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How to Pass Nursing Exams in Nursing School
Nursing school exams in nursing school are on another level, am I right? These exams are like regular exams on steroids.
Nursing school exams are bullies! They will try to make you cry and steal your lunch money.
However, we don’t have to give in! We can take a stand and overcome these nursing exam bullies.
And I’m going to teach you how.
Follow this 7-step guide and be well on your way to showing your next nursing exam who’s boss. You may even ace your exam if you follow the following 7 steps:
- Get organized
- Use learning objectives to guide your reading
- Read material before going to lecture
- Pay attention in lecture
- Condense notes
- Practice NCLEX questions
- Review material 1-3x/week
Here’s all the information in this post in video form if you would prefer to watch instead of read.
1. Get Organized
The first step to ensure success in nursing school (as well in your nursing career) is to get organized. Getting organized is important while in nursing school because there is so much to keep straight. You will be juggling many balls (although it may feel as though you’re juggling chainsaws), so it is a smart idea to buy a planner or calendar.
You can use a planner or calendar to keep track of required reading, lecture dates, exam dates, upcoming projects and papers, as well as any pertinent clinical rotation requirements.
Find an organization strategy that works best for you that you are able to maintain. Some individuals may need to write out a to-do list for every day while some individuals may be able to just utilize a monthly calendar.
Do whatever you need to do in order to ensure you don’t miss a thing!
Here is a simple monthly and weekly calendar template that I created that you can print out and fill in.
I kept them black and white because I know sometimes colleges restrict color printing. But you could always buy some cute stickers and add them to the pages to spice things up!
Monthly Calendar (Jan-Dec):
Weekly Calendar (Mon-Sun):
2. Use Learning Objectives to Guide your Reading
In nursing school, you will be given access to the learning objectives that have been formulated for each learning module. These objectives will look something like this:
“The student will be able to identify the signs and symptoms of diabetes mellitus type I and II”
There will be a list of these objectives for each topic you are required to read and learn about. They essentially spell out the information you need to pay close attention to while you are reading and studying. These objectives should be your guide while you are studying.
The list of objectives can actually be used like a checklist. Instead of being overwhelmed with having to read 3 chapters for one learning module, you can use the learning objective checklist to make the material seem more digestible.
Often times there is “extra” information in the chapters you are assigned to read. This information is good to know, but it is not necessarily need to know information. If you stick to the learning objectives, you will ensure you are spending your time wisely instead of focusing too much effort on information that you will never be tested on.
3. Read Material Before Going to Lecture
Now that we have covered how to make all the reading a little more digestible, please make sure you read the required material before going to lecture.
Although nursing school is not about memorization, there is great benefit in repetition. The more you hear and read the material the more likely you will be able to remember it.
Read the material before attending lecture and be sure to take good notes (this will prevent you from having to scribble down a lot of information while at lecture). Also, make sure to write down any unanswered questions you may have for your instructor.
You can also check out all the study materials available here on The Nursiversity to aid you in your learning process. You can print out the cheat sheets available for the topic you are studying and put them in your nursing binder to reference later.
4. Pay Attention in Lecture
This is a no-brainer, but it has to be said. Please pay attention in lecture! This is not the time to be surfing Facebook or Instagram; this is the time to ensure you comprehend the information. Your instructors will often give you guidance on the important/need to know information that you are most likely to be tested on.
They may even blatantly tell you (or at least hint) at potential test questions. I know I wouldn’t want to miss that!
Taking notes while in lecture can be tricky, but it will be easier if you completed step 3. The last thing you want to be doing is writing down all the information on each slide. You will want to take note of the highlights of the lecture information to complement the notes you have already completed from your reading.
It is also beneficial to be an active participant in discussions that occur during lecture. I know many individuals do not like group discussions (myself included), but they can be valuable.
5. Condense Notes
Once you have both read the required material + taken notes and attended lecture + taken notes, it is likely you have pages of notes that are somewhat disorganized.
The best strategy before moving forward is to combine and condense those disorganized notes into what I refer to as “master notes”.
These “master notes” should be well organized and include the need to know information. It is a good idea to type up these notes so that it is clean and easy to read. Print out all the pages and voila! You can use these notes for the rest of the semester when you want to review a given topic.
Be sure to also include any of the cheat sheets you download in the binder with your “master notes”. Keeping all your information organized and in one spot will save you a lot of time and frustration.
*Note- It is still a good idea to hold onto your original notes in case you need to reference them at some point. Set them aside in a designated area, so they are easy to find but aren’t cluttering your folders and backpack.
6. Practice NCLEX Questions
Nursing schools are notorious for using NCLEX style questions on their exams to help better prepare their students for the NCLEX. It is for this reason that it is recommended to practice NCLEX style questions. This will allow you to become more accustom to answering this style of test question.
Half of the struggle of passing your nursing exams is learning how to answer NCLEX style questions, so practice as much as you can!
This is also a great way to evaluate your comprehension of a given topic.
There are many different books you can purchase, as well as websites that offer free NCLEX style questions.I used the Saunders Comprehensive Review for the NCLEX-RN when I was in nursing school and I liked that it has a review for each section as well as NCLEX style questions for practice. The organization of books like this one make it easy as opposed to some of the question banks you can find on the internet.
Be sure to read the rationales for each of the answer choices and understand why the correct answer is correct and why the incorrect options are incorrect. This is a great learning tool to take your understanding of the material to the next level.
7. Review Each Topic 1-3/week
Remember those awesome “master notes” you created? Well you are going to want to review these 1-3/week up until your exam (and then periodically up until your final exam). It sounds like a lot considering there will likely be 4-6 topics on each exam, but it will pay off.
I mention this in my post about how to study in nursing school, but on top of learning new material every day, you should also take about an hour or so each day to review and study old content. Unfortunately, we can’t just learn something once and hope to remember it for the rest of the semester.
Remember, repetition is our friend!
Optional (but recommended):
Subscribe to The Nursiversity
The Nursiversity is dedicated to providing high-quality nursing content to make passing nursing exams a breeze. New content is added weekly in an effort to provide supplemental resources for all the topics covered in nursing school.
Subscribe to The Nursiversity newsletter and YouTube channel to ensure you have quick access to existing content and to get notified when new content is uploaded.
Optional:
Join a Study Group
This step is listed as optional because study groups are not for everyone (myself included).
However, there can be great benefits for individuals who enjoy and thrive in study groups. My biggest recommendation is to make sure you have read the material before attending a study group.
For starters, you will simply get more out of the study session if you can contribute to the discussion. Secondly, study groups are notorious for turning into socializing sessions. That is not inherently a bad thing, but it can be troublesome if you were relying on that time for learning a new topic.
Study groups should always be viewed as supplemental to the studying that you do on your own. I cannot think of many instances in which an individual should rely on study groups as a main source of study time.
I really hope you found some useful information in this post and can put these recommendations into practice.
This is the general guideline that I used to ace many nursing school exams and I genuinely believe that you can do the same!
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to me. I would love to hear from you.
Happy Nursing!