How ClinicalRN works
The short version: pick a track, climb its Learning Path, and meet a daily goal small enough that you actually meet it. Everything below is the long version.
Tracks and focus
Your track decides what you study. Every case, quest, flashcard and exam in the app is drawn from it, so picking the right one is the single most useful thing you can do here.
- There are 8 tracks, from exploring nursing all the way to advanced practice. You can switch whenever you like, and nothing you have earned is lost when you do.
- Other Certifications and Specialty Transition each cover more than one audience, so they ask for a focus as well — one certification, or one specialty.
- Until you pick a focus, those tracks serve a mixed pool drawn from every audience they cover, which is fine for browsing and wasteful for studying.
- Your track is what narrows 4,200+ cases and 4,600+ flashcards down to the ones written for you.
Learning Path
The Learning Path is the map. It lays your track out as a row of nodes you climb, and it is the answer to “what should I do next?”
- Each node holds a set of topics, and a session serves questions from the node you are standing on.
- The default skills path is gated: the next skill opens once you have answered at least one question in the one before it.
- Blueprint paths — CCRN, NCLEX-RN and the certification outlines — are open from the first day, because they mirror the exam's outline rather than a teaching order.
- Crowns come from accuracy and volume together, so neither one lucky answer nor a pile of wrong ones can fake mastery. Four crowns means the node is mastered.
The daily loop
Answer a case, read why, come back tomorrow. Everything else in the app is built on top of that loop.
- Today's Case is there for everyone, every day — it stays open even once a free account's allowance is used up. While you still have attempts left, it spends one like any other case.
- A question pays 10 XP just for answering and 15 more when you are right — plus 5 when you were right without revealing anything first. Reading the rationale pays 5 either way.
- A right answer on a harder case adds 3 XP for each level of difficulty. Nothing pays for speed, and a case you have already answered correctly pays a reduced rate when it comes round again — as does anything past twice your daily goal.
- Correct answers in a row build a combo that multiplies what you earn, up to 1.5×. A wrong answer resets it.
- Your daily goal is set in questions (5 to 40) or in XP (20 to 200) — whichever you would rather count.
Streaks and shields
Your streak counts the days you met your goal — not the days you opened the app.
- A day counts once you cross your daily goal, so a small goal you actually hit is worth more than an ambitious one you miss.
- A Streak Shield covers one missed day. You are given one free at streaks of 7, 30, 100 and 365 days, and the mystery chest can drop one.
- Pro subscribers can also switch a shield on by hand, about once a week.
- Miss a day with no shield and the streak starts again. The XP, levels and badges you have already earned stay exactly where they are.
Quest Hub
The Quest Hub is the day's checklist: a few small objectives, the mystery chest, and whatever you have wagered on yourself.
- Three quests refresh each day. The first is always Climb your path, which points you at today's node; the other two are drawn to suit your track. Exploring Nursing is the exception — its board draws all three.
- Meet your daily goal and the mystery chest unlocks — 15, 40 or 100 XP, or, if you are lucky, a Streak Shield.
- Double or Nothing stakes 50 to 200 XP on you meeting your goal 7 days running. Win and the stake comes back doubled.
- Lose the wager and you simply do not get the bonus — no XP you have earned is ever taken back.
Review
Two kinds of review, for two different problems: questions you got wrong, and facts you need to keep.
- The Review Queue rebuilds a session out of the questions you missed, so a wrong answer becomes a second attempt instead of a bad memory.
- Smart Review on the flashcards page is spaced repetition — it brings a card back just before you would forget it, and a card that is not due yet earns nothing.
- Saved Cases keeps anything you bookmarked while studying, ready to run again.
Mock exams and timed practice
For when you want to rehearse the test rather than study for it.
- The Mock Exam builds a paper weighted to your exam's blueprint, so the mix of sections matches the real one.
- Your answers are kept as you go, and the report afterwards breaks the score down section by section and points you at what to drill.
- The Mock Exam engine is a Pro feature. Timed Practice is not: pick a question count and a clock, and go.
- Timed Practice draws on the same case bank as everything else, so each timed case still spends a free attempt. Pro is what lifts that cap.
Certification hubs
Every certification has a hub: its content outline, your mastery of each part of it, and a countdown to the date you are sitting it.
- Mastery is scored per outline section, from how much you have answered and how well — so the weak section is obvious at a glance.
- Tell the hub your exam date and it paces you against it.
- The CCRN hub adds a Study Map: the AACN test plan broken all the way down, with your coverage of each part.
Groups, duels and leagues
Studying alone is the hard way. Groups, friends, duels and leagues are the same practice with somebody else in the room.
- A study group shares a weekly XP target; friends show up on a leaderboard you can actually see yourself on.
- A duel puts you and a friend through the same five cases. More correct answers wins, and a tie is a draw — finishing first never breaks it.
- Leagues run Monday to Monday. You are placed in a cohort and ranked by the XP you earn that week.
- The top 7 are promoted and the bottom 5 are relegated, across 8 tiers from Bronze up to the ICU League.
Free and Pro
Most of the app is free. Pro lifts the caps and opens the exam engine.
- A free account can answer 50 cases in total, and Today's Case spends one of those while you have any left. What Today's Case gives you is that it stays open every single day, even once the allowance is used up.
- Free flashcard sessions run 5 cards at a time; Pro runs the whole deck.
- Pro also opens the Mock Exam engine and its reports.
- Exploring Nursing is free forever: a case that belongs only to that track never spends an attempt, however many you work. One it shares with a paid track still does.
Settings
One page for everything that changes how the app behaves.
- Your track and focus, your daily goal, and the display name other students see.
- Reminders and push notifications, switchable category by category.
- Your subscription — and, if you ever want it, deleting your account and everything in it.
Still stuck? Settings has your track, your goal and your plan — most of what people come here to change.