Nursing School Entrance Exams

HESI A2 / NLN PAX-RN / PSB-RN / RNEE / TEAS

Barron's Educational Series, Sandra S. Swick, Rita R. Callahan

• Publisher: Barrons Educational Services
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781506269481
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Nursing

Barron’s Nursing School Entrance Exams provides detailed review and practice materials that you need to achieve success on the various Nursing School Entrance Exams (including the HESI A2, NLN PAX-RN, PSB-RN, RNEE, and the TEAS).

This edition features:

• A multi-part exam that covers all of the topic areas and question types seen on most nursing school entrance exams
• A diagnostic test so you can assess your strengths and weaknesses in each topic area before beginning your review
• Comprehensive review and practice material for all Verbal Ability, Reading Comprehension, and Numerical Ability topics
• An entire review and practice section for all Science topics, with each section broken down into an outline format for quick studying and sample tests for every topic
• Test-taking strategies and answers to frequently asked questions about preparing for your entrance exam
• Strategies for answering each question type

You’ll also get information about nursing programs and the profession in general.

Introduction

1

IS THIS BOOK FOR YOU?

Are you wondering what might be included on a nursing school entrance exam, or does the nursing program you’ve applied to require an entrance exam? If you answered yes to either of these questions, then Nursing School Entrance Exams is the reference you need.

Nursing school entrance examinations provide associate, diploma, and baccalaureate nursing programs with specific information relating to an applicant’s or newly admitted individual’s abilities in content areas that provide the foundation for nursing courses such as verbal ability, reading comprehension, numerical or mathematical ability, and life and/or physical sciences. Nursing school entrance examinations generally use a multiple-choice format.

Verbal ability includes elements such as vocabulary, antonyms, synonyms, verbal reasoning, and the use of analogy. Included in verbal ability are English usage and grammar, spelling, prefixes, suffixes, and root words.

Reading comprehension involves reading sentences, paragraphs, or short articles and answering questions, interpreting, and/or making inferences about the literary material. Prior knowledge of the topic is not requisite for reading comprehension because the examination is asking you to think logically and make decisions based on the information presented.

Topics for verbal ability and reading comprehension may address technical or scientific knowledge and/or general, everyday knowledge. Information may come from discipline-specific vocabulary, English grammar, history, geography, literature, art and architecture, humanities, general information, natural sciences, social sciences, and mathematics.

Numerical ability encompasses arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. Computation and interpretation of word problems, charts, ratios and proportions, decimals, percentages, and fractions may also be included. Word problems, drawn from common life events, may address such areas as sales, taxation, insurance, distance or travel, geometry, age, mixtures, investments, interest, and averages.

Life and/or physical sciences sections focus on basic premises of biology, chemistry, human anatomy, and physiology. Life sciences specifically address human structure and functioning, development, and genetics.

This book is intended to assist you to prepare or review for a nursing school entrance examination. This book is not intended to provide sufficient instruction on any topic in which you have little or no previous experience. For example, if you have never taken algebra or geometry, it is doubtful that the algebra and geometry sections found in this book will provide a background that will enable you to be successful on similar sections of a nursing school entrance examination.

Nursing School Entrance Exams is not intended to address a specific nursing school entrance examination. Nursing programs using entrance exams have a number of examinations from which to choose. These standardized exams are used nationwide. A brief overview of selected nursing school entrance examinations is presented in the following table:

Overview of Selected Nursing School Entrance Examinations*

NURSES AND WHAT THEY DO

So you think you want to be a nurse. Nursing is one of the most gratifying careers you’ll ever find. But nursing is not what you’ve seen on television or read about in books. Nursing is hard work, and learning to become a nurse requires dedication and long hours of study and preparation.

Unlike many disciplines in which the academic curricula has foundation courses with many related subjected areas, nursing courses usually build on one another. Prerequisite courses, such as anatomy and physiology, chemistry, microbiology, and biology, are the foundation for what you will learn in your nursing courses, such as medical-surgical nursing, pharmacology, obstetric nursing, mental health nursing, and community health nursing.

When enrolling in prerequisite courses, it should be with the intention of seriously learning information for use as your basic foundation in your nursing courses. Weaknesses in your prerequisite courses may cause problems not only in your nursing coursework, but also on your nursing entrance exam. Remember, nursing courses depend heavily on knowledge learned in prerequisites.

Today’s nurses work in numerous roles and settings, and opportunities are virtually unlimited. The following list includes settings in which nurses may practice:

Hospitals	Cruise ships
Clinics	Retirement/nursing homes
Doctors’ offices	Volunteer organizations
Business/industry	Occupational health programs
Community agencies	Ambulatory care agencies
Schools	Hospices
Nursing schools (higher education)	Federal/state agencies
Military	Home care
Resorts and summer camps

What a nurse actually does depends upon the scope of the practice setting. In the majority of institutional or home health settings, nurses provide care to individuals with chronic, acute physical, and/or mental conditions. What a nurse does also depends upon the needs of the individual patient. The nurse may assume total care of a patient who is unable to meet any of his or her needs or may help only in areas where assistance is needed.

When working with patients, nurses assume a number of roles. In many cases, these roles overlap and are interdependent in nature. They include:

Caregiver	Role model
Comforter	Decision maker
Advocate	Case manager
Teacher	Communicator
Counselor	Researcher

When practicing in these various roles, the nurse works to meet, or helps the patient meet, hygiene, elimination, safety, nutritional, spiritual, comfort, activity, sensory, adaptation, and/or mental health needs. The nurse focuses on assessing, analyzing, planning, and resolving actual or potential health problems and evaluates the effectiveness of nursing interventions based on the patient’s responses.

Most people think of nurses as working with individuals on a one-to-one basis. In the community setting, however, the patient may not be an individual but a family or group of families, a group of individuals, or an entire community.

Educational preparation plays an important role in career planning in nursing. Career opportunities run hand in hand with a nurse’s educational preparation. Simply put, opportunities for advancement increase as education increases. For some levels of practice, an associate degree in nursing is acceptable. For others, a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, or a doctoral degree in nursing or education is required. Career opportunities include:

Staff nurse	Nurse educator
Home health nurse	Nurse researcher
Clinical nurse specialist	Nurse consultant
Nurse midwife	Nurse anesthetist
Nurse administrator	Nurse practitioner
Hospice nurse	Public health nurse

Successful completion and graduation from a nursing program does not allow you to practice as a registered nurse. A registered nurse license is required. Note that, as per the Texas Board of Nursing, the “new enhanced licensure compact, or eNLC, is the licensure model that allows registered nurses (RNs) to have one multistate license, with the privilege to practice in the home state and in other eNLC states physically, electronically, and/or telephonically. It replaces the original nurse licensure compact (NLC) and adds extra safeguards that maintain public protection at the state level.”

IS NURSING RIGHT FOR ME?

Nursing is not for everyone, and it takes more than “desire” and a “big heart” to be a good nurse. Nursing, as a profession, requires intelligence, self-discipline, critical thinking, communication skills, compassion, dedication, high moral and ethical standards, endurance, as well as respect and concern for the welfare of others regardless of race, creed, culture, religion, or gender orientation.

When considering nursing as a career, think about the following questions.

Is nursing a job or a career?

There is a difference between a job and a career. A job is something you do in exchange for something else, usually money. A career, on the other hand, is something you are dedicated to. A career is an endeavor in which you constantly strive to be the best at your craft and in which life-long learning is not only a necessity but a consuming desire.

Am I a good team player?

In the majority of instances, nursing is a team effort focusing on an identified patient. No one person or specialty is more important than the other. The entire team works together for the patient’s welfare.

Broadly speaking, nurses are part of a team that includes a physician and other health care professionals. Depending upon the patient’s needs, the team may also include case managers; physical, occupational, respiratory, enterostomal, and speech therapists; nutritionists; social workers; pharmacists; psychologists; and spiritual advisors. Narrowly speaking, the team is the group of health care individuals the nurse works with on a daily basis.

Am I honest, depe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Test-Taking Strategies and Your Personalized Study Plan
• 3. Verbal Ability
• 4. Reading Comprehension
• 5. Numerical Ability
• 6. Science
• 7. Practice Tests
• Index