General Test Taking Skills for NCLEX-RN

Mark Klimick, a registered nurse, discusses general test-taking skills for the NCLEX-RN licensure examination.

Knowledge First: Use your nursing knowledge, principles, and content understanding gained from previous study sessions.
Common Sense Second: If knowledge doesn't suffice, apply common sense.
Strategies Last: Only when knowledge and common sense fail, use the test-taking strategies discussed.
Warning: Avoid relying solely on test-taking strategies from the outset, as it can lead to misinterpretation and incorrect answers.

Nurse's Feelings: If unsure, select answers where the nurse examines their own feelings.
- Rationale: Nurses must understand their feelings to prevent counter-transference (e.g., inappropriate feelings toward the patient).
Trust Relationship: If examining feelings is not an option, choose answers that emphasize establishing a trust relationship.
- Rationale: The nurse-patient relationship, especially in psych, relies on trust.

Chicken/Fish: When uncertain about meal choices, select chicken or fish.
Children's Food:
- Avoid casseroles, soups, and stews for children.
  - Rationale: Children prefer visually distinct foods.
- Do not mix medication with children's food.
  - Rationale: It can create aversion to food.
Toddlers:
- Offer finger foods.
  - Rationale: Toddlers like to eat on the go.
Preschoolers:
- Emphasize one bite of everything on the plate, but don't force them to finish everything.
- Growth rate slows, so caloric needs decrease; picky eating is common.
- Not going to starve themselves.
Infants: $doubles birth weight at 6 months and triples it in a year$
Toddler: $reaches half their adult height in toddlerhood$

Side Effects: Focus on memorizing side effects rather than dosages.
- Side effects are frequently tested.
Knowing the Drug's Action:
- If you know what a drug does but not its side effects, choose a side effect that affects the same body system.
- Example:
  - Heart Drug: Tachycardia (cardiovascular system).
  - GI Drug: Diarrhea (gastrointestinal system).
  - CNS Depressant: Dizziness (central nervous system).
Unknown Drug:
- If you have no idea what the drug is, and it's administered by mouth (PO) ALWAYS pick GI side effects.
  - Rationale: All PO drugs cause GI side effects.
Medication and Children:
- Never tell a child that medicine is candy.
  - Rationale: Prevents accidental overdose.

First Assessment (if unsure): Assess LOC (level of consciousness).
First Action (if unsure): Manage the airway.
Basic Life Support (BLS) / Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) / Resuscitation: Follow CAB (Circulation, Airway, Breathing).

Principle: Always give the child more time.
- Don't rush growth and development.
Rule 1: When in doubt, call it normal.
- If unsure whether a behavior or milestone is normal, assume it is.
- Example:
  - Six-year-old who cannot read: could be normal
Rule 2: If it looks abnormal, call it abnormal
- Example:
  - 14 year old boy is not potty trained: call it abnormal