NCLEX-RN® Content Review Guide
Chapter 1
1
3
The NCLEX-RN® Examination
Have you talked to graduate nurses about their experiences taking the NCLEXRN® exam? They probably told you that the test wasn’t like any
...
NCLEX-RN® Content Review Guide
Chapter 1
1
3
The NCLEX-RN® Examination
Have you talked to graduate nurses about their experiences taking the NCLEXRN® exam? They probably told you that the test wasn’t like any nursing test they
had ever taken. How can that be? The NCLEX-RN® exam is primarily multiplechoice test questions, and as a nursing student you are used to taking multiplechoice tests. In fact, you’ve taken so many tests by the time you graduate from
nursing school that you probably believe there can’t be any surprises on a
nursing test. Yet there is one more surprise waiting for you, and it is called the
NCLEX-RN® exam.
The NCLEX-RN® exam is similar to other standardized exams in some ways, yet
different in others:
● The NCLEX-RN® exam is written by nurse specialists who are experts in
a content area of nursing.
● All content is selected to allow the beginning practitioner to prove
minimum competency on all areas of the test plan.
● NCLEX-RN® questions are written at 4 different levels based on Bloom's
Taxonomy for the Cognitive Domain: knowledge, understanding,
application, and analysis.
● Minimum competency questions are most frequently asked at the
application level, not the knowledge level. All the responses to a
question are similar in length and subject matter and are grammatically
correct.
● All test items have been extensively tested. National Council knows that
the questions are valid; all correct responses are documented in two
different sources.
What does this mean for you?
● National Council defines what is minimum-competency, entry-level
nursing.
● Questions and answers are written in such a way that you will not be
able to predict or recognize the correct answer.
● National Council is knowledgeable about the strategies regarding length
of answers, grammar, etc. They make sure you can’t use these strategies
to select correct answers. English majors have no advantage!
THE NCLEX-RN®
EXAMINATION UNIT I THE NCLEX-RN® EXAMINATION
CH. 1
THE NCLEX-RN®
EXAMINATION
4
● The answer choices have been extensively tested. The people who write
the test questions make the incorrect answer choices look attractive to
the unwary test-taker.
What Behaviors Does the NCLEX-RN® Examination Test?
The NCLEX-RN® exam does not just test your body of nursing knowledge;
it assumes you have a body of knowledge because you have graduated from
nursing school. Likewise, it does not just test your understanding of the material;
it assumes you understand the nursing knowledge you learned in nursing school.
So what does this exam test?
The NCLEX-RN® exam primarily tests your nursing judgment and discretion. It
tests your ability to think critically and solve problems. The test writers recognize
that as a beginning practitioner, you will be managing LPNs/LVNs and nursing
assistants to provide care to a group of clients. As the leader of the nursing team,
you are expected to make safe and competent judgments about client care.
Critical Thinking and Clinical Judgment
What does the term critical thinking mean? Critical thinking is problem solving
that involves thinking creatively.
Using clinical judgment, you successfully solve problems every day in the clinical
area. You are probably comfortable with this concept when actually caring for
clients. Although you’ve had lots of practice critically thinking in the clinical area,
you may have had less practice thinking critically and using clinical judgment on
test questions. Why is that?
During nursing school, you take exams developed by nursing instructors to test
a specific body of content. Many of these questions are at the knowledge level.
This involves recognition and recall of ideas or material that you read in your
nursing textbooks and discussed in class. This is the most basic level of testing.
In nursing school, you are also given test questions written at the comprehension
level. These questions require you to understand the meaning of the material. If
you are answering minimum competency questions on the NCLEX-RN® exam,
you will not see many comprehension-level questions. The test writers assume
you know and understand the facts you learned in nursing school.
Minimum competency questions on the NCLEX-RN® exam are written at the
application and/or analysis level. Remember, the exam tests your ability to make
safe judgments about client care. Your ability to solve problems is not tested
with knowledge- or comprehension-level questions. Application involves taking
the facts that you know and using them to make a nursing judgment. You must
be able to answer questions at the application level to prove your competence on
the NCLEX-RN® exam.
5
UNIT I
THE NCLEX-RN® EXAMINATION
Strategies That Don’t Work on the NCLEX-RN®
Examination
Whether you realize it or not, you developed a set of strategies in nursing school
to answer teacher-generated test questions that are written at the knowledge/
comprehension level. These strategies include:
● “Cramming" hundreds of facts about disease processes and nursing care.
● Recognizing and recalling facts rather than understanding the
pathophysiology and the needs of a client with an illness.
● Knowing who wrote the question and what is important to that
instructor.
● Predicting answers based on what you remember.
● Selecting the response that is a different length compared with the other
choices.
● Selecting the answer choice that is grammatically correct.
● When in doubt, choosing answer choice C
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