What Are the Best NCLEX® Tips?

There are many tips for passing the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX®), but among the most helpful may be those that recommend not only committing plenty of time to review before taking the test, but also testing before a good deal of time passes after completing nurse education. A nurse candidate may also find tips involving normal lab values and the Five Rights of Medication Administration important. Tips that involve the importance of patient safety may prove helpful as well.

Among the best NCLEX® tips are those that recommend taking plenty of time to review the material learned in nursing school but not so much time that the test taker no longer has the information fresh in his mind. Taking the exam without spending significant time on review and studying may unnecessarily hurt his chances of performing well; on the other hand, many experts recommend taking the nurse license exam soon enough after completing nurse education that the test taker can easily recall most of what he has learned.

As far as answering the questions on the exam is concerned, many good NCLEX® tips recommend having a solid grasp of normal values for lab and various other tests. Knowing these normal values, often referred to as normals, may prove helpful for determining how to answer questions on the exam, especially those that involve determining whether or not there is a problem with a patient. Understanding these values may also help an individual when he becomes a nurse and provides patient care.

A person may also find NCLEX® tips that involve patient safety helpful. In each question he answers, no matter what the subject, it will typically prove important to keep patient safety in mind. He may also have to answer some questions that are entirely focused on patient safety. Additionally, it is crucial to keep patient safety at the top of his list of priorities once he passes the nurse licensing exam and finds a job as a nurse.

Many NCLEX® tips also focus on the need to provide textbook answers. This means it is usually important to provide the answer the test taker would most likely have found in a textbook during his nurse education. He may be tempted to answer based on information learned during clinical rotations, but this is generally a poor choice. The exam is designed to consider textbook-type answers correct rather than answers based on information gained through real-world experience.

An aspiring nurse may also find NCLEX® tips regarding the Five Rights of Medication Administration critical to his success on the exam. These rights will likely influence his answers on the test as well as his care of future patients. The Five Rights of Medication Administration involve making sure the nurse has the following: the right medication, dosage, timing, method of administration, and patient. Remembering these concepts may not only help an aspiring nurse pass the nurse licensing exam, but may also help him to avoid harming a patient in the future.