NCLEX Strategies: Critical Thinking & Rewording Questions
The NCLEX-RN® exam is not a test about recognizing facts. You must be able to correctly identify what the question is asking. Do not focus on background information that is not needed to answer the question. The NCLEX-RN® exam focuses on thinking through a problem or situation.
Now that you are more knowledgeable about the components of a multiple-choice test question, let’s talk about specific strategies that you can use to problem-solve your way to correct answers on the NCLEX-RN® exam.
Are you feeling overwhelmed as you read these words? Don’t be! We are going teach you a step-by-step method to choose the appropriate path. The Kaplan Nursing team has developed a decision tree that shows you how to approach every NCLEX-RN® exam question.
There are some strategies that you must follow on every NCLEX-RN® exam test question. You must always figure out what the question is asking, and you must always eliminate answer choices. Choosing the right answer often involves choosing the best of several answers that have correct information. This may entail your correct analysis and interpretation of what the question is really asking. So let’s talk about how to figure out what the question is asking.
What Is Tested
Remember, the NCLEX-RN® exam is testing your ability to think critically. Critical thinking for the nurse involves the following:
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 criteria established
Reword the Question
The first step to correctly answering NCLEX-RN® exam questions is to find out what each question is really asking.
Practice Question 1
Let’s practice rewording a question.
We omitted the answer choices to make you focus on the question stem this time. The answer choices will be provided and discussed later in this chapter.
Step 1. Read the question stem carefully.
Step 2. Pay attention to the adjectives. Most appropriately tells you that you need to select the best answer.
Step 3. Reword the question stem in your own words. In this case, it is, “What is the best charting for this situation?”
Step 4. Because you were able to reword the question, the fourth step is unnecessary. You didn’t need to read the answer choices for clues.
Practice Question 2
We have all missed questions on a test because we didn’t read accurately. The following question illustrates this point.
Again, just the question stem is given to encourage you to focus on rewording the question. We will discuss the answer choices for this question later in this chapter.
Step 1. Read the question stem carefully.
Step 2. Look for hints. Pay particular attention to the statement “further teaching is necessary.” You are looking for negative information.
Step 3. Reword the question stem in your own words. In this case, it is, “What is incorrect information about TB?”
Step 4. Because you were able to reword the question, the fourth step is unnecessary. You didn’t need to read the answer choices for clues to determine what the question is asking.
Practice Question 3
Try rewording this test question.
Again, just the question stem is given to encourage you to focus on rewording the question. We will discuss the answer choices for this question later in this chapter.
Step 1. Read the question stem carefully.
Step 2. Look for hints. Pay attention to the words client understands. You are looking fortrue information.
Step 3. Reword the question stem. This question is asking, “What is true about terbutaline (Brethine)?”
Step 4. Because you were able to reword this question, the fourth step is unnecessary. You didn’t need to obtain clues about what the question is asking from the answer choices.