Nursing Cheat Sheet: Lab Values to Know for
Nursing School
● Take the time to memorize what each lab abbreviation means...it will help you
remember what the lab test is for later on when you see it on an exam question.
● Normal Lab value ranges can vary depending on where you look, but don’t let
that worry you because abnormal lab values on NCLEX and other standardized
exams will always be obviously abnormal to account for those minor variations.
Unfortunately, I can’t guarantee that your Nursing Professor will follow that “best
practice” guideline if she writes her own exam questions. But even if she doesn’t,
in most cases you’ll still be able to figure it out. But if it becomes a problem, then
make sure to use the specific lab value ranges listed in your textbook OR ask
your professor what lab values she prefers to use.
● Lab values are one situation where I don’t much care about units. When you’re
doing Dosage Calculations, you ALWAYS want to keep track of your units. But
when it comes to lab values, it won’t make too much of a difference if you
memorize them or not...the numbers themselves are what’s most important to
remember. So if you have trouble keeping track of mEq versus mg versus dL and
so on...just gloss over those units and focus on memorizing the numbers only.
● Memory tip...to make memorization easier when you have a different range for
men/women, memorize the total range instead (i.e. hemoglobin=12.0-17.5,
versus 12-16 for women and 13.5-17.5 for men). Just make sure to remember
that the actual range for women is on the lower end of the total range, while the
men’s is on the higher end...and that they overlap. You’ll be less likely to get
confused or forget this if you also link it to a detail that you already know well,
such as the fact that women, on average, are smaller than men! This trick
requires less total memorization, but you will still have all the information you
need to make very good clinical judgments on exam questions.
● You can group together “number patterns”, even if they are completely unrelated
as lab tests. For some people (including me!) this makes it easier to memorize,
because if I can remember ONE range, then I can more or less remember them
all (or at least a close enough estimate to be able to correctly answer an exam
question!). For example, I like to group together these lab tests that all have
variations of 3 and 5:
○ Potassium: 3.0-5.0
○ Albumin: 3.0-5.5
○ pH: 7.35-7.45
○ PaCO2: 35-45
