How To Prepare For The Nursing Council Exam In Nigeria (2024)

How To Prepare For The Nursing Council Exam In Nigeria – In Nigeria, it is typical for the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) to conduct qualifying exams before the issuance of licenses to Nurses in the country. This is to make sure that they are qualified and capable of practicing the Nursing Profession in the country.

Failure of this exam means denial of the Nursing license and taking a resit when next the Exam is fixed. 

As a result, a lot of people feel scared, even at the thought of the Exams. 

In this article, we will treat how you can prepare for the Nursing Council Exam In Nigeria to ensure success at a sitting.

How To Prepare For The Nursing Council Exam In Nigeria

When Is The Nursing Council Exam Usually Written In Nigeria?

The exams are usually conducted in:

1. The month of March – “Professional Qualifying Examination for Midwives” (on the 2nd Tuesday of the month)
2. The month of May – “Professional Qualifying Examination for General Nurses” (on the 1st Tuesday of the month)
3. The month of September – “Professional Qualifying Examination for Midwives” (on the 2nd Tuesday of the month)
4. The month of November – “Professional Qualifying Examination for General and Post Basic Nurses” (on the 1st Tuesday of the month)

Adhering to the following tips would help you prepare adequately for and pass your Nursing Council Exams

Quality Preparation Is Key

It is a fact that if you do not prepare adequately for the exam, you are approaching an almost certain doom.

Why is that?

The reason for this is that the exam is a highly standardized licensing exam and not preparing adequately for the exams means that you will be lost at the sight of several questions during the exams proper.

Moreover, Exams are more of a GIGO (Garbage In Garbage Out) Scenario as you can also produce what you have in you 

Preparing adequately for the exams would help get you grounded in basic and advanced ideas from where questions may be drawn.

This is a very key step towards your success in the Examinations.

Adopt Efficient Time Management Techniques

Before the date of the exams, a lot of candidates are guilty of mismanaging their time. 

Time is a very important resource and the essence of life itself. Moreover, time is always on the move and never stops for anyone which is why you should take advantage of every minute you have on your hands.

Try to allocate your time for the more important things earlier in the day as that is the time you have the most energy – and the most important thing for you at the moment should be scaling your NMCN Exams.

Avoid frivolities at all costs as they just steal valuable time from your hands.

Do Not Procrastinate

Is procrastination not the thief of time?

This is why you should try to avoid procrastination at all costs if you wish to pass your license exams in a sitting.

‘There is no better time to do it than now’ should be your mindset whenever you are revising or studying for your upcoming exams.

Agreed, you may feel worn out at times and feel like pushing “studies” to a more convenient time but have you considered that the date of the exam does not get shifted with each time you postpone your studies?

Work On Your Confidence

Confidence is a very critical key if you must pass your Nursing License Exams.

However, too much confidence can also be as harmful as too little of it. That is why you must strike a balance between the two extremes.

While underconfidence tells you that you are not enough, overconfidence tends to skew things out of perspective, and often, as a result, you end up underestimating the exams leading to unavoidable failure.

Study Past Questions

The truth is that the Nursing Council Examinations are repetitive and keep coming up again and again.

For this reason, one of your most effective study aids is past questions. 

Do well to study them thoroughly and solve them as you are sure that some questions will certainly repeat in the Examinations proper.

Also, past questions give you an idea of what to expect in the Exams so you don’t get freaked out at the sight of the questions when you encounter them in the Exams Hall.

Avoid Anxiety And Nervousness

Although it is normal to be very anxious and nervous when faced with decisive exams of this magnitude, it is detrimental to let yourself get consumed by feelings of nervousness and anxiety.

When overwhelmed with anxiety and nervousness, you will most definitely get things mixed up as it is a common occurrence that some candidates even forget the spelling of their names when required of them in the Exams Hall due to nervousness.

Try to take long deep breaths when in the exam hall to ease up the atmosphere and don’t forget that “what will be will be”. 

Study In Groups

Often this is a very effective way of studying for your Nursing Council Exams. 

Create study groups with people of like mindsets to make the most out of your study group.

You would not gain much from creating a study group filled with unserious fellows who water down all your efforts at acing your exams.

Read And Follow Instructions To The Last Detail

It is common for some candidates to ignore the exam instructions just to proceed directly to answering the questions.

This is not advisable as you need to read the Instructions thoroughly before proceeding with question answering.

The Instructions may tell you how many questions to answer, how to go about answering them etc, and flaunting these instructions may result in outright failure.

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Take Practice Exams

This is often ignored and underestimated but is a very helpful tip for scaling the Examinations.

In the practice Exams, you simulate the actual examination scenario and attempt the questions as you would in the live examinations. 

You can have a friend or colleague invigilate while you attempt the questions to ensure that you do not ‘cheat’.

This would help teach you the much-required independence that you will need to display while in the exam hall.

Go To The Exams Venue On Time

Avoid going late on the day of the exams. 

Try to get to the exam venue at least 30 minutes before the slated time of commencement.

Going on time would help you get acclimatized with and ease into the Exams environment even before the Exams commence.

Going late on the other hand leaves you disorganized and feeling confused.

Conclusion

Outlined above are the keys to note when preparing for your Nursing Council Exam In Nigeria to ensure that you come out successful.

Kindly add yours in the comment section as we look forward to hearing from you.

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