MedMaster Show (Nursing Podcast: Pharmacology and Medications for Nurses and Nursing Students by NRSNG)   /     BREAKING: Massive Updates to NCLEX due to COVID-19 (must listen)

NCSBN & PeasonVue just announced some significant changes to the NCLEX as a result of COVID-19. Here is what we are doing about it . . . MUST WATCH. Learn more about SIMCLEX at https://www.nrsngacadstag.wpengine.com

Speaker 1:

What’s up guys. I’m Jon Haws RN in founder of nrsngacadstag.wpengine.com and I’m here with

Speaker 2:

Marie Clark. Oh yeah, me. So I’ve already Clark and I am the question director here at nursing at time.

Speaker 1:

And today we wanted to come on and talk specifically. We’re kind of rushing together. You can tell we’re piecing everything together as we go. I’m actually in my closet here trying to hide the mess from you guys. Um, and Marie’s at her normal workstation cause she always works remote. But um, we, you know, with everything that’s kind of exploded over the last couple of weeks, there’s been a lot of concerns about, well I already had my end click scheduled or I was planning to take my eclipse here in the next little bit. And the first kind of piece of information we got from Pearson view is they’re closing all testing centers and then they came back a couple of days later, uh, through the NTSB end and made some updates to that. So specifically right now we want to talk about what those updates are. Uh, Maria’s been on top of this. And so I want to let her kind of talk about what those updates are and then we’ll talk about where they take place and kind of what you guys can do. So go ahead and read.

Speaker 2:

All right. So, um, first keep in mind that Pearson view NTSB and just like everybody is scrambling to figure out what we’re supposed to do and it’s pretty anxious, anxiety provoking. I’ll even say for me looking from a distance, um, but they’re making some solutions and I think their main point here is that they want to be able to test as many students as they can under the circumstances. So just like all of us are told to stay six feet away from each other and no more than 10 people gathering at a time. And a lot of areas, including my own here in Colorado, um, the Pearson view testing centers are implementing these same things and also trying to get the students through as quickly as possible to test. And so what that looks like is they are shortening the end clicks. So if ever there was a time where you maybe want to take the end clicks, it’s now, um, we’re talking instead of 75 questions minimum, you would only have 60 minimum and then up to 130 questions.

Speaker 2:

And so, um, that’s the first and the biggest change. The other one is instead of having six hours to take these questions, you have four. But I was thinking through that and I’m like, okay, well 265 questions max or 130 questions max, you’re actually getting more time per question, so this is a good thing for you. Um, so hopefully that kind of helps ease your anxiety a little bit. You have to go in and check your email because if your test was canceled, you will get an email about that. Um, so keep looking for that. And I will tell you that I was trying to get information yesterday from Pearson view, so I hop onto their chat and I was literally on chat for two hours and did not get any response at all. And then I emailed and I also didn’t hear back. So, um, that’s kind of frustrating. I’m sure you guys frustrated too, but we just have to do the best with what we can. Um, call, check your email. If you get an email from them, you can respond to that. But yeah, so that’s kind of what we’re dealing with John.

Speaker 1:

So I guess my, so my first question is then that you would have maybe already got an email from Pearson view when they made the first change of canceling. Is that correct? That’s correct. Are they saying, are they then coming back and saying, we’re going to re email you and say nevermind. Or do you know yet? Is it the reschedule thing or is it a, it’s back on find out or what,

Speaker 2:

you know, I am not sure because it changes so much every day, but I believe if your test was in a re was originally canceled, uh, it’s probably still canceled. But I guess I’m not really sure about that, John.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I don’t, I, uh, I’m not sure either. I, I thought about the same thing you did too as far as like this is the time to take it. If you can get in because um, from what I read, usually those first 15 questions on any intellects exam or those kind of testing, trying up the new NGN stuff, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and they’ve ripped all that out entirely. So you won’t be seeing these crazy new weird question formats your right to your test immediately with the ability to get out and under sick well at 60 questions.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s I guess the silver lining here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Um, and then talk about locations. You had said something to me over chat yesterday about kind of what locations have been canceled and stuff. Can you explain some of that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So starting today, March 25th, is when they are opening test centers again for testing with those new changes. And so the information that you can find online is that they’re going to open 60 test centers today and they’re going to be in large metropolitan areas. And so my guess would be the largest. However, that’s why I was trying to get a hold of them as I was trying to figure out which testing centers were open, but that’s actually not public information. You have to have your authorization to test, sign in and sign up to take a test before you can see what test centers are open.

Speaker 1:

I want to face Palm really bad right now, but I’m not allowed to because of coven. Goodness. Um, so yeah, as you kind of did a little tricky thing there by getting online and saying what are the largest cities? And you are assuming those would be some of them, but I know for example, like in Texas there’s one in Dallas where I took it, right? Kind of North Dallas and then like Tyler, Texas about an hour away has one. My guess would be Tyler’s probably not going to be open because it’s a little town of 80,000 people, but probably some of these Dallas ones would be as, as your guests.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I basically just Googled like what are the top 10 metropolitan areas in North America? Because we’re also talking Canada. So New York city, LA, Chicago, and then your town of Dallas. Fort worth is number five and Houston is number six. Um, then we go to Toronto, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Miami and Atlanta. So those are the top 10. And we just, I don’t know, I don’t know what to tell you about how to find out.

Speaker 1:

Right. So, so it seems like, so again, we don’t know this and so there’s a lot of what I’ll say here is probably speculation, but it sounds like, you know, on what it was at like the 19th or so of of March when here’s some, you sent out mass email saying it’s all canceled. Uh, then it was like the 20th or so they said, Hey, we might be opening more. It sounds like maybe you need like an authorization to test to get into one of those new centers. Possibly.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

Oh, they’re not new centers. One of those open centers.

Speaker 2:

One of the open centers. Yep. And again, your way of signing up through your program is when you go in is when you can find out where you can test. So hopefully we’re not talking a road trip of like 12 hours.

Speaker 1:

Right, right, right, right. Okay. Okay, cool. Um, cool. Not cool. Good. Good information. Good to get it out there. Um, and I think that this will help a lot of people. The next thing I want to talk about, Marie, is online with this or in line with this is the SIMCLEX maybe explain first of all what the SIMCLEX collects is, um, and then kind of our response there.

Speaker 2:

Totally. Um, so if you haven’t heard of this SIMCLEX then you are in for a treat. So the SIMCLEX is our computer adaptive tests and it mimics theM and CLECs with algorithms behind the scenes that would blow your mind. It blows my mind. I don’t even totally understand it. But if you are going to take the NCLEX

Speaker 2:

and you’re thinking about those changes that have been implemented are SIMCLEX actually has those same exact changes right now. They updated that as soon as we found out. And so instead of having 75 questions a minimum on our SIMCLEX, you would have 60 just like the new changes with the NCS VN. Um, so 60 to 130, and then, um, we also have that four hour time limit. Um, as far as difficulty is concerned, nothing is changing with the end clacks or our SIMCLEX. So that’s gonna stay exactly the same. And then the question formats are also exactly the same as they have been.

Speaker 1:

Can you see me? Can you, can you see my screen? Okay. So I wanted to log in here really quick and show people where they can get to the same clicks. It’s under the INCLAX prep Academy. Um, so if you go into nrsngacadstag.wpengine.com under the intellect prep Academy, you can see right here, they just pushed this update before Pearson. Do you even push their update? So we were even ahead of them. So that’s pretty cool. I think that Christian about 11:00 PM last night, um, central time. And you can see here, we’ve paid this massively ugly designed by engineering update here. So you can know that this is, this is different than what your previous and clicks would have been. But the reason we did this, uh, to talk to what Maria, um, is because this is what you’re going to experience when you go and take the NCLEX.

Speaker 1:

Um, and we want to stay as true to the inklings as possible. Um, delivery for you guys, 265 questions or a hundred questions or just a quiz would be worthless to you. We want you to simulate to the end clicks. So you can see here due to COBIT, we’ve updated it, minimum 60, maximum one 34 hour time limit. And we do put a link here for you guys, uh, to be able to go and, uh, read from the NTSB in their update. Um, and then we even, anyway, maybe I’ll just take one question here. So you guys what it looks like. Um, so we need to update right there. So then when you started this, so talk about this screen and why it’s so ugly.

Speaker 2:

All right. Yeah. So we’re all about the ugly today, but that is because we are mimicking exactly how it looks and feels when you take the real end clicks. So what you see here is very close to the real and clicks.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. And so as soon as I submit that question, so that first question it delivers to me is kind of random. But as soon as I submit that first question in the background, all these algorithms are driving what your next question is going to be. Uh, and so what a lot of, well, and I’ll, I’ll have you answer this Murray, but we get a lot of questions about people were posting their pass-fail graphs first in clicks and they’ll say it’s weird because I got more questions right this time, but I fell or I only got 30 questions right and I pass what’s going on? So can you talk to that a little bit?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Yeah. I follow some of those on Facebook too. I’m where people take a minimum amount but don’t pass and or get the same amount as someone else. One person pass and one person didn’t. So the way that the computer adaptive testing works is you are fed the next question based on how well you did on the question before. And so you could get 100 questions just like the next person, but your 100 questions were more difficult and this person’s 100 questions were really easy. So that could mean that you pass in a hundred, that person fails in a hundred and it’s so it’s, it might be confusing, but the way it works is it’s all based on the difficulty of the question.

Speaker 1:

Right. Um,

Speaker 1:

yeah. So it’s, it’s, it’s all designed to give you the most simulated experience possible of the inklings. So that when you, because one of my biggest fears, and Marie and I were just talking about this before we started, is I’ve been a nurse for, uh, what is it like seven years or something like that. Marie’s been a nurse for over 10 years. My biggest fear personally going into the NCLEX was [inaudible]. I don’t know what it actually looks like or feels like or how it acts. I hadn’t really taken computer data tests. Even in nursing school. They would give us a 75 tests or question test. Um, I took all these question banks. I took thousands and thousands of questions going into it. And so my wife Sandy, she would always say, you’re fine. It’s going to be fine. I was like, yeah, but I don’t know that. Mmm. And so that anxiety would build up. But the purpose of SIM is to give you that real experience so you shouldn’t take SIMCLEX until your final semester in nursing school. Um, and it’s most helpful for you in that month leading up to the ink clicks because you have all that knowledge in your brain and SIMCLEX is all about giving you that experience as you work through it. Anything else about that Marine?

Speaker 2:

I think one thing I just wanted to say was in our end PQ bank, I think we do such a good job@nrsngacadstag.wpengine.com about, um, helping students know when they’re at that point where they’re probably going to pass the NCLEX. Um, we have this 55% recommendation where if you’re going through our question bank and you’re getting 50 to 60%, right, then you have a really good chance of passing. So I think that’s really reassuring. Just to add on to that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Um, well this is a little sneak peek for people I guess. Uh, so I have the new, can you see my screen again?

Speaker 2:

Yup.

Speaker 1:

So I have the new NBQ. We were releasing a brand new, uh, NBQ that is a much more um, simple and more complex quiz builder platform than anything we’ve had before. Uh, it allows you to very quickly start questions based on uh, anything you want and you can see kind of as Maria was talking that uh, 55 or so percent we shoot for. You can quickly see on all your categories how you’re doing. So eating my categories that are red here, I really should be practicing on, so I can select all that. So let me go into just, let’s say here, but then I can make it much more complex and how I build a quiz by pulling in all these inklings categories, question types, a quiz mode, just test my incorrect. And if I’m a first or second semester student, I want to deal with question difficulty one or two, right as I’m third, fourth semester, I want to bring in all category difficulties are focused on three.

Speaker 1:

So you can see with within PQ or nursing practice questions, we let you be in the driver’s seat and pick what it is most important for you to study. When you get to SIMCLEX, we kind of take control of that because that’s what you’re going to experience as you get into, um, to take the in clicks. So [inaudible] I’ll take a question here. We can show what these are all, all about. [inaudible] and the internet is slow because it’s slow for everybody right now. Sorry. So the best part about these MPQ questions is what happens when you hit submit. And that’s what we kind of say, like in marketing, what we talk about is the learning begins on submit. Like you take the question, but your learning begins here. Marie, you want to talk about this screen and I’ll kind of scroll through as you talk.

Speaker 2:

Sure. Um, so this is, uh, when your view of a question and our MPQ bank. So, um, when you get a question either right or wrong, everything’s going to pop up for all of the answers so you can see the rationale for the correct answer here and then every incorrect answer as well. Um, and then as you go down, we also attached to all these questions are steady tools. So here’s a nursing process cheat sheet. We have references. Um, and you can see how you do compared to other nurses too.

Speaker 1:

So a lot of these, and I’ll talk to this again too, like part of the, some of the features here were built with some of our anxieties of I went to a small private nursing school. And so I honestly had no clue how I compared to someone who went to Baylor or to, you know, one of these Penn state is this fancy nursing school. Um, and so even though I was doing well in my cohort and I was doing well on these online question banks, I didn’t know what that meant. Um, compared to everyone else. So if I got a question, like if I got this question wrong, I probably need to be a little concerned. Like this is something I need to know because 63% of people are getting this right. So I should be able to do a little better and that’s great. So if I get it wrong, I can come in here and study post traumatic stress disorder immediately, um, from that question. So that’s pretty cool. I think I clicked the video will play right inside the, the rationale.

Speaker 2:

Yup. Yeah, we added a lot of resources and it’s only getting better I think.

Speaker 1:

Yes ma’am. So let’s talk some clicks a little more. So. So right now what we’ve done as part of our response to the COBIT is we’ve discounted the price of our influx prep Academy where normally it’s in line with all the other tools out there, about $329 or something like that. I think we’ve decreased that price by 36% and this is to help you guys, we know a lot of you are either worried about student loans right now because maybe you can’t work, you have all the regular financial stresses. So we wanted to get this available to as many people as possible. Um, and so until May 15th, uh, you know, we’re going to take as much of a hit of it as we can. We’ve dropped the price by 36%. So, uh, I don’t re, I think it’s $210 or something like that. You get our in clicks prep course, you get MBQ you get our, uh, I don’t have any clicks book here, but we have our own influx book that’s about like this thick or something that you get the digital version of. Um, and you get some clicks, meaning you also get all the updates that we’ve just released to make it as realistic as what you’re going to be taking. And I think with it, you get five attempts. Do you know for sure every, I don’t remember.

Speaker 2:

Um, it’s three or five. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And the reason it’s a lot of people ask, why don’t we give unlimited attempts? Um, do you want to answer that Murray or

Speaker 2:

I can try. Uh, yeah. So we limit it to normally three to five, um, for a couple of different reasons. One big one is that you shouldn’t be using the simplex experience to improve your knowledge base. And so we were finding that some people were taking this test over and over and over and over again. And it’s just not the way that we would recommend that you study. And so we wanted to limit it to the number of times you take it. Another reason is when you sit down and take our simplex, you need to, um, behave as if it’s the real thing and you don’t have the capacity to do that 15 times. You have the capacity to do that just a few times. And so those are a couple of the reasons. I don’t know if you want to talk, if there’s other reasons that you can think of, John,

Speaker 1:

that’s it. So, yeah, if you were to take it 15 times, that’s 90 hours of, of influx. That’s not realistic. Um, and it’s not appropriate. So it doesn’t hurt us, uh, as nrsngacadstag.wpengine.com to let you take it 3 trillion times. It truly hurts you and your ability to see where you really are. And that’s why we, we really, if I could, I would, I would make it so no one except for semester students could access it because that’s when it’s most helpful. Um, you’re not getting a realistic in clicks experience if you do it in your first semester. And I don’t give a shit if you can pass it your first semester because you can’t even take it yet. So you need to be waiting until closer to the end and that, that’s spot on. Um, so yeah, if you guys go to nrsngacadstag.wpengine.com, um, if you already are a member of the NCLEX Academy, you’ll see these updates immediately.

Speaker 1:

Right now when you log in, if you’re not, um, until May 15th, we’ve cut the price down by 36%. You can get in there. There is, uh, uh, you can get in there and, uh, start testing immediately. Uh, if you don’t want that intellects prep Academy, uh, the, we have, um, what’s called the influx or MPQ plus simplex plan. I think that’s one 49, I think. Okay. I think that’s right. Uh, I haven’t budgeted a little. Yeah. Um, so you can start doing that. Um, and that gives you full access to 6,000 plus ish questions all written by NTSB and trained question writers. Indeed. Uh, with these advanced rationales, uh, the quiz builder, which we’re going to be releasing to everybody probably today or tomorrow, by the way. Cool. Um, and then obviously SIMCLEX, uh, you get three attempts, I believe, of simplex. So guys, we want you to succeed.

Speaker 1:

Um, and that’s why we’re building these tools that we can quickly give you what you need. Um, I don’t think that you’re going to find this response, uh, anywhere else. Um, and this is a lot of work. Um, and I was up, like I said, messaging with Dan, our VP of engineering enrich, who manages a lot of the question work here, uh, in engineering until 11 or so last night, uh, where they were working on, uh, this stuff enriches the engineer you want behind us. He’s locked himself in a one bedroom apartment surrounded by whiteboards with odds, statistical scribblings all over the place, if you’ve seen beautiful mind to think that. Uh, but that’s what we got working on it. And then Marie eats, sleeps and breathes. I think you’ve been with us for almost two years, right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. You know, I totally missed it. It was like March 13th was two years, so yeah. Oh yeah. But it was, I was a contractor back then, but yep.

Speaker 1:

And in those two years, 90% of your time has been, uh, in clicks questions

Speaker 2:

for sure. Yes. Dig in deep into that stuff.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. This is the team that you want to trust your future with. And I believe that and that’s why we have them working on it. So what else you want to say, Marie?

Speaker 2:

Um, one more thing came to mind. So we talked there being 60 centers opening starting today, and if all goes well at these 60, on the 28th, which is I think Saturday, um, they’re going to open even more. So that’s something to keep in mind too. If there’s not a testing center that’s open near you,

Speaker 1:

awesome. If you guys have any questions about this, please reach out to support. Um, they’re working their butts off right now with all the changes and stuff to everybody’s life. Um, but they are trying to stay on top of everything as fast as they can. Uh, you can reach out to them@contactatnrsngacadstag.wpengine.com. Um, but we’ve got once you guys to see succeed and like we always say,

Speaker 2:

happy nursing.

 

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