Critical Thinking Strategies

• 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.

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

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. In this book, these strategies appear as 10 critical thinking paths.

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.