I passed my NCLEX first time in 75 questions! Here's how I did it

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So Friday, May 29th, I walked in to take the biggest test of my life. Sat down and began answering questions to the best of my ability. All the sudden, the computer shuts off. At 75. Could I already be done? Its only been an hour. Surely I failed. It was way too easy. Those are the troubling thoughts I dealt with for two brutal days. Even broke down the day after swearing I failed because the test was supposed to get hard...and it didn't. So obviously I failed. As of May 31st, I am a registered nurse! Here's how I did it....

First, I didn't know what to do because there are soooo many sources out there to use. Words of advice... DO NOT USE MORE THAN 2-3 SOURCES! If you use more, you will confuse yourself. I started studying a few months before my NCLEX just doing 20 questions a day to get me used to NCLEX style questions. So from January-April I used the NCLEX Mastery app. This app was not my favorite because I felt it was very content based and some of the questions were well beyond the knowledge of a nurse with 2 weeks of vast nursing knowledge (which is what the NCLEX requires). When April hit, I cracked down. I purchased Kaplan Qbank April 30th, which I felt helped the most. With the Kaplan Qbank, I would go through the quizzes when I was finished and read the rationales for both what I got right and wrong. I also wrote down most of the rationales to review periodically. I did 100 questions a day, but not all at once because I didn't want to burn out before my test. When I finished the Qbank, I went back through and did the ones I got wrong. After the Qbank, I did the Hurst review May 18th-19th. After the review, I went back through each day and reviewed the topics we covered in class by day (Hurst breaks the book into 3 days material). Hurst also provides 6 quizes you can take after you finish their class that are 125 questions each, which I did along with rereading the material. However, when you are done with them, you can't redo the ones you got wrong. But you can read the rationales, which I did and wrote down the ones I got wrong. I did 1 quiz each day before my quiz. I also should mention that the format of the Kaplan and Hurst quizzes is just like NCLEX so that alleviated my anxiety when taking the test. The day before my test I did my very last Hurst quiz and then got a relaxing massage. I came home and relaxed. The day of my exam, I just went for a walk with my mom and dog and did some laundry. I treated it like any other day. My test wasn't until 530pm so I slept in. I watched some TV with my mom and sister during the day and just relaxed. I drove to the testing site 45 minutes earlier and ate a snack in my car. Went into the testing site 30 minutes early and took my test shortly after!

Yay I'm an RN!!!!

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Congratulations! May we all have such a smooth transition out of nursing school!

Can I ask, how did you feel about your retention of the program content after you graduated? Did you feel like you remembered all, most, some, almost none of it?

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Congratulations! May we all have such a smooth transition out of nursing school!

Can I ask, how did you feel about your retention of the program content after you graduated? Did you feel like you remembered all, most, some, almost none of it?

And what kind of program? How many years were you in school after secondary ed (high school), counting prereqs and nursing courses?

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I feel like I remembered some of it, but definitely not all. But I feel like you can't really ever remember EVERYTHING for NCLEX

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Sorry! I read that wrong and thought you were asking me

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Congratulations! :up:

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Congratulations! Thank you for posting this, I have had a little bit ( and I mean a lot) of anxiety towards NCLEX. This is helpful because it gives me a frame work I can follow.

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"Congratulations! Thank you for posting this, I have had a little bit ( and I mean a lot) of anxiety towards NCLEX. This is helpful because it gives me a frame work I can follow."

Glad I could help!

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Specializes in CICU.

Thank you!! & Congrats!!! Did you feel like the the questions were similar to your practice questions that you took for kaplan and hurst?

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Thank you!! & Congrats!!! Did you feel like the the questions were similar to your practice questions that you took for kaplan and hurst?

I felt they were somewhat similar. They definitely helped a lot. I strongly believe that I would not have passed without Kaplan or Hurst

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