Conquering Nursing Exams: Top Five Strategies for Effective Preparation and Post-Exam Recovery

And , if you like what you hear , all I ask is that you share it with somebody you know and love who could benefit , and I appreciate that more than you know . So let's get into it . Number one is to get a good night sleep . Now , that sounds reasonable , it sounds logical , but what happens ? We get nervous .

We have a freak out the night before a test that I haven't done enough . I really just I'm gonna pull an all nighter or I'm gonna stay up until I can't keep my eyes open anymore and I'm just gonna review , review , review and cram this information in my head . And then what happens ?

You go into the exam , you're tired , your brain is shot and you do not perform as well as you could have if you were rested . You make silly mistakes , you make decisions that you would not have made If you had gotten a good night's sleep . You are better off if it is the night before an exam and you don't feel prepared .

First of all , odds are you are prepared and you're just having anxiety , nerves , things like that . Well , let's say you really , truly don't feel prepared . What are you going to ? What are you going to accomplish ? Are you really going to cram that information in your head ?

At this point you are far better off looking at the key points , maybe doing 50 to 100 practice questions on that subject and calling it a night , getting you know at least six or seven hours of sleep , ideally eight . You know , you know what works for you , you know how many hours of sleep you need to feel at your best .

You're far better off doing that and going in fresh and looking at those questions and just doing the very best that you can , at your best rested self , then , if you stay up until 4am and sleep for two hours . So that is the number one Tip .

Number two is to have an exam day ritual , and that means before each exam and after each exam , and this should be something involving self-care . So maybe the day of an exam you always have a really great breakfast that you make for yourself , like a fresh vegetable omelet and the really good bagels from the place down the street that you like , whatever it is .

Or or you make an exam day playlist that has maybe a guided meditation or Instrumental piano music or some sort of relaxing , feel-good music that you save just for exam day , or A combination of both of those things and more .

Maybe you do yoga in the morning , just before the morning of an exam , and Then after an exam , to have some sort of ritual that you do to blow off steam . Now , I think the best thing is some form of exercise . Maybe you bring your gym clothes and you go straight to the gym as soon as that class is over , as soon as the exam is over .

Or maybe you go for a swim , you go for a hike in nature , you take your dog for a walk , or maybe you make an appointment to get your nails done or for a Massage , or you just go home and you take a bubble bath .

Something . Something that you schedule for yourself to do before and after as a ritual is such a smart thing to do . It's going to Make you feel less anxious , because the pressure of nursing exams is Intense . You have this minimum score that you have to hit just a pass .

You know I mentioned at my school it was 77 and that's pretty low compared to some other nursing schools . Some schools you have to get an 82 just to pass , because you're held to a higher standard as a nurse , nursing student , a prospective aspiring nurse , because you will have lives in your hands . So I get it . The pressure is real .

So anything you can do to help alleviate that stress by having an exam day , pre Exam and post exam ritual is so helpful . Number three is the 15 minute rule , and this means you are allowed after an exam .

You're allowed to Freak out , get angry , cry , obsess , talk about it , look through your notes , look up answers that you aren't sure if you got wrong or not . You're allowed to do these things . But you have 15 minutes and then you must let it go Because it's done . You can't change it . You cannot go back in time and Do things differently . It's done .

The only thing you can do , the only thing you control , is your reaction To whatever happened , whether it went great or it went horribly . And so many times guys , you're gonna think it went horribly , but you actually did great , you actually did fine . I was famous for that . I cried so much , thinking I , I bombed or I missed something and I did just fine .

So don't Don't get so hung up on on feeling like you failed or feeling like you didn't do well , because you probably , first of all , you Almost always did better than you think you did . But we're human , we . We , we obsess , we get upset , we get angry . But it does not serve you to hang on to that for any longer than necessary .

15 minutes is the absolute max . If you can let things go after two minutes , great . If you don't need to get angry or obsess or do any of those things , even better . But let's not suppress all of those things that we might be feeling . Allow yourself to feel them , let it out , but then let it go because you got to move on .

You've got the next exam around the corner . You don't have time to cry about this . You need to move on , say this is what I did wrong , this is what I did right and I'm just going to move on because I can't change it . It's done . So 15 minutes , let it go . And when the 15 minutes is up , do something for yourself .

Go for a walk , do all of those post exam self-care rituals that we talked about before . Number four . Take a moment . This is in the exam , when the exam first starts . When that first question pops up on the screen , close your eyes , breathe in and out . Take 30 seconds before you start , get yourself in the zone .

You do not have to be the first person done . And the fact that other people are starting right away the other other people around you are clicking and all those noises are making you crazy , thinking why haven't I started yet ? How come she's going so fast ? Tune it out . This is your exam and your exam only . You are responsible for your own success .

You're responsible for your own failure . So get in the zone , take a breath , take a moment and Then start . You don't have to . I gotta go , I gotta start , I gotta start . No , 30 seconds is not gonna put you far behind . If you are the last one to finish , who cares ? Take your time . Read each question twice , read all the answers twice .

Take a moment before the exam starts to get centered . Take a breath and then go into it and Last , take the exam 10 questions at a time . What do I mean by that ? Let's say you have a 50 question exam .

Instead of thinking of it as this daunting 50 question thing , break it down into 10 questions at a time and then you start over on the next set of 10 . So let's say you start off Kind of weak . Let's say you start off you don't really , you're not confident about your first few questions . Then you kind of get a few right . Then you're not sure .

At 10 questions Stop . Take a moment to check in with yourself and say how you doing . How did those first 10 questions go ? Well , I might have missed one , or that was a train wreck . Well , guess what that's done . Now you get to move on to the next 10 . You get to start clean .

It's a new test , because what can happen is if you start off bad For lack of a better word if you start off not confident , shaky , whatever , it can throw you off for the whole thing . But if you take it 10 questions at a time and then you stop and you get to start over again , that's awesome . So think of it that way . And the same thing can happen .

The opposite can happen . Where you start off strong , let's say you start off , I know this , I know this , and then you check in after 10 questions and you say I'm doing great . Then you might get over confident . You might say you might start to rush at that point , so you don't want that to happen either .

So you avoid both of those things by taking it 10 questions at a time . I Hope that these five strategies help you . I think all five of them are really useful For nursing exams really any exam but we're talking about nursing school here . Until next time , guys . I thank you so much for watching .

You can find us at nursing student coach comm for more tactics on how to crush nursing school . You can join our mailing list there , get all of our links to our social media pages so you can follow us there as well . And , as always , it is my personal mission to help put more great nurses into the world . I thank you for your help in doing that .

Until next time , have an awesome day , go out there and crush those exams . You are killing it , you're slaying it . You are almost there . I love you and I will see you the next time . Bye , bye . Thanks for tuning in to the nursing student coach podcast .