Nick Item-Writing Academy
Most nursing faculty were never taught to write exam questions — they were handed a template and a deadline. The Academy fixes that: placement by demonstration, sixteen NCLEX modules across item craft, NGN formats, clinical judgment, and quality at scale, flawed-item drills with triple-checked rewrites, and a completion record you can present for faculty-development documentation.
Unofficial. The Academy is an independent faculty-development resource — not affiliated with the NCSBN, the ANA, or any nursing program, and not a certification or compliance program. It supports faculty-development documentation; it declares nothing about any school.
Placement by demonstration
The Academy does not ask how good you think your questions are. Tell us what you teach, then take the 60-second drill: six flawed NCLEX-style items, ten seconds each, one job — name the flaw. Where you land decides your starting module.
Try it now
This is what Academy practice feels like: a flawed item, your diagnosis, then the correction and a triple-checked rewrite. These three are free; the modules hold dozens more.
A nurse is caring for a client with type 1 diabetes. Which of the following is NOT a sign of hypoglycemia?
An uncapitalized "NOT" is a reading trap, not a reasoning task — examinees who know hypoglycemia cold still misread the question and choose a true sign. Negatives also force the author to write three true options, which usually means three unfocused mini-items. The fix: convert to a positive lead-in that asks for the same content.
Rewrite (cold-solve verified): "A nurse is caring for a client with type 1 diabetes who is diaphoretic, tremulous, and confused. Which condition do these findings indicate?" — A. Hypoglycemia (key), B. Hyperglycemia, C. Diabetic ketoacidosis, D. Hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state. The correct answer is A — the neuroglycopenic triad after the stem's cues.
A nurse is caring for a client with Clostridioides difficile infection. Which precautions should the nurse use?
"All of the above" lets an examinee who recognizes any two true statements answer without evaluating the third — it tests test-taking, not infection control. The fix: replace D with a fourth plausible-but-wrong statement, so every option must be evaluated on content.
Rewrite (cold-solve verified): D. Alcohol-based hand rub instead of soap and water. Correct answers are A, B, and C in the original framing — in the rewritten single-best-answer version, the key is A: soap and water is required because alcohol does not kill C. difficile spores, which is exactly why D makes a strong distractor.
A nurse educator sees pooled stats for one of her NCLEX-style items (112 responses; illustrative data): p-value 0.93, discrimination index −0.16, option pull A 3%, B 2%, C 93% (key), D 2%. What is the correct next step?
A negative discrimination with a very high p-value says the strongest students are missing an easy item — that smells like a miskey or a subtle flaw. But data never diagnose; they only flag. The rule: negative discrimination = faculty review, never auto-delete or auto-rekey.
The curriculum
Work in order within each group — Foundations before Flaw Clinic, SATA before the case-study module — and finish with the Capstone, where you write, peer-review, and submit a five-item set through Question Studio. Every module ends with a completion record you can download from your account page.
Stem construction, the flaw taxonomy, and distractors that do real work.
Hands-on builds for every Next Generation NCLEX item type.
Aiming items at the judgment the NGN measures — and at the right difficulty.
Statistics, fairness, blueprints, peer review — and the capstone set.
Completion records
Finishing a module records it on your device — module, track, level, and date. Your account page shows the full record with a one-click download, ready to present for faculty-development documentation. Records live on your device and travel with the standard account export; one-tap delete removes them like everything else.
What the record is not: it is not a certification, not a compliance statement, and not an endorsement by any accrediting body. It documents that the work was done — nothing more, nothing less.
For students
Students: write your practice questions in Question Studio. Drafting your own NCLEX-style questions is one of the strongest ways to learn a topic — and every item you write runs through the Studio's cold-solve check, so you never drill yourself on a wrong key. Every item is solved cold twice before it counts; disputed items come back flagged with reasons, never silently shipped.