Studying for Nursing School Exams and Finals

Nursing school exams are a huge source of stress for students, and for good reason…the grading scale is steep and the stakes are always high. Which is why I want to share with you my BEST study tips and a key way for how I stayed confident throughout all my nursing school exams…including finals!

The key to studying for nursing school exams

If you read my book (available here) then you know I talk a lot about paring down the information until you get to the core nugget that you need to study. As you pare things down, they are relegated to long-term memory so that by the time you get to the exam, you really just need to “remind” yourself of a few key concepts.

The idea is that as you study, you re-write/re-organize your notes into shorter and shorter versions…until you are finally left with about 1 page per topic. No, that is not a typo! For example, as you can see here…I’ve got all my notes for cardiac/respiratory assessment down to 1 sheet (front-and-back…I wrote really big, ok?) So, instead of carting around tons of notes and books…I just had to bring this handy sheet and I could study for my Assessment exam anytime, anywhere. Pretty neat, huh?

Oliver sighting!

And below you’ll see how I got all of Inflammatory Heart Disease notes on one sheet of paper…yes, it’s a nifty system…I agree!

Now, I know some of you are going to email me asking me for copies of these super handy, super-condensed notes. Sorry…it doesn’t work that way. I wrote my notes based on the information that I needed to trigger my long-term knowledge of these topics…the things that will help you unlock and access that knowledge are going to be COMPLETELY different. Plus, the act of actually MAKING the one-sheets is a huuuuuuuuge part of the learning process. So get out your colored Sharpies and make some gorgeous study sheets so you can rock your nursing school exams like a boss!

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