NREMT practice test, NREMT practice questions and NREMT test prep for the EMT exam

B. Stage at a safe distance and request the power utility

A downed wire in contact with a vehicle is treated as energized until the utility company confirms otherwise, and nothing about your assessment changes that. Option A kills EMTs, because ground gradient can energize the earth around the vehicle well beyond the point of contact. Option C is a persistent myth: the dry-wood technique is not within the EMT scope and the insulation properties of a random tool are unknowable. Option D is the most tempting wrong answer, because the patient really is safer out of the car, but instructing a conscious patient to exit means they may step out while touching the vehicle and complete the circuit through their body. If they must self-extricate, the instruction is to jump clear without touching the vehicle and the ground at the same time, then shuffle away. The exam is testing the ordering principle behind the whole domain: the scene is made safe before it is entered, and a patient you cannot reach safely is not yet your patient.

C. Perform a head-tilt chin-lift

Snoring is the classic sound of the tongue obstructing the upper airway in an unresponsive patient, and the correction is manual and immediate. The head-tilt chin-lift is the indicated maneuver because trauma has been ruled out; with suspected spinal injury you would use a jaw thrust instead. Option A is the answer most candidates choose, and an OPA may well be appropriate seconds later, but you open the airway manually first and then consider an adjunct to hold it open. Option D is the sharpest trap on the question: oxygen delivered to an obstructed airway does not reach the lungs, and a nonrebreather on a patient who cannot maintain their own airway is a documentation-only intervention. Option B may become necessary if breathing is inadequate after the airway is opened, but you cannot judge the adequacy of ventilation through an obstruction. Airway is assessed and corrected before breathing is treated, every time.

C. Bag-valve mask ventilation with supplemental oxygen

This patient has inadequate breathing, not merely low oxygen, and the distinction decides the answer. A rate of 6 with shallow chest rise means minute volume is far too low to move air in and clear carbon dioxide, so the problem is ventilation and the fix has to be ventilation. Options A and B both deliver oxygen but rely on the patient to move it, which is precisely what they cannot do; a nonrebreather on a patient breathing 6 times a minute raises the oxygen concentration of air that is barely being drawn in. Option D abandons a patient in respiratory failure. The rule worth memorizing for the exam and the street: adequate rate and depth means you may supplement oxygen, inadequate rate or depth means you ventilate. Rates below roughly 8 or above roughly 30 in an adult, or obviously shallow chest rise at any rate, put you in the ventilate category.

B. Apply a tourniquet proximal to the wound

Spurting bright red blood from the thigh is arterial and can empty a patient in a couple of minutes, which is faster than a partially obstructed airway will kill them. Current trauma sequencing puts massive hemorrhage ahead of airway for exactly this reason, and a tourniquet applied high and tight on the extremity is the fastest definitive control available to an EMT. Option A applies the older ABC ordering, and it is the answer most study guides written before the change would give. Option C sounds like good multitasking but is the trap: neither task gets done properly, and a tourniquet takes seconds if it has your full attention. Option D delays treatment of an immediately life-threatening finding to look for others, which inverts the purpose of the primary assessment. Control the catastrophic bleed, then return to the airway, which is now seconds away rather than minutes.

B. Provocation and palliation

OPQRST is the pain history mnemonic: onset, provocation and palliation, quality, region and radiation, severity, and time. Provocation and palliation ask what makes the discomfort worse and what makes it better, and the answer carries real diagnostic weight. Discomfort that worsens predictably with exertion and eases with rest points toward a cardiac origin; discomfort that changes sharply with position or with a deep breath is more suggestive of a pleuritic or musculoskeletal cause. Option C belongs to SAMPLE, the other half of the history pair, where P is past pertinent medical history. That overlap is exactly what the question is testing, and mixing the two mnemonics is one of the most common avoidable errors on this domain. Options A and D are plausible-sounding inventions with no place in either mnemonic.

C. Withhold the nitroglycerin and contact medical direction

Phosphodiesterase inhibitors such as sildenafil, vardenafil and tadalafil are an absolute contraindication to nitroglycerin within the manufacturer window, commonly 24 hours for sildenafil and vardenafil and up to 48 hours for tadalafil. Both drugs are vasodilators, and stacking them can drop blood pressure precipitously and refractorily. The adequate blood pressure in the question is the distractor: it tells you the usual systolic threshold is satisfied, which makes options A and D feel safe, but a contraindication is not overridden by a reassuring vital sign. Option B invents a dose adjustment that does not exist in the EMT scope. The transferable point is that you check contraindications and the last-dose history before you check the numbers, and this particular interaction is asked about often because candidates forget to ask the question at all.

B. Intramuscularly into the lateral thigh

The auto-injector is designed for intramuscular delivery into the anterolateral thigh, which can be done through clothing and produces faster and more reliable absorption than any other accessible site. This patient meets the criteria without ambiguity: an exposure, plus skin findings, plus respiratory compromise is anaphylaxis, and wheezing means the reaction has moved past the skin. Options A and D choose the subcutaneous route, which absorbs too slowly to be useful when perfusion is already deteriorating. Option C picks the right route but the wrong muscle; the deltoid is smaller, more variable, and not the site the device is engineered for. One further point candidates miss: hives alone are not the trigger. It is the combination of a plausible exposure with either respiratory involvement or signs of shock that makes this epinephrine rather than a comfortable transport.

C. Immediate, red

START assesses respirations, perfusion and mental status in that order, and a respiratory rate above 30 in an adult tags the patient immediate straight away. You do not continue to the perfusion or mental status checks once any single criterion has already produced a red tag, which is what keeps the algorithm fast enough to be worth using. Option D is wrong because expectant is reserved for patients who are not breathing even after a single airway-opening attempt; this patient is breathing, and quickly. Options A and B both require a rate at or below 30 to remain in contention. The design principle is worth carrying into the exam: START deliberately trades diagnostic precision for speed, the target is around 30 seconds per patient, and the only treatments performed during triage are opening an airway and controlling major bleeding.