This NLN PAX cheat sheet distills the National League for Nursing's entrance exam — now delivered as the NEX — into a printable rundown of the Verbal, Mathematics, and Science facts that move your percentile. It's a premium cheat sheet built by Capital Prep — the one premium prep we trust — and it's yours free. Reinforce it with the rest of your free PAX toolkit: the practice test, study guide, and flashcards.
NLN PAX exam at a glance
- Questions: 163 items (145 scored + 18 unscored pilot), multiple-choice
- Time: 180 minutes — three 60-minute sections (Verbal, Math, Science)
- Scoring: Composite 0–300 plus section percentile ranks — no fixed passing score; each program sets its own cutoff
- Cost: ~$52–88 depending on school and proctoring (dated anchor — verify)
What’s on the NLN PAX cheat sheet
- Verbal Ability (~34%, 50 scored items) — word parts (prefixes, roots, suffixes), context clues, confused-word pairs, and reading for main idea, application, and inference.
- Mathematics (~28%, 40 scored items) — fractions, decimals and percents, measurement conversions and proportions, basic algebra with PEMDAS, and reading data — calculator allowed.
- Science (~38%, 55 scored items) — the largest section — cells and organelles, mitosis and genetics, the body systems, and chemistry basics including pH (no physics or earth science).
- Scoring & strategy — how the 0–300 composite is built from three percentile ranks, why there's no fixed pass mark, and where to spend your last week.
How to use it in your final week
- Front-load Science — it's the largest section (~38% of scored items) and historically the lowest-scoring, so a few points here move your composite the most.
- Run the Math conversions until they're reflex: 1 L = 1000 mL, 1 kg = 1000 g, and set up every dosage problem as a cross-multiplied proportion.
- Read the sheet the morning of the test for a final pass on the memory hooks — PMAT mitosis order, the 3:1 phenotype ratio, pH below 7 = acid, and part = (percent ÷ 100) × whole.
- Pair each review pass with a short timed practice set (each section is 60 minutes) so your pacing feels routine before exam day.
The cheat sheet is your review layer — your NLN PAX practice test drives the exam-readiness ring at the top of this page. Download it, review, then take a full practice exam (or drill with the study guide and flashcards) to see where you stand.
NLN PAX cheat sheet FAQ
Yes — the NLN PAX cheat sheet downloads as a PDF with no sign-up or account required. It's part of Career Employer's free PAX toolkit alongside the practice test, study guide, and flashcards, so you can grab the whole system in one sitting.
It condenses the highest-yield facts across all three scored sections — Verbal (word parts, context clues, main idea and inference), Mathematics (fractions, percents, proportions, PEMDAS), and Science (cells, mitosis, genetics, body systems, and pH) — plus the 0–300 percentile scoring model so you know how the score is built.
No — the PAX (now the NLN NEX) has no fixed national passing score. It reports a composite from 0 to 300 built from your Verbal, Math, and Science percentile ranks, and each nursing program sets its own cutoff. The sheet focuses on maximizing your percentile, not clearing a fixed line.
Both, effectively. The NLN replaced the PAX with the NEX in 2024, keeping the same three-section design, so the facts on this sheet apply to whichever your program uses. The current exam drops physics, geometry, and earth science, and the sheet reflects that.
Click the download button or the preview card at the top of this page to open the PDF instantly. Bookmark the page so you can pull it up again the morning of your NLN entrance exam.
References
- 1.National League for Nursing (NLN). “NEX (Nursing Entrance Exam) — Assessment Page (formerly the PAX).” NLN.org, 2026. ↑
- 2.National League for Nursing (NLN). “NEX Technical Manual — Blueprint, Scoring (Composite 0–300), and Norm Groups.” NLN.org, 2024. ↑
- 3.National League for Nursing (NLN). “Student Resources — Registration, Scores & Retake Policy.” NLN.org. ↑
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