Now these are the types of questions that you get asked what you would do first, which is more acute or more of a priority for you. They are really testing your critical thinking skills and they're looking to make sure that you know these three main principles. Okay, you ready for this? These are the three main principles that you have to know when answering priority questions in nursing school exams. Okay? The nursing process, the ABCs and Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So let's break those down. We're going to walk through it for you step by step so that you can actually understand them and be able to apply it on your next exam. We'll start with the nursing process or add pie. So assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation and evaluation. So the nursing assessment really has two main components and this is your top priority. The first one is collecting data, meaning taking vital signs, getting the patient's history, asking them questions about their lifestyle, performing a head to toe assessment or a focused nursing assessment. Then the second part of assessing your patient is critical thinking. So as you are performing that nursing assessment, you are taking their vital signs. You're asking the patient questions and you're doing your focused assessment or your head to toe assessment. You are constantly thinking about what could be going on with your patient and what you need to assess further. So this is critical thinking in nursing. You're always on, you are always noticing slight changes in the patient, how they respond to questions, and really being aware of if just something feels off as you do your assessment. Now your assessment is your number one priority. Right? Then the nursing diagnosis. The nursing diagnosis revolves around the patient's response to what is happening with them, not necessarily the medical condition itself. Now, it's important to note that nursing diagnoses are actually standardized. There is an organization called the North American Nursing Diagnosis association or Nanda International or nadi, and they have made a whole list of standardized nursing diagnoses that you can use. So this actually makes it way easier for you because all you need to do is just go down that list and choose one, which is super helpful. And now the P stands for planning. So planning just means that you're figuring out the game plan for how your patient's going to achieve their goals. So these are really the interventions that you're going to do to make these goals happen. You're basically planning your nursing interventions for your patient. Then in the implementation phase, you are simply doing the interventions that you came up with. In the planning phase, you're executing your planned interventions, the actions, you're making it all happen. And after all of that, you will evaluate if the patient met their goals or not and what needs to be changed in order to help them meet their goals. Goals or what new goals should be created. This is basically an assessment all over again. You are always evaluating your patient's progress, where they are in their recovery journey, and what needs to be changed or done in the previous steps to help them meet their goals. So keep the nursing process in mind as you are answering priority questions, because you always start with the assessment and then work up from there. So make sure that the assessment is your top priority. Okay? If a nursing exam asks you what your priority should be, you should think assessment first. Now, the next principle is airway breathing, circulation. Airway breathing, circulation. The ABCs make sure your patient's airway is clear, they are breathing, and that their blood is circulating. Now, if one of those things is not happening in the exam question they give you, that is what you need to fix, right? Like, if one of those things does not happen, happening is no good. Game over. Right? So if you're. If an NCLEX question says your Patient's having trouble breathing, you know that the answer that you need to fix, right? So identifying the ABCs and recognizing that the answer should align with those, that's your priority. That is key here. Now, the last thing that will help you with priority questions, this last principle is a Maslow's hierarchy of needs. This probably feels like critical thinking a little bit here. So Maslow's hierarchy of needs might be something that you've heard about over and over again, right? But maybe you don't really understand how it is applied and put into practice. I know I didn't when I in nursing school, but this is a really big deal. You'll notice, you'll use it a lot more than you think. This is Maslow's hierarchy of needs in order right here. This actually makes it really easy to follow because they are already listed in order of priority. This hierarchy means that you will need to solve a patient's physiological needs first before you focus on their other needs. Where you go up the tier or up the pyramid, I guess, to love and belong and self esteem, self actualization. So what is a physiological need? A physiological need includes things like making sure that your patient can breathe, that their blood is circulating, you know, their airways clear. Those ABCs, we already talked about that with the ABCs. Those are going to be your highest priority to make sure that your patient's physiological needs are taken care of. Then we move on to safety and security needs. Things like making sure their IV tubing is out of the way and they can't trip on it. Making sure their bed is on the lowest position and they have their call light. This. This also refers to things like being financially secure and then having secure relationships in their life. But we are of course much more concerned about the ABCs than we are those things. Right? And then love and belonging. Make sure a patient's connectedness with others is healthy, that they have people that care about them. Right. Then self esteem tier is that they have confidence in themselves and their abilities and they believe in themselves. They have a sense of accomplishment in their lives. And then self actualization, the highest part, means that they are are achieving their full potential and they're striving to always become better. Now, the first two tiers are the ones that you'll focus on the most physiological needs, right? Those ABCs and then safety needs. If you find possible answers that are lower down in the hierarchy and falling into the category of self esteem or self actualization, chances are those are not the correct answer for that priority question. You want to solve those physiological needs and the safety needs first. And as you know, the NCLEX is going to test you a ton on pharmacology, and I have a bunch of tips to help you with that. So click on this video right here to get the best hacks for learning pharmacology faster. And go become the nurse that God created only you to be, and I'll see you over there in that video.