Editing NCLEX-PN Exam Blueprint (section)

=== Think like the exam ===

* '''Assume the ideal setting.''' Adequate staffing, all supplies available, and an RN and provider reachable. Answer according to textbook standard, not the shortcuts used at a clinical site.
* '''Answer within PN scope.''' If an option describes an initial assessment, a nursing diagnosis, care plan development, IV push, blood administration, or initial teaching, it is usually wrong for the LPN.
* '''Prioritize.''' Use airway, breathing, circulation, then safety, then Maslow's hierarchy with physiologic needs before psychosocial. Prefer the acute, new, unstable, or unexpected finding over the chronic and expected one.
* '''Prefer assessing or collecting data before acting''', unless the patient is in immediate danger or the stem already gives complete data, in which case act.
* '''Do not leave the patient.''' Answers that involve leaving an unstable patient to find someone are usually wrong when another option provides help without leaving.
* '''Least restrictive and least invasive first''' for restraints and for many interventions.
* '''Therapeutic communication''' answers acknowledge feelings, stay open ended, and avoid false reassurance, advice giving, and asking why.
* Read the stem for the actual question. Watch for words like first, best, priority, initial, most important, and for negatively worded stems such as which action requires intervention or which statement indicates a need for further teaching.