What was the question? Identifying keywords helps to answer the question

There are 2 main reasons that students incorrectly answer a test question. First, they don't know the information or the answer. The second is they don't read the test question correctly. This article provides some tips on how to read test questions.

First, exam questions contain 2 parts: the stem which usually ends in a question mark and the options or potential answers. The stem contains keywords and these keywords can help you determine what the question is asking. For instance, almost every question related to pediatrics will have the age of the child in the question. Why is this? Because the growth and development of a child at a given age can predict their response to a given illness.

It is also significant when the examiner includes the number of weeks gestation or whether the patient is a prenatal, intrapartal, or postpartal patient in a maternity nursing question.

Often when the exam question contains the name of a drug or the name of a disease process that is a keyword. For example.. a 3 month old is diagnosed with meningitis. Which of the following assessment findings would support this diagnosis? Another example would be: A patient is receiving coumadin.. Which of the following assessment findings would indicate this patient is experiencing a serious side effect? For this example the word "serious" is also a keyword. There can be many side effects to coumadin, but which one is "serious"?

Does the question include a part of the nursing process.. such as " what is the nursing intervention" or " what is the correct " nursing diagnosis"? Usually these are keywords in the exam question.