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Nevada’s Nursing Assistant licensing exam is administered by an independent testing company and has two parts. Skill testing and knowledge testing.
Skill testing:
Practice, practice, practice the skills! AND you need to practice all the steps…EVERYTIME. Testing is nerve racking and stressful. Rely on passive muscle memory. What that means is your mind will automatically go through the motions if it’s created a repetitive memory of the activity.
Think of it this way, when you brush your teeth, do you stop and think,
First I need to pick up my toothbrush
Next, pick up the toothpaste with my free hand
Now, unscrew the cap of the tube of toothpaste
Squeeze each side of the tube of toothpaste between your thumb and fingers to dispense ½ inch of toothpaste
Apply to your toothbrush….. You get the point
Of course you don’t go through brushing your teeth step by step. So, if you make the steps that are the same in every skill part of your muscle memory, you can focus on the specific steps for an individual skill.
During testing, you will do what you practiced. If you don’t practice the 8 ins & outs,
you won’t remember to perform these steps during testing. And those small steps count.
At MAJEN, we always offer to open our lab prior to testing for practice at not extra charge.
Knowledge testing:
The knowledge test will be administered via computer and the questions are written as multiple choice questions. The test also focuses on patient safety and there is a fair amount of terminology that you will need to be familiar with. Questions may have two possible or correct answers, but one will be the “most correct”.
Tip 1, Flash cards: The testing company will provide a list of terms used on the exam. This can be found in their Candidate Handbook. The best way to study cold hard facts like terminology is to make flash cards and quiz yourself or each other.
Tip 2, Best answer: If you are unsure of the correct answer and can narrow it down to two possible answers, ask yourself “what is safest for my patient?”
Tip 3, Come back to the question: Save the question to answer later. You might find the answer in another question, or another question might provide you useful information.
Tip 4, Take practice tests: Here are some resources for online practice testing. There are even some free websites.
These two are free - https://www.practicecnatest.com/cna-practice-test/ and https://uniontestprep.com/cna/practice-test
Not free, but we use this website in our school and find it valuable. It has a ton more resources in addition to practice tests and quizzes, https://facetshealthcare.com/
Prices to use their stuff $14.99 for 24 hour access to $34.99 for 30 days access.