Conquering NCLEX-RN Knowledge Gaps

Endocrinology. Geriatrics. Neurology, pediatrics, pharmacology. We’ve all got our specialties and we’ve all got an area or two that makes us groan.

But not only do nurses need to be superheroes of multitasking and critically thinking, walking, talking medical encyclopedias in their jobs, it’s also the approach needed for tackling the NCLEX-RN. There’s a lot of ground to cover, there’s a lot of knowledge to file away in your brain, and there’s a lot of different scenarios to be prepared for.

That means part of attaining the impressive status of “Registered Nurse” is identifying both what you know back to front and also what you need to focus on to level up.

That’s where PRIMED comes in.

With the guidance of PRIMED’s instructors, who build the research and preparation foundation for you, getting up to snuff on all areas of the NCLEX-RN transforms from an overwhelming prospect into a finely tuned game plan. No matter which of the four NCLEX-RN concepts the computer spits out at you—Safe and Effective Care Environment, Health Promotion and Maintenance, Psychosocial Integrity, or Physiological Integrity—you’ll know you’ve got it covered after working with PRIMED.

PRIMED’s intensive NCLEX Prep course begins with an overview of key areas, then moves into detailed review of the most important areas of the exam—including test questions for each section. Taking the time to test knowledge and comprehension along the way helps students to evaluate any areas they’re struggling in.

This means all your study energy is targeted and used in the best way possible. Maybe you’ll even have some energy left over to, say, go on a night out or take an afternoon hike (it could happen!).

In addition to identifying which subject areas you should focus on and providing a number of NCLEX Prep Tools to keep you going on your own, PRIMED also offers private and small group tutoring. Jumping off from the NCLEX course, a PRIMED instructor will customize the tutoring session to your specific study needs, helping you to fill in all the bricks of the NCLEX-RN.

A solid study foundation combined with targeted subject revision gives you the confidence to walk into the NCLEX-RN test room knowing you’re familiar with every room on the blueprint. There’ll be no under-the-stairs closet you forgot to check for cobwebs. Not when you’ve been PRIMED.

The Guiding Lights of PRIMED’s NCLEX-RN Prep Course

It’s a cliché everyone has heard: Those who cannot do, teach. All you have to do is look at PRIMED’s instructors to know that that’s a load of hooey.

Not only are PRIMED’s NCLEX-RN Prep instructors enthusiastic educators, but they’re practicing Canadian health care professionals at the top of the game. They know what it takes to excel as a nurse, and they also know what it takes to excel on the NCLEX-RN before you get there.

The people leading your NCLEX Prep session have a graduate-level nursing education, which means they most definitely know their stuff (read: they have *a lot* of letters behind their names). All of PRIMED’s instructors are also active nurses and nurse practitioners, with a passion for passing along their hard-earned knowledge.

They’re with PRIMED because they’re invested educators who want to help the next generation of health care professionals—their future co-workers—succeed.

Each PRIMED facilitator brings her or his own unique experiences and knowledge base (which you can learn more about on the PRIMED website) to your NCLEX study experience. And while maybe the instructor’s specialized research into pubic hair removal in women won’t come up during the NCLEX-RN, you know she’ll be able to field any question you have about sexual reproductive or women’s health as you study up for exam day.

Basically, you can rest assured your PRIMED instructor isn’t reading from the answer key like Mrs. Krabappel and her fellow teacher cronies in The Simpsons. PRIMED’s NCLEX-RN Prep facilitators are knowledgeable, practicing professionals who will use their very own brains to help beef up yours

PRIMED knows experience and knowledge is what’s needed in a nursing exam prep course instructor. We also know you need to want to listen to them in the first place.

An engaging teaching style is just as important as the ability to answer any study question. As is a spot of empathy—PRIMED’s instructors have each stared down the pass/fail tunnel, and they’ve helped many other nurses pass through to the other side.

Luckily, PRIMED’s NCLEX-RN Prep facilitators have got all of the above.

Here’s another cliché for you: Better together. This one, at least, is true. You really couldn’t ask for a better guiding hand as you prepare for the NCLEX than PRIMED’s instructors.

The NCLEX-RN, CAT, and U

Technology, right? It’s hard enough to keep up with the latest online banking options, let alone all the new apps that are hip with the kids. With the change from the CRNE to the NCLEX this year, nursing in Canada has taken its own technology leap.

If you’re one of those people who thinks that phones are getting a little bit too smart these days, maybe the computerized adaptive testing (CAT) used by the NCLEX-RN is a tad daunting. Or perhaps you’re all for CAT given all the benefits it brings, but you haven’t yet had a chance to test this new examination frontier.

Either way, PRIMED is here to help prepare you not only for the questions thrown at you on the NCLEX-RN, but also on how to best interact with your new robot friend, CAT.

First off, it’s important to understand the differences between CAT and traditional multiple-choice examinations.

While a paper exam allows you to go back and check on previous answers, with CAT, that’s no longer an option. Only onwards and upwards!

Equally important is being prepared for the different types of questions that this new technology allows. Where once there was only paper and pencil, now there are multimedia elements. Although the bulk of NCLEX-RN questions are multiple choice, a certain number will be “alternate question types”: multiple response, hot spots, fill-in-the-blank, charts/exhibits, ordered responses, audios, and graphic options.

Perhaps the most impressive part of CAT is how it customizes the NCLEX-RN to each graduate and international nurse sitting it. Every answer given affects the next question asked. During the two-day NCLEX Prep course offered by PRIMED, you’ll learn how CAT adapts to you and how to be the most effective test taker possible.

No matter how you feel about the digital revolution, none of us can really deny the advantages each technological innovation brings.

Nurses rely on all sorts of technology to help them be more effective and efficient in their jobs—from cutting-edge therapies right down to digitized healthcare records. The introduction of computerized adaptive testing to nursing in Canada is really just another part of this.

Thanks to CAT, the better prepared you are for your NCLEX-RN, the shorter your exam is likely to be—with the possibility of answering as few as 75 questions, compared to the CRNE’s set 200. By getting PRIMED ahead of your exam appointment, you could find yourself in that NCLEX-RN hot seat for a lot less time than you ever imagined.

Strength in Numbers: Going the NCLEX-RN Distance

When looking back down the long path of an undergraduate degree, there are a few things all of us wish we could tell our freshmen selves. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should wear your pyjamas to class. Though delicious, pizza does not for three square meals make. Buying a fancy coffee a day really does double your tuition costs.

But most of all—after all those hours in lecture halls, all those papers written, all those IV needles jabbed and placed (and placed again)—what you really wish you could tell your freshman self is how important a solid study plan is to your learning success.

All-nighters aren’t your friend, and only going over the stuff you’ve got down pat is just a way to make yourself feel better about starting a TV marathon. After you’ve got a degree under your belt, you’ve come far enough to know that exam success means an attack plan, hundreds of pages of notes, flashcards, and, most important of all, study buddies.

Because the best learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum, does it?

That’s why PRIMED’s NCLEX Prep course takes place in what’s called a “Cooperative Learning Environment.” That may sound like just a fancy term for “classroom,” but what it really means is something beyond four walls and a roof. A Cooperative Learning Environment means a cohort of nurses working toward the same goal as you and an instructor encouraging you from the finish line.

Before you walk into the NCLEX-RN exam room, PRIMED’s two-day intensive course offers the key building blocks of a good study plan: an overall content review, focused sessions on key areas, and plenty of practice questions. But PRIMED’s course goes above and beyond this by offering the opportunity to work through a variety of common clinical scenarios together with fellow students and the instructor.

Not to mention, of course, the continuing support of fellow NCLEX exam takers and the PRIMED team after the prep course finishes.

You’ve got a running buddy to help get you through those last 500 metres of that half-marathon you’ve been working toward, right? Think of PRIMED as your multi-headed trainer/cheer squad combo to get you totally pumped for NCLEX-RN race day.

Let’s do this thing! Gatorade is on us (metaphorically speaking—drinks aren’t allowed in the testing room).

A Blueprint of the NCLEX-RN

The National Council Licensure Examination determines if it's safe to take the leap from education to practice by evaluating your intellectual progress via an application-analysis platform based on knowledge you acquired in nursing school. Simply put, critical thinking skills. 

The NCLEX-RN is organized to assess individual client needs by integrating each medical, surgical, paediatric, psychiatric, and obstetric knowledge. Questions range from, a majority of, multiple-response to fill-in-the-blank, hot spots, chart/exhibit and drag-and-drop. A minimum of 75 questions to a maximum of 265 questions will be assessed preluded by 15 non-consequential experimental questions used for examiner purposes in order to calculate future questions. For the text to be completed, the minimum (75) or maximum (265) amount of questions must be answered within a period of six hours.

NCLEX is divided into four major concepts and six subconcepts: 

1. Safe and Effective Care Environment 
1. Management of Care (17-23%)
2. Safety and Infection Control (9-15%)
2. Health Promotion and Maintenance
3. Psychosocial Integrity
4. Physiological Integrity
1. Basic Care and Comfort (6-12%)
2. Pharmacological and Parenteral Therapies (12-18%)
3. Reduction of Risk Potential (9-15%)
4. Physiological Adaptation (11-17%)
   

The NCLEX consists of an integrated computer adaptive test (CAT) questing system. CATs begin with simple questions, but gradually becomes more difficult. As you progress through the CAT, the difficulty of your questions will oscillate based on the competency of your answer i.e. if you get a question wrong the following question will be easier rather than more difficult and vice versa.

Brass taxes: NCLEX is pass/fail—there is no other score. Results, however, will not be available at the time of exam: you'll be notified within 2-4 weeks following your test date with retesting permitted 45 days after the initial administration.

Canadian NCLEX Milestone

The Canadian version of the NCLEX-RN, the adaptive, computerized testing program brought in this year to assess the skills of Canadian nursing students, reached an impressive benchmark this week with it's 1,000th test taker. The test has been operational since January 5th, assessing the qualifications of registered nurses in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, P.E.I, Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. 

The exam was selected to replace the older Canadian Registered Nursing Exam in 2012, but it wasn't until January of this year that the new testing regime began. The new format offers increased test security, accessibility, precise assessment and provides more timely results than the CRNE. The United States has been using the NCLEX-RN since 1994.

Anne Coghlan, the President of the Canadian Council of Registered Nurse Regulators believes the switch has been close to seamless. "The launch of the NCLEX-RN in Canada has gone extremely well," she said, "and it is very exciting to reach this milestone. Through the collaborative efforts of NCSBN and CCRNR, we are furthering our shared commitment to excellence in nursing regulation."

There are currently 10 other countries offering the NCLEX-RN test but Canada is the only country outside of the U.S. that uses it as a domestic licensing examination.

Students can take the exam at any Pearson Vue testing facility in the country or abroad. Permanent centers are located across Canada, but there is also temporary centers setup in February, June and October, for end of semester examinations.

Canadian nursing students can prep for the exam by enrolling in a NCLEX prep course. PRIMED Education currently offers classes in facilities across the country and online. These courses help nursing students practice for the exam, work through topics that they are struggling with and review core material. They are an excellent tool for first time NCLEX-RN test-takers or for students who will be repeating. Find out more at: http://www.primededucation.ca/