What's new
What's new in August 2026
Everything we shipped to BoardPal in August 2026.
Aug 22 to 31 · 30 improvements
31Aug · Mon
Words like defensible and red herring are gone from our explanations
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One hundred and twenty-five explanations no longer call a wrong choice defensible, a red herring or the look-alike option; answer keys are unchanged. more ▾less ▴
One hundred and twenty-five questions had their explanations reworded to drop four habits of ours. We used to call a wrong choice defensible, or a red herring, or the look-alike option, and we used to rank the wrong choices against one another. We checked seventy-four review PDFs from the reviewers our students actually read and did not find any of those words in any of them, so this was our vocabulary rather than the exam's. Each of these explanations now grants what is genuinely right about a wrong choice and then names the fact that rules it out, in the same clinical words the choice itself uses. The rewrite covered one hundred and three regular questions and twenty-two select-all questions across seventy-nine subtopics. Two of them also changed in a way you can see on screen: a community health question now asks which explanation is least likely rather than least defensible, and one nursing research choice now reads justifiable rather than defensible. Three questions keep the word defensible on purpose, because there it describes a patient record that has to hold up in a legal proceeding, which is the term nurses are actually taught. Questions, choices and answer keys are otherwise unchanged, so every result you have already recorded still stands.
Select-all explanations now tell you why, not which one looks tempting
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Three hundred and fifty select-all explanations now say why a wrong statement is wrong instead of ranking how tempting it looks; answer keys are unchanged. more ▾less ▴
Three hundred and fifty of our select-all questions, the ones where the stem lists numbered statements and the choices are combinations like "A. 1, 2 and 3", now carry rewritten explanations. These used to close by telling you which wrong statement was the most tempting, or the hardest to dismiss, or the closest competitor. That commentary described how an answer felt rather than what was true about it, and it is now gone from every one of them. In its place the statement itself carries the concession: the explanation grants what is genuinely right about a wrong statement and then names the fact in the scenario that rules it out. Warm soaks really are a caring measure for a hot, swollen joint, but pus under pressure in a joint space is removed by drainage, and that is the sentence you now read instead of a ranking. Clinical ranking stays, because it is real nursing content: an explanation may still tell you which of four problems is the most urgent, or which of three signs appears earliest. The rewrite covered three hundred and fifty questions across one hundred and thirty-three subtopics. Questions, statements, choices and answer keys are unchanged, so every result you have already recorded still stands.
Your reports fixed five questions and two cram sheet pages
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The Intrapartum sheet now matches the intervention to the deceleration type; marked-up copies stay one tap away behind the clock icon. more ▾less ▴
The Intrapartum sheet's fetal monitoring section now matches the intervention to the deceleration type. The resuscitation steps on page 16 used to list stopping the oxytocin first for every abnormal pattern; they now lead with the position change for variable decelerations, because turning the mother is what relieves the cord compression causing the drops, while stopping the infusion remains the first move for late decelerations and whenever oxytocin is driving the pattern. This follows the 2025 ACOG monitoring guideline and matches the sheet's own pattern table. If you had marked up the previous version, your highlights and notes are safe on that edition, one tap away behind the clock icon in the top bar.
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30Aug · Sun
All 125 childhood illness explanations rewritten
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All 125 childhood illness (IMCI) explanations rewritten; the long sentences are gone and answer keys are unchanged. more ▾less ▴
All one hundred and twenty-five of our Integrated Management of Childhood Illness questions now carry rewritten answer explanations, so the whole topic reads the same way from the first question to the last. They cover the general danger signs, cough and difficult breathing, diarrhea and the rehydration plans, fever including malaria, measles and dengue, ear problems, nutrition and anemia, the sick young infant chart, immunization, counselling the mother, and follow-up visits. The clearest change is length: ninety-four of these one hundred and twenty-five explanations contained at least one sentence longer than thirty words, the longest of them running to fifty-eight, and none of them do now. The longest sentence anywhere in the topic is twenty-seven words. Each explanation leads with why the correct answer is correct, states the principle you can carry into similar questions, and works through every choice in plain clinical language instead of commentary about which option looks tempting. Where the current WHO and DOH chart differs from older Philippine review material, the explanation names the difference rather than leaving you to guess which version we mean, and the young infant chart is kept distinct from the chart for children two months and older wherever the two disagree. Questions, choices and answer keys are unchanged, so every result you have already recorded still stands. Every rewrite passed the automated checks and was then read by reviewers who had not written it, and each round of corrections was itself re-read before anything went live.
Your plan now says when it skips a mock board you already finished
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A rebuilt or reset plan now says which mock boards, or halves of one, it skipped because you already finished them, and where retakes live. more ▾less ▴
When you rebuild or reset your study plan, BoardPal never schedules a mock board you have already fully taken; your next new benchmark takes its place, and once every board is done a reset lines up a fresh round of all five. That rule was always there, but nothing on screen said so, and a new plan that opened at Mock Board 2 could read like it had started you in the wrong place. Now the moment a new plan is ready, the confirmation names the boards you have already finished and where your plan continues, and the schedule page keeps a matching line above your calendar for as long as the plan runs. The same goes for a board you had taken halfway: when your new plan includes that board, it schedules only the day you have not taken yet, and both the note above the calendar and the entry itself now say which day is already banked, with a "Day 1 done" check on the remaining half. Finished boards can always be retaken from the Mock Boards page, as many times as you like, and every attempt keeps its own score.
43 more community health explanations rewritten
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43 more community health explanations rewritten; the long sentences are gone and answer keys are unchanged. more ▾less ▴
Forty-three more of the most-practiced community health questions now carry rewritten answer explanations. They cover primary health care, the community health nursing and family nursing process, the referral system, health records and reporting, disaster nursing in the community, community mental health, school and occupational health, and epidemiology. Thirty-eight of these forty-three contained at least one sentence longer than thirty words, and none of them do now. The longest sentence anywhere in the batch is twenty-seven words. Each explanation leads with why the correct answer is correct, gives the principle you can carry into similar questions, and works through every choice in plain clinical language instead of commentary about which option looks tempting. Questions, choices and answer keys are unchanged, so every result you have already recorded still stands. This batch went through four separate rounds of review rather than the usual two, because every round of corrections was itself re-read by someone who had not made those corrections, and the later rounds kept finding things worth fixing.
Your schedule shows when half a mock board is done
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A pending mock board entry now shows a "Day 1 done" check when the other half is finished. more ▾less ▴
A full mock board sits on your study plan as two entries, Day 1 (NP1 to NP3) and Day 2 (NP4 to NP5), and the second entry stays unchecked until you finish its own sections. That could look like your finished Day 1 was not counted, so the pending entry now shows a small "Day 1 done" check when you have already completed the other half, and tapping it spells out which sections are already saved and which ones that entry still covers. Your results were always recorded either way; this just makes it visible at a glance.
200 more explanations rewritten, long sentences gone
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A further 200 answer explanations rewritten; the long sentences are gone, answer keys unchanged. more ▾less ▴
A further two hundred of the most-practiced questions now carry rewritten answer explanations, on top of the two hundred rewritten earlier today. They cover community health nursing and family nursing, referrals and health records, nutrition programs, immunization, school and occupational health, maternal and child health, primary health care, health laws and financing, nursing process and prioritization, vital signs, leadership, and a spread of medical, surgical and mental health topics. The clearest change is length: one hundred and fifty one of these two hundred explanations contained at least one sentence longer than thirty words, and none of them do now. Each explanation leads with why the correct answer is correct, states the principle you can carry into similar questions, and works through every choice in plain clinical language rather than commentary about which option looks tempting. Questions, choices and answer keys are unchanged, so every result you have already recorded still stands. Every rewrite passed the automated checks and was read by reviewers who had not written it, and wherever a reviewer changed something, a further reviewer who had not seen that change read the item again before it went live.
Two hundred more answer explanations rewritten for clarity
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200 more answer explanations rewritten for clarity; answer keys unchanged. more ▾less ▴
Two hundred of the most-practiced questions now carry rewritten answer explanations. They span community health and family nursing, prioritization, health programs and laws, communicable disease and disaster nursing, basic needs and vital signs, growth and development, and mental health. Each explanation now leads with why the correct answer is correct, states the principle you can carry into similar questions, and walks through every choice in plain language instead of test-taking commentary. Questions, choices, and answer keys are unchanged, so every result you have already recorded still stands. Every rewrite passed automated checks and at least two independent review passes before going live on August 30.
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29Aug · Sat
68 respiratory questions made harder
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68 respiratory practice questions hardened; answer keys unchanged. more ▾less ▴
Sixty-eight questions across the seven respiratory practice sets were rewritten after one of you told us they were too easy, and the numbers agreed: nine out of ten students were getting each of these right on the first try. They cover collapsed lungs, chest injuries and chest tubes; asthma; COPD; pneumonia; pulmonary embolism and pulmonary hypertension; the upper airway; and ARDS. The wrong choices now look as right as the correct one and are wrong for a reason the explanation names, the way the real board writes them. While rewriting, every fact was re-checked at the source, from drug labels to current treatment guidelines, and nineteen small factual repairs were made along the way. Answer keys are unchanged, so every result you have already recorded still stands. The rewritten questions have been live since August 26.
Explanations corrected after a source check of 22 questions
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Two answer choices reworded for clarity; correct answers unchanged. more ▾less ▴
Two of those questions also had an answer choice reworded so it can only be answered for the right reason: the sucking-chest-wound choices now say "occlusive dressing", naming the airtight material that makes the three-sided taping work, and an adolescent-screening choice now reads "routine scanning of all students for low bone density" without a bundled calcium clause that muddied why it was the odd one out. The correct letters are unchanged.
Select-all questions now read the way they do on the board exam
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Select-all questions now ask the clinical question in real PNLE phrasing; statements, choices, and answers unchanged. more ▾less ▴
Every select-all question in the bank — the ones that list numbered statements and ask you to pick the right combination — has been reworded to match real PNLE phrasing. They used to end with a sentence about the answer options themselves: "Which option lists all of the correct statements and none of the incorrect ones?" That is not how the board asks, so it is gone. Each question now simply asks the clinical question and names what you are judging the statements against, for example "Which findings point to early hemorrhage and hypovolemic shock?" or "Which instructions on food and water handling prevent spread within the household?" A handful of questions that carried the American NCLEX phrase "select all that apply" were reworded too, since that wording never appears on the Philippine board. The numbered statements, the answer choices, and the correct answers are all completely unchanged — only the question line was rewritten, and every one was read and checked before going live.
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39 select-all questions tightened so only the correct combination fits; statements, choices, and answers unchanged. more ▾less ▴
A follow-up pass tightened 39 select-all questions that were already in board phrasing but where a second combination could still be argued — usually a too-big combination carrying one extra statement. Each question line now names what the statements are judged against sharply enough that only the keyed combination fits, and every rewrite was independently double-checked against the statements before going live. The numbered statements, the answer choices, and the correct answers are unchanged.
Clearer explanations on 200 select-all practice questions
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200 select-all and multiple-choice questions now explain every statement clearly; statements, choices, and keys untouched. more ▾less ▴
The select-all block of our rationale-clarity rewrite is live: 200 practice questions — 172 in the PNLE combination format and 28 multiple-choice, with more than 43,000 recorded answers between them — now open with the answer in plain clinical terms and teach the principle that decides it. On the combination items, every numbered statement gets its own line, labelled Correct or Wrong, with its own reason, so you can see exactly which statement cost you the point. Two long-standing clinical points were corrected along the way: after an IV drug leaks into tissue, the choice of a warm or cold compress now follows the drug involved, and dysfunctional labor is taught against all five Ps. Every rewrite was checked line-by-line against the original so no dose, statute, or clinical fact was lost, then read end-to-end through five rounds of independent review before going live. In this update only the explanations changed; the numbered statements, answer choices, and answer keys are untouched.
Clearer explanations on 180 of the most-answered practice questions
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180 high-traffic questions now explain their answers clearly; questions, options, and keys untouched. more ▾less ▴
The final block of our rationale-clarity rewrite is live: 180 of the most-answered multiple-choice questions in the bank — about 29,000 recorded answers between them — now open with the answer in plain clinical terms, teach the principle that decides it, and explain every option on its own merits. The old habit of ranking which wrong answer comes closest is gone from all of them. Every rewrite was checked line-by-line against the original so no dose, statute, or clinical fact was lost, then read end-to-end by independent reviewers before going live. No question text, options, or answer keys changed — only the explanations. With this block, every high-traffic multiple-choice question in the bank carries the new-style rationale.
New Anatomy and Physiology sheet and 102 new questions
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The flashcards FAQ now explains Undo and "Start this deck over". more ▾less ▴
The flashcards FAQ on the Help page now spells out the two ways to redo cards: the Undo button walks back a mis-tapped rating, and every deck page has a "Start this deck over" button when you want a completely fresh start on that deck.
Terms and Refund Policy now describe how paying actually works
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The legal pages now describe the PayMongo checkout instead of the retired beta payment flow. Your plan, price, and refund rights are unchanged. more ▾less ▴
Our Terms of Service and Return & Refund Policy were written back when BoardPal was in beta, and they still described that era's payment flow: a beta pass paid by uploading a GCash receipt and verified by hand. Paying has not worked that way since the current plans launched in July — you pay on a secure PayMongo checkout and your access unlocks automatically within seconds. Both pages now describe the checkout you actually use. Nothing about your plan, your price, or your refund rights has changed.
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27Aug · Thu
A typo in your display name no longer costs you a month
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You now get 15 minutes to correct your display name after changing it, instead of being stuck with a typo for 30 days. more ▾less ▴
Your display name still changes only once every 30 days, because it renames you on every leaderboard result you have ever posted. What has changed is what happens when you get it wrong. You now get 15 minutes after a change to correct it. The box stays editable for that whole time and tells you how many minutes are left, so a slip of the finger is something you fix in a moment instead of something you live with until next month. Correcting the name inside those 15 minutes does not restart the 30 day clock, so the correction costs you nothing. This came from a student who was scrolling the Account page with a stylus, scribbled into the name box by accident, and saved it before noticing.
Seven new cram sheets
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Every page says where a topic finishes if it lives on another sheet, so you are never left wondering whether you have missed something. The drugs, the mental status examination vocabulary and the suicide risk tools stay on the Psychiatric Assessment and Psychopharmacology sheet, Alzheimer's disease is taught in full on Neuro B, and anxiety, trauma, mood and the eating disorders are on Psychopathology A. This sheet gives you the disorders those tools are used on.
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The epidemiology sheet also says on the page where a neighboring topic is taught in full, so nothing is printed twice: the chain of infection and the incubation periods stay on Communicable Diseases, the levels of prevention on the PH Health System sheet, the FHSIS reports on DOH Programs B, and the learning theories and the levels of evidence on Theoretical Foundations.
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Like the other new sheets, the health laws sheet says on the page where a law's full program is taught, so nothing is printed twice: universal health care and devolution live on the PH Health System sheet, the environmental code on DOH Programs B, the breastfeeding and nutrition laws on DOH Programs A, the tobacco laws on Non-Communicable Diseases, and the discount details for seniors and persons with disability on Families & Population Groups.
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Like the other new sheets, it says on the page where a topic finishes if it lives elsewhere: the suicide risk tools, the tested calming lines and the restraint rules stay on Psych Assessment, what to say to a patient who is hallucinating or deluded is on Psychopathology B, and Peplau's theory with the Filipino values glossary is on Mental Health Concepts & Models.
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Like the other new sheets, the musculoskeletal sheet says on the page where a neighboring topic is taught in full: the operating room positions stay on Perioperative Nursing, the herniated disc work-up and the hand nerve tests on Neuro C, steroid bone loss on Metabolism & Endocrine, uric acid's other lives on Hematology & Oncology and on Renal, and the school scoliosis screen on Growth & Development.
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Respiratory B also says on the page where its neighbors live, so the two respiratory sheets read as one course: the airway itself, asthma, COPD and every oxygen device stay on Respiratory A, the ventilator settings and alarms on Critical Care & Emergency, reading a blood gas on Labs, Fluids & Electrolytes, tuberculosis on Communicable Diseases, the blood thinner numbers on Cardiovascular and Pharmacology Core, and the fat embolism story on the new Musculoskeletal sheet.
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The sheet is written for the Filipino ward and the Filipino home. Punas at the right temperature instead of alcohol, the tabo taught front to back, what to do when a mercury thermometer breaks, the warning that pulse oximeters can read a little high on brown skin, tuob given its honest place as comfort rather than cure, and the reason the funeraria comes quickly, which is that the Sanitation Code gives an unembalmed body forty eight hours. Where the classic review answer and current guidance differ, both are printed and labeled, from the six month versus three month definition of chronic pain to sterile water versus saline in the catheter balloon. And every page names the sheet a neighboring topic lives on, so Fundamentals connects to the rest of your library instead of repeating it.
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26Aug · Wed
200 more explanations rewritten, one contradiction fixed
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Another two hundred of the most-answered questions now explain the answer first, without rating the wrong choices for you. more ▾less ▴
Two hundred more of the practice questions you meet most often have had their explanations rewritten, a different two hundred from the batch earlier today. The old ones ranked the wrong choices for you, calling one the hardest to dismiss or the strongest wrong answer, which described how a choice felt instead of what was clinically true. Every sentence like that is gone from these two hundred. Each explanation now opens with the answer in the words a nurse would use at the bedside, then gives the rule that decides it, then takes each other choice on its own terms and quotes that choice word for word so you can see which one is being discussed. Long sentences were split so that no single sentence runs past about twenty-five words. The questions, the choices and the credited answers are all unchanged, so no score was affected. Overall the explanations came out about one per cent longer.
Two hundred more explanations now lead with the answer
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Two hundred of the most-answered questions now explain the answer first, without rating the wrong choices for you. more ▾less ▴
Two hundred of the practice questions you meet most often have had their explanations rewritten. The old ones ranked the wrong choices against each other, calling one "the hardest to dismiss" or "the strongest wrong answer", which told you how a choice felt rather than what was clinically true. Every sentence like that is gone. Each explanation now opens with the answer in the words a nurse would use at the bedside, then gives the rule that decides it so you can carry it into the next question, then says why each other choice fails on its own terms, quoting that choice word for word so you can see which one is being discussed. The questions, the choices and the credited answers are all unchanged, so no score was affected. The explanations came out about six per cent longer, because what came out was commentary and what went in was teaching.
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25Aug · Tue
The 10-Month Plan is now a full year, at the same price
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The 10-Month Plan is now a 1-Year Plan at the same ₱999, and everyone who already bought it was extended too. more ▾less ▴
The 10-Month Plan is now the 1-Year Plan. Same ₱999, two more months, which works out to about ₱83 a month instead of ₱100. If you already bought the 10-Month Plan you have not missed out: all 57 of you have had the extra 65 days added to your access already, with nothing to claim and nothing to do. Your new end date is on your account page.
Every law a rationale mentions is now named, plus two timing fixes
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Law questions now name every act their explanation mentions, with links. more ▾less ▴
When a question's explanation mentions a law by number, like RA 11223 or PD 603, the References section under it now spells out the law's full name with a link to the law itself, so you never have to memorize a bare number blind. This covers about 300 questions across the law-related topics, and the reference registry grew by 101 verified Philippine health laws to make it possible. Questions whose references were inherited from their general topic and did not match the laws in their own explanation, 18 of them, now cite the right laws.
Clearer explanations on 100 more select-all questions
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Clearer explanations on 100 more select-all questions. more ▾less ▴
A second batch of 100 select-all-that-apply questions, the next most-answered after the first hundred, got the same clearer treatment: every numbered statement now has its own line saying whether it is correct or wrong and why, and the answer is stated up front instead of at the end. Each rewrite was checked line by line against the original so no clinical detail was lost. Questions, choices, and answers are unchanged.
Clearer explanations on 169 popular questions
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Clearer explanations on 169 popular practice questions. more ▾less ▴
We revised the explanations of 169 of the most-answered practice questions. Sentences that ranked a wrong option by how tempting it looks were replaced with a plain note on what that option gets right and the clinical reason it still falls short. Questions, choices, and answers are unchanged.
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24Aug · Mon
Clearer explanations on select-all-that-apply questions
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Clearer explanations on 100 select-all-that-apply questions. more ▾less ▴
We rewrote the explanations on 100 of the most-answered select-all-that-apply questions, the ones where you choose a combination like "1, 2 and 4". Every numbered statement now gets its own line saying whether it is correct or wrong and why, the answer is stated up front instead of at the end, and the wording that ranked the wrong options against each other is gone. The answers themselves did not change.
Per-question timer now works from your Study Plan
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Topic drills and retry links also use your saved per-question timer. more ▾less ▴
Your remembered per-question timer now also applies to every other practice shortcut that skips the setup screen: topic drills, "Retry your misses", and weakest-topic links. The setup screen stays in charge — whatever you chose there last, timer or no timer, is what these shortcuts use.
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23Aug · Sun
Harder practice questions in ALS, IMCI and Hematologic Disorders
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13 practice questions in ALS, IMCI and Hematologic Disorders hardened; answer keys unchanged. more ▾less ▴
Thirteen practice questions that most students answered on sight (four in ALS, three in IMCI, six in Hematologic Disorders) were rebuilt so every choice has to be weighed: the stem keeps only the findings a nurse would actually have, the wrong choices read as plausibly as the right one, and each explanation names the strongest wrong choice and says why it loses. The answers themselves did not change.
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44 flashcards no longer show a bracketed hint that gave the answer away. more ▾less ▴
That report led us to read every flashcard with a bracketed cue right after the blank (66 cards). Forty-four of them were giving the answer away the same way, with a synonym or description of the answer such as "(breast budding)" or "(on the back)"; the cue now sits on the back of the card beside the answer, so the front tests recall and the teaching point is kept. Cues that only name the kind of answer, an alternative, or a law's title were left in place.
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22Aug · Sat
Professional Adjustment practice questions made harder
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29 Professional Adjustment practice questions hardened; answer keys unchanged. more ▾less ▴
Twenty-nine questions in the Professional Adjustment and Nursing Jurisprudence practice set were rewritten after one of you told us the set was too easy, and the numbers agreed: students were getting these right on the first try about 77 percent of the time, and 30 of the 80 were above 90 percent. The wrong choices now look as right as the correct one and are wrong for a reason the explanation names. Five questions were rebuilt onto ground the set did not test before: the rights a patient has over his own health data, who may consent for a child when the parents are away, the law against holding a recovered patient over an unpaid bill, and two rules from the Nursing Act on registration and prohibited practice. Every explanation was rewritten to lead with the answer and the rule that decides it, and every fact was checked against the statute text itself. Answer keys are unchanged, so every result you have already recorded still stands.
Make flashcards from any question; cram links on cards
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Revealed flashcards now link to the cram sheet and a drill on their topic. more ▾less ▴
After you reveal a flashcard, a Go deeper row now points to the cram sheet that covers that topic and to a practice drill on it, the same row you already see under practice explanations. The card itself stays short on purpose, since a flashcard is for recall, and the full teaching is one tap away on the sheet. Cram sheets that cover a group of topics now count for every topic in the group, so far fewer topics read coming soon under a sheet that already exists.
Two Community Health questions now say what they are asking
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Two Community Health practice questions now say plainly what they are asking. more ▾less ▴
Two questions in the Primary Health Care practice set were rewritten after one of you told us the set felt confusing. We went through every question in that set against how students actually answer it, and two were hard for the wrong reason: the question on choosing a community diagnosis now asks plainly which study comes first in a barangay that has never been surveyed, and the question on whether diarrhea is still appearing as often as last year now tells you that families have been moving in and out of the sitio, so the figure it wants is no longer a coin toss. Answer keys are unchanged and nothing about your past scores moved. The rest of the set, including the delegation question that was reported, was checked against the review center handouts and stands as written.
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