NCLEX Simplified

Well, that's a great question. It's truly an interesting idea. The NCSBN realizes how traumatizing and anxiety-producing their exam is so they decided to capitalize it and make some money out of it! I've been ignoring it, but their latest In Focus Winter 2019 News bulletin showed up in my email and I decided to take a closer look. Here's the gist of it. To the tune of $150, you can earn the privilege of taking 2 NCLEX-style exams of 125 questions each. You may not pause these tests once they have began. It sounds as if they might reluctantly reset an exam in case of technical failure, but only after begging. And there is the standard limit of 5 hours for NCLEX-PN and 6 hours for NCLEX-RN, respectively. The NCSBN claims to have been developing these exams over the course of four years in order to create a test-like scenario. I'm not sure why it took them that long because their concept is kind of a rip-off. Why? Ha. Let's take a look. 1. You can't r

The nurse has attended a staff development conference on cultural considerations for clients receiving hospice care. Which of the following statements if made by the nurse would require follow-up? ❍ A. The family of a client of the Buddhist faith may ask for a priest to be present at the time of death. ❍ B. The family of a client of the Jewish faith may request to have mirrors covered after the death of the client. ❍ C. The family of a client of the Islamic faith may request that the body of the client be turned prone at the time of the client's death. ❍ D. The family of a client of the Hindu faith prefers client receiving hospice care to return home as their time of death approaches. Maybe you thought that all those nursing questions regarding cultural awareness during care were just for nursing school? Think again. The only change to the NCLEX this April 2019 is a slight increase of culture-related questions. You need to be up on what religions want which practices and

In April of this year (2019), the new NCLEX-RN test plan will go into effect. And, though it includes a firmer emphasis on cultural and spiritual questions.... that's about it. NCLEX Mastery , along with other sources, have told the Internet and your frantic Google searches to please relax . You won't have to study too much harder just yet. The NCLEX is not any harder than it was last year. Details: 1. The NCSBN, aka the people in charge of the NCLEX, re-evaluated this past December and found that they would uphold the current passing standard . That means that for right now, the NCLEX will NOT be getting any harder. In other words, if you passed with a "test score" of 70% before, you will still pass with a test score of 70%. They're not making it any harder. 2. This passing standard will remain in effect until March 31, 2022. So you have until then to get your life together and pass this darn test once and for all. How to do that? I'm glad you asked!

Just say NO.  I get it, I get it. I know what you're thinking. Of course I wouldn't approve of using Saunders to study for NCLEX, because I only want you to use my book, right? I mean, sure. I do want you to use my book! It's my baby I created to make NCLEX studying easier and I truly believe that I have created something special. But that doesn't mean that Saunders doesn't suck when you are trying to review for NCLEX. I often recommend students supplement my book and method, NCLEX Simplified , with a solid question resource such as Lippincott or Uworld (neither of which were created by me). I would never, however, recommend Saunders for questions or content review. Why? Oh, do let me count the ways... Problem #1: It's too long. Way too freakin' long. If you're reviewing for NCLEX, we can assume you've graduated or that you're about to graduate nursing school. You don't need to now go back and re-study nursing school . What y

The Next Generation NCLEX (NGN) project has been going on for quite a while now. It's sought to determine if its questions really test what new nurses need to know when they enter their practice for the first time. Currently, only 20% of employers felt that new nurses are empowered with the knowledge to make critical clinical decisions - and that can account for some of the high error rate of new nurses (50% in the first year of practice!), low confidence to advocate for patients, and high turnover in hospital staffing. In an effort to do better, NCLEX is considering some drastic changes, and I don't mean to be inflammatory here, but you should be afraid. You should be very afraid. As technology has improved and the price of it has fallen, the NCSBN has considered using it to greatly enhance questions. And I don't just mean new drag-and-drop scenarios. I'm talking playing through clinical scenarios like a video game where you need to make the right choices . Or els

The holidays make it harder than ever to get in a solid amount of studying. Some of you may be traveling or hosting family. Others may simply need the extra holiday dollars at work and have bitten off more shifts than they can chew. I myself have fallen behind on updating this blog due to traveling! The solution is simple: when time is not easy to find, you have to make it. How can you make time around the holidays? Here's a few tips. 1. Don't sleep or play games on the plane- study! An airplane is one of my favorite places to get work done. You have a nice constant drone in the background, access to a bathroom or beverages should you need it, and nothing better to do. If your seatmates distract you, put some headphones in and get to work. No excuse. This same advice can be applied to a car as well. If you get sick while reading or looking down in a car, change your study source to something that's pure audio. 2. At a relatives' house, get up early. You are most