Do Practice Questions

Studying/Testing
HESI/NCLEX

Those HESI/NLCEX/Nursing school questions are like no other questions you have ever seen before. You have to practice, practice, practice. You have to learn to think and reason. There are some strategies for taking these tests. Here a re a few tips I have picked up along the years from various teachers.

1. If two answers same the opposite, one of them is probably right
2. If two answers say basically the same thing, they are both probably wrong
3. Try not to 'call the physician' until you've tried something, unless it's really obvious that you need to call the doctor.
4. "When in distress do not assess."
5. UAPs do not drink TEA- they do not teach, evaluate or assess. 
6. Watch for words like 'first', 'priority'
7. Remember ABC and TABC for a newborn (temperature)
8. Remember physiological trumps psychosocial
9. Safety is priority
10. If you get a 'third party' report you need to assess
11. look at Expected versus unexpected outcomes
12. Assess the patient that is most likely to die first
13. Delegate the patient that is least likely to die
14. Pay attention to numbers-lab values, age, vital signs
15. Pay attention to times- 'one hour post-operatively', 'ten days later'
16. Is the question negative or positive?
17. Assess readiness to learn
18. Watch for compounding effects of drugs and treatments
19. I, Pa, Pe, A for all assessments except abdomen which is -I A Pe Pa
20. Do not take away coping/defense mechanisms
21. Document an expected finding, act on a non-expected finding
22. Use the least invasive approach- do not compound the problem.
23. NCLEX loves diet questions
24. A client who needs a scheduled drug, even if it is the first dose is probably stable
25. NCLEX loves therapeutic communication