Basic First Aid Skills Examination Question Bank

Preserve life first, prevent injury and disability later, and absolutely avoid secondary injuries.

I worked as a teaching assistant at a community first aid training center for the past two years. I helped sort out three versions of the question bank and proctored nearly 20 exams. I have seen too many people memorize the first aid knowledge points by heart, but fall off the mark when it comes to practical exercises or scenario questions. Don't think that the test is all about hard knowledge points. Many question options themselves have differences from different guides, and there are even many controversial points. It is easy to get stuck by memorizing the answers.

Take the most commonly tested CPR compression depth as an example. The American Heart Association’s 2020 guidelines and the latest domestic pre-hospital first aid guidelines are both clearly 5-6cm. However, many local question banks in third- and fourth-tier cities still use the old standards from ten years ago. It's 4-5cm. You don't have to worry about this kind of question. If you want to take the local Red Cross certificate, you should give priority to the latest courseware given by the instructor during the training. If you want to take the AHA certificate, you should strictly fill in the 5-6cm. Both are correct, but the assessment system is different.

There is also a question about the use of tourniquets. Last time, there was a candidate at a courier station where work-related injuries are common. He usually dealt with many cuts and scratches for his colleagues. During the exam, he chose "Relax the tourniquet for 5-10 minutes every hour", and his points were directly deducted. The examiner explained on the spot that if out-of-hospital first aid is expected to be delivered to the hospital within 1-2 hours, it is not recommended to relax midway, for fear that toxins from ischemic and necrotic tissues will suddenly enter the blood and cause shock. Only in special cases of long-distance transportation across regions, scheduled relaxation is considered. Many old question banks have not updated this knowledge point. The fault is not the candidates, but the question bank has not kept up with the standards.

There are even more pitfalls in the true-false questions. Questions such as "If you are scratched by a cat or dog and there is no bleeding, you don't need to get a rabies vaccine" or "The first time you have a heart attack contains nitroglycerin", they are all wrong questions that look like common sense. The former requires vaccination for secondary exposure clearly stipulated by disease control. The WHO's 10-day observation method also requires observation while vaccination. You cannot wait 10 days without injection. ； Not to mention the latter, if the patient has glaucoma or the blood pressure is lower than 90/60mmHg, containing nitroglycerin will cause problems. Many people miss the contraindications when memorizing knowledge points and make mistakes in the first test.

Case analysis questions are the easiest to score, as long as you don't memorize the process and think about it based on real scenarios. Last year, there was a real question: "Someone suddenly fell to the ground while playing basketball in the summer, and there was no response. You happened to be at the scene, tell me the handling process." Half of the people came up and wrote that they should do CPR immediately, which directly deducted half of the points - you must first check to see if there are basketballs flying around, and whether the patient has fainted from heat stroke? Don’t you ask someone to call 120 or find a nearby AED first? Last time, after answering the standard procedure, a candidate born after 2000 added: "I will ask people around me not to crowd too close to allow ventilation, and then take a video to keep evidence to avoid disputes." The examiner directly gave full marks. This is someone who has really understood it and is not just endorsing it.

Oh, by the way, there is another test point that has been controversial for several years: Should we control the water first in first aid for drowning? Nowadays, the mainstream new version of the guide clearly says that it is not necessary. Water control will only delay the golden first aid by 4 minutes. Just do CPR directly. However, many old question banks still have the option of "water control first and then resuscitation". Don't panic when you encounter this kind of question. As long as the question bank is updated after 2022, priority CPR will be selected. If the question clearly indicates that you should refer to the old version of the guide, then choose water control.

In fact, I have always felt that there is no need to memorize the answers by rote when studying the question bank. Touching the simulator a few more times and following the lecturer for two more live exercises are more effective than studying 1,000 questions. After all, we don’t learn first aid just to get a certificate and put it in a drawer. When something happens, you can’t just take out your phone and check the knowledge points first, right? If you need the latest 200 high-frequency test questions in 2024, you can leave a message and ask me for them. They are all common test questions that have been saved by the proctors in the past two years. It is basically no problem to memorize them to cope with the exam, but you still need to practice more and do not panic when you can really use them.