Join Dr Morgan Taylor, experienced nurse and educator, in a discussion on high-stakes exams, test-taking anxiety and self-worth. Morgan shares great advice for both nursing and non-nursing students!
Episode Transcript
This episode transcript has been AI generated for your convenience and accessibility.
>> William Wadsworth: Hello and welcome to the Exam Study Expert podcast where we help you study smarter and ace your exams. I’m your host, William Wadsworth, memory psychologist and study strategy researcher. And this week on the show I’m joined by Morgan Taylor, who’s an expert in helping nurses prepare for their exams to dive into some top tips for students facing high stakes exams of all kinds. I like this episode because part partly I know many of our listeners are studying for medical exams of various kinds, including in nursing, in which case I think it’s nice to bring some more specific tips for your field. We, dive into specific fields from time to time on the show. Of course we drop it in fairly rarely into the content, but I think it’s always a good episode when we do. but today we’re also keeping the conversation pretty general for most of the episode. So the vast majority of what we talk about today applies to students preparing for any kind of high stakes exam, nursing or otherwise. we’re covering some great advice for, going about your learning, maintaining your sense of self worth and protecting your mental health and ah, some really good practical tips for keeping those test taking nerves at bay when it’s exam day. It was a real pleasure hanging out with Morgan and recording this episode. Like me, she spent an awful lot of time with students and helping them with their various challenges and she’s got some really, really nice perspectives. So it’s great to be able to share some of her wisdom on the show today. Without further ado, let’s dive in.
>> Morgan Taylor: Alrighty. Hello everyone, my name is Dr. Morgan Taylor. I am a board certified paediatric nurse practitioner working with nurses and advanced practise nurses to help them prepare for their board exams.
>> William Wadsworth: Wonderful. Well, a very warm welcome to the show, Morgan. It’s wonderful to have you here. Can you remember when you were a nursing student yourself? I wondered if you could think back a little bit to your experience just by way of introduction to this. So what were you like as a student? What were some of the things you remember from that experience in terms of things you learned, things you found difficult? Tell us a little bit about your own experience.
>> Morgan Taylor: Studying nursing school was hard. It is one of the degrees that has the highest number of exams and essays and clinical hours and it’s just time intensive. It’s a really big struggle for a lot of people and I was definitely in that camp consuming a lot of information that was all very new to me. Completely new concepts that I was trying to wrap my head around and very Very long lectures. That’s, one of the things that sticks out to me the most when I think back is we would have multiple three hour lectures per day. And by the end of those lectures, oh my gosh, I couldn’t have told you one single thing that came out of my professor’s mouth. No matter how engaging and wonderful they were, I was just toast. By the end of it. We would go home and then we’d have long, long reading assignments, chapters and chapters of textbook that, I really tried for my first year to get through. I took it very seriously. I’m going to read every single chapter. And I consider myself to be relatively intelligent and a pretty good reader, but, gosh, I could not get through all of those pages. So really, you know, again, I could ramble here for another hour. But just a massive amount of information, very complex information that was hard to process in just, you know, reading and listening mode.
>> William Wadsworth: Can you remember how, what you ended up doing? So did you manage to kind of get through just based on reading and listening or did you end up doing something different that helped a bit more?
>> Morgan Taylor: Definitely not. It was, it was pretty clear that that wasn’t going to cut it. You know, maybe it did for some people, but I was pretty miserable with trying to make that work and just not getting, the information out of it. What I started doing was recording every single one of the lectures. I asked my professors, you know, for permission and I did a little voice recording. And then later, once I had had time to kind of process the first pass of listening in the classroom, I would put it in my headphones and go on a walk while I listened to the lecture. I think part of that honestly was just the convenience of, okay, I’ve got to try to move my body a little bit to stay healthy. And I’ve, I’ve got to listen to this information. I’ve got to study. So let me try to knock out two birds with one stone. so I messed around with it. I tried it and then I can remember so clearly the very first time I did that. Had a test in a couple of days. Got a question about something I had listened to while on a walk and I remembered, oh, I heard XYZ while I was standing right here. My body kind of connected it in space. And I was like, oh, this, this works. This is something different. You, know, no one told me to try that. But all of a sudden I was remembering information that I had heard while I was in motion.
>> William Wadsworth: Nice. So listening to lectures, you found that quite helpful. Was there anything else that you learned from your own experience studying that you found to be particularly useful to help you get over the line?
>> Morgan Taylor: Yeah, absolutely. So, so listening while in motion was the key for me. I had to be moving my body to really make that connection. And then I needed to take it a step further and use the information in some way, shape or form. And I did that differently throughout nursing school, to be honest. it took me a while to kind of figure out what, what worked, but it was either. I started out with doing the good old flashcards where I would write that information down and again then use that in holding it in my hands. I did case studies where we made kind of mind maps and I would connect the ideas on a chart. But I did find that after that first pass of listening, putting that information down on paper, using it, interacting with it in some way really was what sealed the deal for me. And that’s what we try to do with all of our students now is give them multiple ways to use that information, put it in practise so that they can hopefully have an effective study session. is the goal, right?
>> William Wadsworth: Definitely. So we were chatting before we hit record and you mentioned that your observation was today’s learners have quite different approaches and needs to your own. So tell me a little bit about what you’ve noticed has changed since your own days.
>> Morgan Taylor: Yeah, the biggest one that I notice every single day is just attention span seems to be lower and lower. And at first I really didn’t like that. I said I can’t teach you a concept. We can’t really get into the nitty gritty together in such a short period of time. But the more I’ve worked with this next generation of learners, the more I’ve realised. Sure. And digestible chunks of information are often far superior to those long three hour blocks of lecture. I mean who wants to listen to anybody for three hours? You just at least in my opinion can’t do it but for so long and really stay effective. So let me tell you, I fought it forever. Like no, if we’re going to study the cardiovascular system it’s going to take us three hours because there’s a lot to go over. But they’ve changed my mind, they’ve shown me the light and that really targeting something closer to five to seven minutes and being more specific gives them something to grasp onto and master. So that, that to me is a big takeaway, something I’m still working on as an educator trying to be better about. But it Gives you those nice shorter bites of information.
>> William Wadsworth: Nice, nice. So we’ve talked about. You have that example where you kind of transferred the information into a format you could digest on the move. You were talking about the critical importance of using the information, so doing the flashcards, the case studies and so forth. And you were talking about kind of more recently your thoughts around kind of chunking up the information, bite sized pieces, taking it a piece at a time. So some really nice ideas. Are there any other of your kind of favourite tips or tricks for students, whether nurses or perhaps otherwise, that would be helpful to share in addition to those?
>> Morgan Taylor: Sure. So this might be taking us on a little bit of a tangent here, but bear with me. For me, one of the biggest barriers when it came from translating what I had studied, where I really felt like, okay, I did this, I worked with the information. I feel confident to then achieving a high score or a good result on an examination was this mental block which I now know to be severe testing anxiety. I had a lot of trouble sitting down, you know, a pen and paper. Now sometimes they’re on the computer, my mind would go blank. And I thought that that was just me. I didn’t talk to anybody about that. I had a hard time finding resources to address it. Now I know that that does happen to a lot of people in different variations, different degrees of severity. But you can really study hard, effectively master the content and then sit down for the big day, the big exam and it not go as well as you would have liked it to. So I really work with every single one of my students on preparing for that, talking about that, not keeping it hidden in a closet. No one’s talking about anxiety. Making sure that we know strategies to address that so that all that hard work you put in can then translate to the grade, the score, the outcome that you’re looking for.
>> William Wadsworth: Absolutely. So overcoming test anxiety then what are some of the things that we need to think about? What are some of the things we might think about? And you’re absolutely right. Like it is, it is surprisingly or not surprisingly, it is quite common and it’s something that listeners and my clients talk to me about.
>> Morgan Taylor: Yeah, I was certainly surprised by it. Like no one told me that that could be a thing and ah, so I didn’t talk about it. And I do think that that is something that we should talk about more. I think the more you’re aware of it, the better that we can prepare for it. And that’s kind of my cornerstone, working with students. The first Thing I’ll talk about is I just, I bring it up to everybody, I say, you know, even if you’re not what you would consider an anxious person if you don’t have this, I still want to talk about it, I want to prepare for it and give you strategies to go into that. Especially if it’s a high stakes exam like your boards, those types of settings induce a lot of stress. So knowing that that is there, just putting it out and ah, talking about it beforehand I think can do a lot of good as a first step. Secondly, especially on those high stake exams, I like for students to practise and simulate the environment as close as possible. So for my nursing students I’m going to use them as an example. They take a board exam called the NCLEX where they, over the past four years, everything they’ve learned, it’s all riding on this one test for them to get their licence. And for a lot of people the stakes are very high. They’ve maybe got a job associated with passing this exam and when they go into that testing room it is really a lot to handle. So I talk to them a lot about what’s that room going to look like, what are the rules going into that testing centre so that you can have the proper ID and you can only bring in one water bottle and you know, nitpicky things like that but making sure they know all of those things. Secondly, I like them to take practise exams in as similar of an environment to that room as possible. So your phone’s got to be out of the room, you know, no distractions, you need to set a timer for the allotted time you’re going to have and I even like them to try and do it at a similar time of day that they have scheduled for the exam because in my work the more students have been able to practise and simulate that setting, the less of a novice experience it is and the less likely they are to have that really debilitating anxiety.
>> William Wadsworth: 100%. Yeah. I always like having this conversation with the students that I’ve talked to over the years as well and finding creative ways to simulate the environment as closely as possible. One of the things is often being in a quiet environment, surrounded by other people, working studiously and you might not be able to have access to an exam centre where you can go and practise, but most people will have a library in town. You can go and work in the reading room there. I’ve even known younger students go and use their Parents office, you know, particular. It’s a quiet one, you know, Then you’re surrounded by lots of intimidating adults working away.
>> Morgan Taylor: Yes.
>> William Wadsworth: Goes a long way to recreating that, that feeling, doesn’t it? So that’s, that’s nice. Even down to the little details. Like, I had a student who’s a radiologist in Australia and he’d got hold of the exact. Somehow managed to get hold of the exact rough paper that that exam uses. So he was printing off like the exam style rough paper, so it had the same line widths and everything, and he was using that rough paper in his practise. So the tiny, tiny little details.
>> Morgan Taylor: Yeah. Don’t they go a long way?
>> William Wadsworth: Yeah. The closer you can match the practise to how it’ll be on the day, the easier on the day will be. And, it might not never feel. It might not ever feel totally nerve free. but at least you’ll be that much better.
>> Morgan Taylor: Absolutely. And then that goes perfectly into my next point that I work on with students after we’ve really worked on, you know, preparing for all those details that you can control, like getting directions to the test centre, you know, making sure all those other details are taken care of, practising as much as possible to simulate the environment. My next step then is. All right, let’s set you up with some strategies for while you’re taking the test. If you do start to really have some testing anxiety, maybe you won’t, maybe it’ll go perfectly, you’ll ace it and I’ll never hear from you again. But if you do start to feel like, oh, my gosh, blank slate. I’m not remembering any of this, let’s already have some strategies tucked into your back pocket so that you’re not just sitting there, not knowing what to do and, and leaving disheartened. Right.
>> William Wadsworth: Tell me who.
>> Morgan Taylor: All right, so my personal favourite, just because it works for me and it doesn’t necessarily for everyone, is to just have a couple of breathing exercises that you can do. They can be very, very simple. For me, what works the best is box breathing. So I’ll breathe in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. Something about the rhythmic nature of that and intentionally slowing down my breath kind of gets me recentered and I’m like, okay, we can do this. And oftentimes I can come back and then perform much better. So I’ll have students practise that. I think it’s good to go ahead and know how that works for other students. I’ve had reciting a mantra be something that’s a lot more effective for them. So I’ll have them before the exam think of, you know, one sentence, one phrase, even just a couple of words that they can really come back to and be anchored on. And if you feel that panic, that blank slate, you close your eyes, back away from the screen and recite your mantra. So I’ve had people do things like I am enough. This exam doesn’t define me. Things such as that or whatever resonates for you, that’s a very personal choice. So you can kind of think about that before your exam if that feels helpful. And then my third strategy is making a list of what I call your tangibles, which are things that no one can take away from you despite the outcome of this examination. So when I went to sit for my nurse practitioner boards, my list of tangibles were, I am a nurse, I am a wife, I, am a mother. And those are things that I do and I do well and they’re not contingent on how this exam goes. So for me it like builds a little bit of confidence back into you to be like, okay, I can do my best on this and it’s going to be okay. So those are my kind of toolkit that I, that I like to practise beforehand.
>> William Wadsworth: That’s ah, really nice. Yeah, really nice. I think you’re right. People often neglect the kind of exam taking process at the end of the studying. And it’s funny like you might spend for a case of a big exam you’ve worked on over many years. It’s thousands of hours of work, goes into maybe three hours in an exam.
>> Morgan Taylor: Right. And then it’s over.
>> William Wadsworth: Those are three pretty critical hours. And this isn’t to heighten your anxiety, but just a little bit of forethought into how you’ll play the game on the day.
>> Morgan Taylor: Absolutely. And that’s part of the reason why you can have so much anxiety during those three hours because so much went into it beforehand. And like we said, oftentimes there’s a lot riding on it and I think it’s okay to acknowledge that and say, you know, yeah, this is really important, maybe this is the biggest test I’ve ever taken before, but I do find that when you really take those deep breaths and emphasise that you are still worthy and enough despite the outcome of the exam that that goes a long way as well. If we let our self worth ride on exams, it can become debilitating. It’s a lot to overcome and.
>> William Wadsworth: Think about talking about that idea of being enough. The sort of self worth and some of the kind of M mindset themes that are tied up in this. I wonder if there are sort of any other themes that you come across with your students in terms of. Yes. Kind of mindset challenges that come up for people along the way.
>> Morgan Taylor: For sure. Yeah. The self worth is huge. But also for students who have traditionally struggled with exams. I know there’s a lot of us out there that that’s not our strong suit. We’re great at other things, but when it comes to taking tests, that’s a challenge for us and that can become a big blocker. People will label themselves of like, I’m just not a good test taker. I don’t do that well. And maybe it’s not your favourite thing in the world, maybe it isn’t your superpower, but if you label yourself as just like, I’m not good at that, you’ll never be good at it. Just like with anything, it might require more effort, some. Some innovative, study strategies, really thinking about how you’re going to break through that wall. But I do find a lot of students label themselves and then limit themselves accordingly.
>> William Wadsworth: Yeah. So what do we do?
>> Morgan Taylor: Yeah, that’s hard because the answer is going to be a little bit different for everybody. Right. so you really. Oh, gosh, practise is key for me there because the more you practise and prove to yourself that you can get the outcome that you want, the more prepared you’re going to be. But there has to be some internal work of breaking that wall down. Right. And how you speak to yourself, how you think about that outcome. I mean, the first thing I would say to anyone is stop. Stop saying that about yourself. Stop saying that you’re a bad test taker. Stop saying that you’re not going to have the outcome that you want to really put out there where you’re hoping to get, acknowledge the hard work you’re going to have to put in. But really, just calling yourself out as not being capable of this is limiting in and of itself. So that’s where I would start.
>> William Wadsworth: Right, right. And, another thing I remember we’re chatting about before we hit record was the professor, Tim Wilson, work on Red changing your story. So that episode could be a good one to go back and have a listen to if you’re interested in sort of that kind of mindset work. And one of the lessons from that research on, mindset development is the power of having strong role models. Or stories of particularly people like you that you can emulate. And one of the recurring series here on the podcast, as regular listeners will know, is our Student Stories series. And often a theme throughout that not in every single case, but in many of the cases are people that have had a lot of doubt, a lot of, you know, challenge to overcome and have succeeded in overcoming that. So I’m thinking particularly you know, the episode we do with Michael, the episode we do with Rose, I’ll put the links in the show notes so you can go and cheque those out and hopefully you might find some inspiration in those stories. if you’re having these kind of doubts yourself.
>> Morgan Taylor: I love that there’s so much value in finding a mentor, finding community, finding others that can lift you up. it can often feel very isolating studying for these high stake exams and I really do think that we’re better together than we are being siloed. So finding those stories, you know, going back and listening to these previous episodes of students, maybe some really resonate with you. They can become your inspiration. I have one of my favourite instructors in nursing education, our director of nursing at Archer Review, her name is Rachel Taylor. She consistently has students, before they start any sort of prep session, define their why. Tell us why you’re here. Not to pass the exam, but really what is the reason for us at Archer thinking about nurses? Why are you wanting to become a nurse? Is it for your kids, for your family? What’s your inspiration? Because when you’re working for something greater, when you have that community, that support, that mentor, it really does lift the burden off of you and give you something bigger to reach for.
>> William Wadsworth: 100% good. So we’ve had quite a wide ranging conversation. Are there any other sort of specific. I know it’s a big, big open ended question but are there any other sort of major challenges that often come up for your students that we haven’t touched on so far?
>> Morgan Taylor: Sure. there’s an interesting one in the nursing education world right now. Interested to see how this applies more broadly as well. But in our licensure exam just back In April of 23, there was a big reboot and they introduced a lot of new item types onto the exams. Some much more complex ways than just multiple choice questions to ask information. As an educator, I think this is actually a wonderful thing and moving in the right direction as a student, it’s incredibly intimidating when all you’ve ever practised are ABCD questions and ah, now you’ve got a complex grid or A matrix that you’re highlighting different parts of it can feel quite overwhelming. So learning how to take those items, really doing a lot of practise on all the different item types, that has been a big, to do in the nursing education world over the past really just one to two years. So.
>> William Wadsworth: Yeah, no, that’s interesting. yeah, I think the kind of, the world of, you know, what are the best ways to assess students for a particular course? You know, it’s had quite a bit of attention in lots of fields recently. And yeah, again, some of the research is quite interesting. You know, typically boys tend to do slightly better on multiple choice compared to girls. And so, you know, it’s important that you don’t only rely on multiple choices and assessment criteria so that we’re fair to everybody. So it’s quite interesting. Things of that nature.
>> Morgan Taylor: I most certainly didn’t know that. That is an interesting fact. Yeah, good.
>> William Wadsworth: I wanted to ask a little bit more broadly. You know, you’re obviously very passionate about the field and the career that you’re helping people get into. I wondered for, particularly for any young, sort of younger listeners, potentially career change listeners, who might be considering a journey into nursing. Tell us a little bit about it. You know, why is it such an exciting place to be in your view, that you’ve sort of dedicated your life to?
>> Morgan Taylor: Absolutely. There is a lot to be said for the field of nursing in the variety of opportunities and doors it will open for you. we think of nursing as, you know, you’re wearing your scrubs, you’re maybe in the hospital at, a bedside, caring, hands on for patients, and that certainly is a huge component of nursing. But there are a plethora of other ways that you can be involved in the profession of nursing. So for me, I pivoted into the education world. We’ve also got hospital administrators, nurses sitting in boardrooms and in government, we have nurses who are authors, speakers, leaders. In many different ways, really, the world is your oyster. So it’s a great point of entry knowing that you will always have a job and that your career can pivot throughout your life. It doesn’t necessarily have to look the same in your 20s as it does in your 50s. You can really adapt your career based on your life and where your passions lie. So not every career is like that. And I think that’s a lot of, what draws some people to nursing is just the adaptability that you’ll have.
>> William Wadsworth: Do you miss being in clinical practise?
>> Morgan Taylor: I do, yes, I do. It’s only Been maybe just over a year and a half or so since I had my last bedside, encounter and I am starting to miss it. It does bring a lot of joy, really. Back to your roots of why everybody starts out here and, we’ll see if I’ll potentially go, go back in the clinic setting at some point.
>> William Wadsworth: Good. Well, tell us a little bit about how people can use your world to help them on their journey, if this is something that they’re pursuing, certainly if.
>> Morgan Taylor: Nursing sounds like a career that you’re interested in. Archer Review is really here to help guide and support you from day one of that decision. a lot of what we’ve talked about today has been about that community, that support. You don’t have to go at it alone. and I’m really seeking to create that throughout your entire nursing journey, so to speak, not just when it comes to one high stake exam. You can head to archerreview.com and we’ll have resources for you to study for those entrance exams, to get into nursing school, school support you throughout your schooling and of course pass those licensure exams as well. If you are on social media, you can also follow along with us for short little content and updates, along the way. We’re at Archer Nursing on all the social platforms.
>> William Wadsworth: Smashing. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Morgan. It’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you today and we will put those links as always for people in the show notes. Thank you so much once again for joining today and we’ll hopefully talk again soon. Thank you.
>> Morgan Taylor: Wonderful. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
>> William Wadsworth: Well, thanks so much once again, Dr. Morgan. And again, do cheque out the show notes for all links and resources mentioned today. By the way, if you didn’t notice, I’ve experimented with a new intro message for this episode. The, style in podcasting these days seems to be towards shorter and host read intros. So I’m experimenting with the new style Style. I’ve recorded it myself and the idea is it’ll be fresh and slightly different each episode. Ah, getting you into the content and the meat of the episode as quickly as possible whilst also giving the very briefest of outlines of what the show’s all about. If you are tuning in, particularly as a newer listener, I’d love to hear what you think. do you like it? Do you not like it? Do you not care at all? particularly if you’re a regular listener. But you can do that either by replying to the Q and A for this episode. If you’re in Spotify or leaving a comment. If you’re listening on YouTube or otherwise, you can click the feedback link in the episode description which, will pop up whatever platform you’re listening to this episode on and tell me what you think. Next week we are embarking on a new mini series in which I’ll be breaking down my latest and best thinking on how to study effectively. In essence, we’re going to be updating some of the key episodes from the original how to Study Effectively series, which came out now around four years ago ago, from episode 66 onwards. That series was really, really popular at the time and I still get great feedback about it from listeners. many people have told me that they see it pretty much as the cornerstone content from the whole podcast and I can see why it’s good content. But I’ve learned an awful lot in the past four years and I now look back at that series and sort of have extensive notes on what I might see differently or add to it. And so updating some, of the key bits in that series is, going to be, our goal for the next few weeks on the show. I’m going to be doing a little mini series of solo episodes, with some of my best and latest thinking on how to really get to grips with your course content, particularly if you have a large volume of stuff to learn for a challenging exam. So if that describes you, you won’t want to miss the next few weeks on the show. It should be really good stuff. Mark your calendar and tell your friends. so I hope you have your company next week for the first instalment of that, for now, I just want to say thank so much as always, for listening today and wishing you every success in your studies. If you’ve got exams coming up, you can now get all of William’s favourite tips and tricks to save you time and get you higher grades all in one handy cheat sheet. Grab your copy@examstudyexpert.com Freetips Thanks. Thanks again for listening, and see you soon.
This week on the show:
- Top tips for learning for high stakes exams
- Maintaining your sense of self-worth and protecting your mental health
- 4 top tips for keeping test-taking nerves at bay
- Advice for prospective / current nursing students
Our guest today is Dr Morgan Taylor, an experienced advisor to nursing students. Today’s conversation is mainly quite general and non-nursing specific, and relevant to anyone preparing for any high-stakes exam, though we do also dive into Morgan’s specific passion and expertise for studying nursing towards the end of the interview.
Dr Morgan Taylor is the founder and Chief Nursing Officer at Archer Review, a leading study platform for NCLEX, FNP, TEAS 7, USMLE and nursing school exams.
- https://www.archerreview.com/
- Follow Morgan and her company on social @ArcherReview
Also mentioned in today’s episode:
- Ep 42 with Prof. Timothy Wilson https://examstudyexpert.com/redirect-timothy-wilson/
- Student stories episodes 69/77 (Rose, high school student) and 73 (Michael, college student)
Hosted by William Wadsworth, memory psychologist, independent researcher and study skills coach / trainer. I help ambitious students to study smarter, not harder, so they can ace their exams with less work and less stress.
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