Nursing Student Coach
Join Lauren Chapnick, RN, as she takes you through the journey of becoming a nurse! On Nursing Student Coach, Lauren, who is a new nursing professional, along with her knowledgeable guests will give you the tools to succeed in your nursing career. They will discuss ways to reduce anxiety and stress, share tips on studying and preparing for your NCLEX, and so much more - you won't be alone in this adventure! New episodes air every Thursday.
Nursing Student Coach
Conquering Nursing Exams Part 2: Turning Struggles into Success Stories
Do you feel like you're in a constant battle with your nursing exams? Fret no more! We're back with a sequel to our popular episode on exam-taking strategies, ready to arm you with more powerful tools to conquer your exams. This time, we're diving deep into some vital do's and don'ts to help you maneuver through your exams like a pro. Get ready to embrace the habit of reading each question twice and sticking to your first answer unless you're 100% sure it's wrong.
Say goodbye to exam stress as we walk you through a real-life pharmacology question, demonstrating why you should never settle for an answer unless you absolutely love it. We also explore the power of positive self-talk and other key strategies that can immensely improve your performance. Plus, you'll learn about my 'concert pianist' visualization exercise that's perfect for those nerve-wracking moments. Your success in nursing exams is much closer than you think. Let's make it happen together. Tune in and discover how to turn your exam struggles into victories.
Nursing school is a wild ride, but that doesn't mean you have to run and hide when the going gets tough. Don't leave your stress undiagnosed. You gotta call the nursing student coach. Real-life tips from a registered nurse, in school and out. She's seen the worst. Now, without further ado, yeah, here is your host. It's the nursing student coach.
Speaker 2:Hi everybody and welcome to Nursing Student Coach. My name is Lauren Chapnick and I am your host and, as you know, this is a show for nursing students and, not surprisingly, our most downloaded episode Was a couple weeks ago and it was on exams. It was an episode on exam taking strategies. I did a top five list of exam taking strategies and because that was so popular and people do ask me About how to do better on exams, I decided to do sort of a sequel to that episode With more test taking strategies and hacks and different mindset games to play with yourself. I talk about brainwashing yourself into thinking certain things. That's one of the strategies that I use, so I just wanted to share a few more strategies with you today. So I do have an Instagram video on this. It's called the number one do and the number one don't when it comes to exams, but I am going to go through that now in case anybody hasn't heard that. If you want more details, you can go check out that Instagram video. It can follow me at Nursing Student Coach.
Speaker 2:The number one do when it comes to nursing exams Is to read each question twice, and that sounds super obvious. It sounds like oh, you know what I do that anyway. Why is that the number one do. But do you really read each question twice, every single time? Or do you get a little nervous, or you get a little anxious about the time and you start to rush, maybe especially towards the end. It is so crucial to take that extra minute to read that question twice, because there can be one word in there that changes the entire meaning of the question. We all know I say this all the time nursing exams are like learning a new language, so first and foremost, you have to know what is that question asking you, and if you haven't read it twice, do you really know what it's asking you? I have absolutely made that mistake before and I've missed certain things. I've told this story when I've come to speak live to nursing student classes that I once missed that a question was select all that apply. I just didn't even read it through apparently until the end and I didn't realize that it was the select all that apply question. So I only picked one answer and I got it wrong. So it just goes to show read every question twice and read each set of answers twice. Know what you're working with before you even start thinking about how to answer it.
Speaker 2:The number one don't is don't change your answer. I know we've all been tempted to do it and if you're like me, you've even done it a bunch of times. You pick an answer, you're confident about it, and then you start to think, oh no, is that right? And you start second guessing yourself. You start playing these mind games where you think is this really the right answer? Could be this, it could be that. Don't do it. Don't change your answer Unless you are 100% sure. Maybe you misread the question, maybe you had a light bulb and you said no, no, no. I know 100% that this is the correct answer Because, statistically, your first answer that you chose, your gut instinct, is right. Go with it. Don't start playing the well-may be game, because you will be wrong, you'll get burned later.
Speaker 2:I can't tell you how many times I reviewed my exam and the questions that I missed. I kicked myself and I said Lauren, what are you doing? You had that right. Why didn't you have faith in yourself and just go with that answer? Because you would have had it. You were right. So don't make that mistake. Absolutely do not change your answer unless you are 100% sure that you should change your answer.
Speaker 2:Okay, here is a big one. I am a big advocate of this tip If you don't like everything about the answer, don't pick it. Okay, sounds good enough. That sounds easy enough. But what I mean by that and I'm gonna for anybody that's watching this on YouTube or anybody who's watching on Spotify, you're going to see this question pop up. What I mean by this.
Speaker 2:Some questions on nursing exams have answers with two parts, and you'll see what I mean in a minute. But the two parts might be there to throw you off, or they might throw you off unintentionally. Each answer has two parts to it, so common sense tells you if you don't like everything about the answer, don't pick it. Okay. Do we always have common sense when we're nervous and we're taking an exam? No, here's the practice question example.
Speaker 2:And if you don't understand this material yet, maybe you haven't taken pharmacology yet, because it is a pharmacology question. Don't worry about it. I'm just talking about the fundamentals of answering a question. Okay, a pharmacology professor gives their students high fives when they correctly identify CYP450 inducers as and then we've got our choices here. We've got grapefruit juice and refampin, st John's wort and fenitone, ketoconazole and erythromycin, or aged cheese and wine. Do you see how each of the answers has two parts grapefruit juice and refampin, st John's wort and fenitone.
Speaker 2:Okay, so if you're in pharmacology and you've learned about the CYP450 system, that is an enzyme in your liver that breaks down and metabolizes drugs, and some drugs use it for metabolism and some drugs don't, and there are inducers that speed up the metabolism and there's inhibitors that slow down the metabolism of drugs. So you learn in pharmacology what are these inducers. So I'm not gonna get into a whole pharmacology lesson here, but what I am going to go through are these answers really quick. You've got grapefruit juice and refampin. Now you might see grapefruit juice and think, oh, that's it, that's it, it's grapefruit juice. They always put grapefruit juice as the answer. Well, grapefruit juice is actually an inhibitor and refampin is an inducer, so it's half right, but half right does not make a correct answer in this case, right. Then we've got St John's wort and fenitone. Both of those are inducers. So if you knew that, you'd still wanna keep going just to double check, but that would be your answer. Cuticonisal and erythromycin those are both inhibitors and aged cheese and wine that's what we call your distractor answer. That has nothing to do with CYP450. That actually contains tyramine. Those are tyramine containing foods which are a problem.
Speaker 2:When it comes to a specific antidepressant called an MAOI and you will learn about that it's a very important thing because it can cause a hypertensive crisis. But our answer here is St John's wort and fenitone, and what we learned from this is that you don't wanna jump to pick your first answer. You wanna really pick it apart and say, okay, grapefruit juice and refampin, which one is an inducer, which one's an inhibitor? You wanna go through each answer and make a hundred percent sure that you like both parts of the answer. You don't wanna just jump because you're nervous and you say, oh, refampin, that's it, I know that's correct. Or get distracted by the grapefruit juice that seems to be on every pharmacology exam. And you don't wanna get nervous and just choose something because you wanna guess. You wanna really think it through because this system can be confusing. That's why you gotta take your time and really like every part of the question before answering it.
Speaker 2:I've talked about other mindset strategies. You probably heard if you've heard, any of my other episodes or you've heard me speak in person. You've heard me talk about how Nursing school is like running a marathon. Well, I've got another kind of visualization exercise for you and that is called the concert pianist. So I thought of this one day. I listened to all different kinds of music, but I was listening to concert piano music just on my way home, just trying to chill out one day after a particularly stressful exam, and it kind of came to me. You know, I could think of an exam like a concert and I am the concert pianist and every day leading up to that exam I am practicing, I am plunking out the notes, I am practicing, practicing, practicing playing through that piece of music. And that's your studying, that's, you know, doing all your practice questions. And when you get to the exam and the lights come up, you are that concert pianist. But you are fully prepared because you have done all of the work leading up to it. That music, those practice questions, hint, hint, do your daily 10, those practice questions are already there, that music is already there. So you can kind of think of the exam as huh, the lights are up and I'm about to go into my performance.
Speaker 2:I think honestly, 90%, maybe more, of exam taking success is your mindset, it is all mental, maybe even 100%, you could argue. I mean, you have to know the material, you have to know it, but at a certain point your mindset has to take over. So I suggest 15 minutes minimum before an exam, because I know we all like to look over our notes and we're looking at things until the very last minute, 15 minutes before. If you're not ready now, you're not going to be ready. So you might as well get yourself into that amazing mindset that you know you can get into.
Speaker 2:Just psych yourself up, rev yourself up. If you wanna try using this concert pianist analogy, use it. Listen to some piano concert music on your earbuds and just blast it. Go for a run while you listen to it and just get your mind in the game, get yourself excited. And speaking of that, speaking of getting excited, because in reality, who's really excited to take a nursing exam? Like nobody. Nobody's excited. But no, you're brainwashing yourself. You're trying to get to the end goal here. You're trying to get to the finish line, right? So you have to be there anyway. Let's get into it. Let's get excited about it, even if we're faking it, even if we are just brainwashing ourselves into being excited, into playing that concert piano music, into running that marathon, whatever it is that you are thinking of as your sort of tool, as your strategy is. Whatever, get excited about it. And I heard this once on a podcast and I use it sometimes. I think it's a good strategy Is, if you're nervous which who isn't nervous before an exam?
Speaker 2:Right, especially a big one, especially like a final or if your grade really depends on it, you tell yourself, instead of I am anxious, instead of I'm so nervous. You say to yourself and you can say it out loud. If you're alone or with people who Won't judge you, you say over and over again I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited. You just keep saying it Does it sound completely nutty? Yes, but what this does is it tells your subconscious, it tricks your subconscious into thinking that you're actually excited and your anxiety? It is actually Excitement and is transferred into it, is transformed rather into Excitement rather than anxiety.
Speaker 2:His anxiety and excitement are actually very closely related. You know, sort of like laughter and tears, how they're very closely related. You can laugh and cry interchangeably sometimes, especially in nursing school, but Excitement and anxiety are also very closely related. So if you say, and you can just say it in your mind. If you're in a crowded classroom or something, you're not gonna start muttering to yourself. It's kind of weird, but you close your eyes and you just think to yourself I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited. Try it, it works. It may just click something in you that you never realized could happen. That's what I've got for today.
Speaker 2:If you have an exam coming up, I also have a video that's on Instagram. It's on my YouTube channel and it's called a pre exam pep talk. So I invite you to check that out. It is less than two minutes long and it's sort of just a heart-to-heart pep talk with me right before you go into an exam, just kind of revving you up, boosting you up. So if you want to use that as a strategy as well, I welcome you to do that.
Speaker 2:Whatever it takes, guys, I just want you to do so well on these exams. I want you to be out there passing your NCLEX, becoming working nurses and fulfilling your dream and living your why. So I hope that this was helpful to you. If it was all, I ask that you share it with a friend, and I would be most grateful if you could pull out your phone and give me a five-star rating on Apple podcast, google podcast, whatever Platform you're listening on. If you're on Spotify, leave a review and if you're on YouTube, leave a comment. Subscribe to the channel because I want to reach as many future nurses as possible and it is my personal mission to help put more great nurses into the world, and I thank you so much in your help with doing that. You can subscribe to our mailing list at nursing student coach calm and, as always, have an awesome day Until next time. This is nurse Lauren and I wish you luck on those exams. Go crush it, be excited, bye, bye.
