Chapter 1 The NCLEX-RN® Examination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
➤ Unit 1: The
... [Show More] NCLEX-RN® Examination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
➤ Unit 2: Guide for Test-Takers Repeating the NCLEX-RN® Examination . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Chapter 2 Kaplan’s Review for the NCLEX-RN® Examination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
➤ Unit 1: Kaplan’s NCLEX-RN® Course Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
➤ Unit 2: How to Use Kaplan’s NCLEX-RN® Online Study Center Resources . . . . . . . . . . 23
➤ Unit 3: User’s Guide for Online Assets-kaptest.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
➤ Unit 4: User’s Guide for Online Assets-kaplanlwwtesting.kaplan.com . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
➤ Unit 5: Question Trainer User’s Guide-kaptest.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
➤ Unit 6: Question Trainer User’s Guide-kaplanlwwtesting.kaplan.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
➤ Unit 7: Qbank User’s Guide-kaptest.com......................................51
➤ Unit 8: Qbank User’s Guide-kaplanlwwtesting.kaplan.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
➤ Unit 9: Kaplan’s Decision Tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Chapter 3 Physiological Integrity: Pharmacological and Parenteral Therapies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
➤ Unit 1: Blood and Blood Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
➤ Unit 2: Intravenous Therapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
➤ Unit 3: Medications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
➤ Unit 4: Side Effects of Medications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Chapter 4 Physiological Integrity: Reduction of Risk Potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
➤ Unit 1: Sensory and Perceptual Alterations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
➤ Unit 2: Alterations in Body Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
➤ Unit 3: Perioperative Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
➤ Unit 4: Diagnostic Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
➤ Unit 5: Therapeutic Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Chapter 5 Physiological Integrity: Physiological Adaptation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
➤ Unit 1: Medical Emergencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
➤ Unit 2: Fluid and Electrolyte Imbalances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
➤ Unit 3: Alterations in Body Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
➤ Unit 4: Cancer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Chapter 6 Physiological Integrity: Basic Care and Comfort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
➤ Unit 1: Mobility and Immobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
➤ Unit 2: Conditions Limiting Mobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
➤ Unit 3: Interventions to Promote Comfort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
➤ Unit 4: Musculoskeletal Trauma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
➤ Unit 5: Rest and Sleep Disturbances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
➤ Unit 6: Nutrition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
➤ Unit 7: Elimination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
Contents
00-NCLEX Course-FM.indd 9 1/13/14 4:07 PM
Chapter 7 Safe and Effective Care Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
➤ Unit 1: Management of Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
➤ Unit 2: Safety and Infection Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
Chapter 8 Health Promotion and Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
➤ Unit 1: Growth and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
➤ Unit 2: Childbearing—Normal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483
➤ Unit 3: Childbearing—Maternal Complications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501
➤ Unit 4: Childbearing—Neonatal Normal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517
➤ Unit 5: Neonatal Complications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523
➤ Unit 6: Reproduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
➤ Unit 7: Prevention and Early Detection of Disease . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
Chapter 9 Psychosocial Integrity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563
➤ Unit 1: Coping and Adaptation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565
➤ Unit 2: Psychosocial Adaptation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587
➤ Unit 3: Psychopathology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591
➤ Unit 4: Chemical Dependency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603
➤ Unit 5: Abuse and Neglect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 609
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613
00-NCLEX Course-FM.indd 10 11/10/13 12:36 PM
THE NCLEX-RN®
EXAMINATION
The NCLEX-RN® Examination
Guide for Test-Takers
Repeating the NCLEX-RN®
Examination
Chapter 1
1
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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
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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.
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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.
Critical Thinking and Clinical judgment on
The NCLEX-RN® Examination
● The NCLEX-RN® exam is not a test about recognizing facts.
● You must be able to correctly identify what the question is asking.
● Only focus on background information that is necessary to answer the
question.
Remember, the NCLEX-RN® exam is testing your ability to think critically.
Critical thinking for the nurse involves:
● Observation
● Deciding what is important
● Looking for patterns and relationships
● Identifying the problem
● Transferring knowledge from one situation to another
● Applying knowledge
● Discriminating between possible choices and/or courses of action
● Evaluating according to established criteria
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CH. 1
THE NCLEX-RN®
EXAMINATION
6
Facts about the NCLEX-RN® Examination
The purpose of the exam
1. To determine if you are a safe and effective nurse
2. To safeguard the public
3. To test for minimum competency to practice nursing
The test content
4. Based on the knowledge and activities of an entry-level nurse
5. Written by nursing faculty and clinical specialists
6. Majority of questions are self-contained, multiple-choice questions, with
four possible answer choices
7. Some questions may ask you to select all answers that apply, fill in the
blank, listen to an audio item, or answer questions that include graphics.
8. Some questions may ask you to use the mouse to identify a location on
a graphic, drag and drop answers from an unordered answer column to
an ordered answer column, or click on an exhibit tab.
9. Based on integrated nursing content—not on the medical model of
medical, surgical, obstetrics, pediatrics, and psychiatric nursing
10. Includes 15 experimental questions being tested for future exams. These
questions do not count.
Administration of the CAT
11. The CAT (Computer Adaptive Test) is adapted to your knowledge, skills,
and ability level.
12. The question sequence is determined interactively.
13. The computer selects questions based on the item difficulty and the test
plan.
14. You individually schedule a date and time to take the exam at a testing
center.
15. You sit at an individual computer station.
Taking the exam
16. Computer knowledge is not required to take this exam.
17. You use a mouse to highlight and lock in your answer.
18. You receive instructions and a practice exercise before beginning the exam.
19. Any necessary background information appears on the screen with the
question.
20. The computer selects a first question at or just below the passing level.
21. The next question is selected by the computer on the basis of your
response to the first question. If you receive a question that is similar to
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7
UNIT I
THE NCLEX-RN® EXAMINATION
a question already answered, do not assume that you answered the first
question incorrectly. Select the BEST answer to every question.
22. If your answer is correct, the next question is slightly more difficult.
23. If your answer is incorrect, the next question is slightly easier.
24. Questions are selected to precisely measure your ability in each area of
the test plan.
Timing
25. There is no time limit for each individual question.
26. You will answer a minimum of 75 questions to a maximum of
265 questions.
27. The maximum time for the exam is 6 hours, including the practice
exercise and all breaks.
28. A pop-up window appears offering an optional 10-minute break after
2 hours and 3.5 hours of testing.
The exam will end
29. When the computer has determined your ability, or
30. When a maximum of 6 hours of testing is reached, or
31. When a maximum of 265 questions have been answered.
Scoring
32. It is a pass/fail exam.
33. There is no penalty for guessing.
34. The 15 experimental questions are not counted.
Concerns
35. You can’t change answers once you select NEXT. Questions are selected
by the computer according to the accuracy of your previous responses.
36. You can’t scroll back.
37. You can’t skip a question. You must answer the question to go on.
Advantages
38. Testing is available year-round, 15 hours a day, 6 days a week, in
6-hour time slots.
39. Results are released by the individual State Board; time will vary by
State Board.
40. If you fail, your state will determine when you can re-test.
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CH. 1
THE NCLEX-RN®
EXAMINATION
8
What the NCLEX-RN® Examination Tests: Client Needs
● Safe and Effective Care
Management of Care (17–23%)
Safety and Infection Control (9–15%)
● Health Promotion and Maintenance (6–12%)
● Psychosocial Integrity (6–12%)
● Physiological Integrity
Basic Care and Comfort (6–12%)
Pharmacological and Parenteral Therapies (12–18%)
Reduction of Risk Potential (9–15%)
Physiological Adaptation (11–17%)
Registration
Registration information is available from your State Board of Nursing or your
nursing school senior advisor. To obtain the address and phone number of an
individual State Board of Nursing, contact:
National Council of State Boards of Nursing
111 E. Wacker Drive
Suite 2900
Chicago, IL 60601-4277
www.ncsbn.org
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9
Guide for Test-Takers Repeating the NCLEX-RN®
Examination
Some people may never have to read this section, but it’s a certainty that others
will. The most important advice we can give to repeat test-takers is: Don’t
despair. There is hope. We can get you through the NCLEX-RN® exam.
You Are Not Alone
Think about that awful day when the big brown envelope arrived. You just
couldn’t believe it. You had to tell family, friends, your supervisor, and
coworkers that you didn’t pass. When this happens, each unsuccessful candidate
feels like he or she is the only person that has failed the exam [Show Less]