NCLEX Review Course

NicuNsg · Sep 24, 2003

You might want to check with the hospital your interesting in working at, or one you did your clinicals in. Many offer review courses free of charge or at a very low rate. Check with the recruiter and the nursing education department. I recommend content review, then question strategy. Good luck, I'll be pulling for ya!!

nicoleinphilly · Sep 24, 2003

Ok, I just took my NCLEX exam on Thursday September 18th and passed. I took the Kaplan course and I have a few comments for ya. Number one, all Kaplan does the whole entire class is do NCLEX style questions with you and give you some tips and steps on answering them. I myself did not find the class helpful while I was taking it. Butttt..in my school, they pounded us with NCLEX style questions and we were trained to study for our tests that way. Now dont get me wrong, the more questions you do the better, so Kaplan certainly didnt HURT me, but what they did in class for the money they charge, I feel I couldve done at home for free. They do give you a very good book for reference with key points to things you need to remember..but again, the book was certainly not worth $300. When I got closer to my nclex exam my anxiety of course rose so I went to a bookstore and bought the Kaplan 2003-2004 edition book, its blue. THE BOOK ISSSSSS THE CLASS...and it also comes with an excellent disk in it and tons of questions in the book with rationales for correct and incorrect answers. Two weeks before the test, I was doing an average of about 300 questions a day on computer disks that came with books. Ask your friends if they have disks with questions on them and see if you can copy them. Keep doing them over and over and over again. Write down on paper what you see youre having problems with and read up on that subject. And like I said, the class could be good for you if your school wasnt big on doing nclex style questions with you, otherwise, I would just suggest getting the Kaplan book and doing questions on your own. Much luck and success to you;)

Rena RN 2003, RN · Sep 25, 2003

i used kaplan review book and cd and thought that well worth the money. i didn't take an expensive official review class and i passed first try.

however, my best friend failed her first try. she has since taken a review course offered through a private guy that does this as a side to his university teaching and she said it was well worth her time.

redwinggirlie · Sep 28, 2003

None of my peers nor I took the Kaplan. It's a strategy course, not a learning course per say. We all passed. Spend more time on learning to prioritize and get the Springhouse, Mosby or Saunders books. You can take as many tests as you like and pick the amount of questions per test. I thought they were great.

jnette, ASN, EMT-I · Sep 28, 2003

I didn't do any review course either... figured I could do as well or better right here at home. Used only the Saunders book and CD and did exactly what nicoleinphilly did. I had purchased a few other books, but found it confusing going through several of them, as their styles were different... so I just stuck with the Saunders... any areas I was weak on, I got out my school books and reviewed in there, made notes, etc.

You can do it ! It's NOT an easy task... but stick with it, and it will pay off. Wish you the best ! :)

Chrislynn2003 · Sep 29, 2003

Am using Kaplan review now. I think the course is worth it. First off yes it does do a lot of strategy teaching, but that seems to help me get to the right answers more times than not. But also at the same time i have a Kaplan book that goes through nursing content and the online part of it is lectures which is all about nursing content, then answering NCLEX style questions based on the content according to safe and effective care, physiological integrity, etc. I am doing the comprehensive review which is close to $400, but i think it covers alot. I also have the Saunders comp. review that a friend gave me and i have found many similar types of questions between that and Kaplan. But, everybody has a different learning style and I say that whatever works for you is good. The Kaplan i am taking is online access and it's a lot of material to cover, you just have to stick with a schedule. I wish you luck!

Christine

PSA, RN · Sep 29, 2003

I found that praticing questions on my computer was much more helpful. However, the review course did bring up some things that I had once forgotten. I used several CD's that had sample test questions with rationale's. Most of my fellow classmates did also and they passed. Good luck

Pam

:nurse:

peaceful2100, BSN, RN · Sep 30, 2003

I think it all depends on how strong your nursing school program happens to help prepare you for nclex and what kind of questions your nursing school program gives. My nursing school program did not test us over ANY priortizing questions or hardly close to what NCLEX had.

I took NCLEX first time and failed and now I am going to be taking them again on October 22nd and I am preparing with the Kaplan course. With the Kaplan course I am seeing things from a whole different picture. Also part of my problem is test anxiety too which I have gotten help on by itself.

My school has had some trouble with a good pass rate for graduating clasases. If your school has a strong pass rate on NCLEX then I probably would not worry about a review course.

Ortho_RN · Sep 30, 2003

All of our tests in our program are NCLEX style questions... SOme of them even come out of the NCLEX study guides... So I think we are getting plenty of the questions.. Plus I just found out that I will be going to the Mini NCLEX review at our SNA State Convention.

Chrislynn2003 · Sep 30, 2003

Good luck Peaceful2100. I am using Kaplan now too and will be taking my exam for 2nd time on Oct. 16th. Wish me luck!

Christine

Gator,SN · Oct 1, 2003

Save your money and buy a few practice CD's for the computer. I took the NCLEX Excel course and it was boring and a waste of time! 4 days of power point and review of things that were no where on the boards. I think I passed the nclex simply because I practiced so many questions before going.

Good luck to you!

Gator