Your unfair advantage in nursing boards
Nursing boards test what you can pull up at the bedside: drug classes and their adverse effects, normal lab ranges, and which client you see first. You learn it across two or more years of school, and the exam asks for all of it on one day.
The advantage isn't a shortcut. It's a study method: pulling answers from memory and reviewing them just before they fade, instead of rereading, highlighting and cramming.
5 programs · 5,648 cards · organised by public exam outlines
What your memory has to carry for nursing boards
Different exams, the same problem: a lot to hold, for a long time, recalled on demand.
Pharmacology at volume
Suffixes, classes, side effects, antidotes and nursing considerations, for hundreds of drugs you met in different semesters.
Priority and delegation rules
ABCs, Maslow, acute over chronic, what an LPN or UAP can take. Rules you have to apply fast, under pressure, to a scenario you have never seen.
Numbers that must be exact
Lab ranges, vital-sign thresholds and dosage math, where close is wrong.
Why the old way fails for nursing boards
Rereading, highlighting and cramming are the most common ways to study, and they feel productive. The research says they're the weakest.
Rereading
Rereading a pharm chapter feels productive because the drug names look familiar. Recognising a name on the page is not the same as recalling its antidote when a question asks for it.
Retrieve it
Tested students recalled 61% of a passage a week later; students who reread it four times recalled 40%.
Roediger & Karpicke (2006), Psychological Science
Highlighting
A fully highlighted med-surg text tells you what mattered in lecture, not what you can still produce three months later.
Test yourself
A review of ten techniques rated highlighting and rereading low utility, and practice testing high.
Dunlosky et al. (2013), Psychological Science in the Public Interest
Cramming
Cramming a body system before each unit exam works for that exam. The boards come after all of them, so the early systems are the ones that have faded most.
Space it
Word pairs reviewed across four days were recalled 54% of the time; the stack crammed the day before the test, 34%.
Kornell (2009), Applied Cognitive Psychology
The numbers behind the method
Published finding about the method, not NoReread results. Each one is shown with the conditions it was measured under.
recalled on day 5: one stack reviewed daily vs stacks crammed
Nursing school is organised in blocks. Spacing is what keeps block one alive through block six.
25 students learned GRE-type word pairs over four daily sessions with the same number of study trials. One large stack reviewed every day: 54% recalled on day 5. Small stacks each crammed on a single day: 21%. The stack crammed the day before the test: 34%. Experiment 2.
Kornell, N. (2009). Optimising learning using flashcards: Spacing is more effective than cramming. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 23(9), 1297–1317.
Published finding about the method, not NoReread results.
recalled a week later: tested vs reread
Board questions ask you to produce and apply, not recognise. Practising retrieval is practising that.
Undergraduates studied a prose passage. Those who read it once and recalled it three times remembered 61% of it one week later; those who read it four times remembered 40%. At five minutes the rereaders were ahead (83% vs 71%). Experiment 2, 180 students, no feedback.
Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255.
Published finding about the method, not NoReread results.
utility: practice testing and spacing vs rereading and highlighting
The two techniques rated highest are the two this app is built on; the two most nursing students rely on are rated low.
A review of ten learning techniques rated practice testing and distributed practice high utility; rereading, highlighting and summarization were rated low utility.
Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58.
Published finding about the method, not NoReread results.
See the research
Three short loops. Two chart published results exactly as reported; the forgetting curve is an illustrative model and is labelled as one.
Spacing beats cramming
From Kornell (2009), Experiment 2: over four days, one stack of 20 word pairs reviewed every day versus four stacks of five each crammed on one day. On day 5, spaced pairs were recalled 54% of the time, massed 21%, and the stack crammed the day before 34%. Across three experiments spacing beat massing for 90% of participants, yet after the first session 72% believed massing worked better.
Kornell, N. (2009). Optimising learning using flashcards: Spacing is more effective than cramming. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 23(9), 1297–1317.
Published finding about the method, not NoReread results.
The forgetting curve, with and without reviews
An illustrative model, not measured data: after one exposure, memory decays quickly toward zero over 30 days. With reviews on days 1, 3, 7 and 14, each review restores it and it decays more slowly each time, staying high at day 30.
Ebbinghaus, H. (1885). Über das Gedächtnis. Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig.
Illustrative model, not measured data.
Testing yourself beats rereading, a week later
Bar charts from Roediger & Karpicke (2006), Experiment 2. Five minutes after studying, students who read a passage four times recalled 83%, read three times and tested once 78%, read once and tested three times 71%. One week later the order reversed: 40%, 56% and 61%.
Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255.
Published finding about the method, not NoReread results.
Nursing programs
Ready-made decks, organised by each exam's public outline. Open any program to try its free sample cards.
NCLEX-RN
8 decks · 1,405 cards
NCLEX-PN
8 decks · 1,189 cards
ATI TEAS
4 decks · 458 cards
AANP FNP
14 decks · 852 cards
ANCC FNP-BC
5 decks · 1,744 cards
| Exam | Questions | Time |
|---|---|---|
| NCLEX-RN85–150 items (including 15 unscored pretest items) · Up to 5 hours | 85–150 items (including 15 unscored pretest items) | Up to 5 hours |
| NCLEX-PN85–150 items (including 15 unscored pretest items) · Up to 5 hours | 85–150 items (including 15 unscored pretest items) | Up to 5 hours |
| ATI TEAS170 items (150 scored, 20 unscored): Reading 45, Mathematics 38, Science 50, English and Language Usage 37 · 209 minutes of testing time | 170 items (150 scored, 20 unscored): Reading 45, Mathematics 38, Science 50, English and Language Usage 37 | 209 minutes of testing time |
| AANP FNP (NP-C)150 items (135 scored, 15 pretest) · 3 hours | 150 items (135 scored, 15 pretest) | 3 hours |
| ANCC FNP-BC175 items (150 scored, 25 pretest) · 3.5 hours | 175 items (150 scored, 25 pretest) | 3.5 hours |
How NoReread puts it to work
1. Cards from public exam outlines
Each program is organised by its exam's publicly available outline, so the decks follow the structure you will be tested on.
2. Recall first, then flip
Every card asks before it tells. That moment of pulling the answer from memory is the retrieval practice the research measures.
3. Reviews scheduled before you forget
An SM-2 schedule brings each card back just as it starts to fade: sooner if you missed it, later if you knew it.
You answer a card on digoxin toxicity and whether it is due for your next review depends on how you did. Weak cards come back within days; ones you know well come back weeks later, so first-semester pharmacology is still in rotation when you sit the boards.
How often should an immobile client be repositioned to prevent pressure injury, and what other measures support prevention?
Reposition at least every 2 hours in bed (more often if skin shows redness), and pair turning with a pressure-redistributing surface, clean dry skin, and adequate protein, calories, and fluids.
Learn first, then retain.
Flashcards are a memory tool. Learn the material first, then use NoReread to retain it and refresh what you already know. It doesn't replace studying the subject.
Cards are created from publicly available sources and may contain errors. Check anything you rely on against your official materials.
Straight answers
Is NoReread enough to prepare for nursing boards?
No, and we won't pretend otherwise. Flashcards are a memory tool. Learn the material first, then use NoReread to retain it and refresh what you already know. It doesn't replace studying the subject.
What does “unfair advantage” mean here?
The advantage is the study method: retrieval practice and spaced review, instead of rereading, highlighting and cramming. It is not a promise of a pass or a score. The numbers on this page are published findings about the method from the studies cited, not NoReread results.
Can flashcards teach me clinical judgment?
No. Clinical judgment comes from your program, clinicals and practice questions. Flashcards help you keep the facts that judgment depends on, like drug effects and lab ranges, available when you need them.
Should I use this instead of a question bank?
Use both for different jobs. A question bank practises applying knowledge to scenarios; spaced flashcards keep the underlying facts from fading between sessions.
Can I rely on the cards being accurate?
Cards are created from publicly available sources and may contain errors. Check anything you rely on against your official materials. We're not experts in every field we cover, and NoReread does not guarantee exam results.
Is NoReread affiliated with the organizations behind these exams?
No. NoReread is not affiliated with or endorsed by the organizations whose exams and outlines it references, and exam names are trademarks of their respective owners.
How can I try it?
Every program page shows 6 free sample cards per deck. The All-Access annual plan starts with 7 days free, then $119.99/year, or you can buy a single program for life from $5.99.
Exam names are trademarks of their respective owners. Content disclaimer · All the research
Study nursing boards the way memory works
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