Failed the NCLEX... now what?!

Nursing Students NCLEX

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I took my test a few days ago.

I stopped at 75 questions and felt pretty confident! After all -- stopping at 75 questions is either really good or really bad. And most who stop at 75 questions -- DO PASS.

And the sad thing is, I felt like I had done pretty well.

I got a lot of telemetry questions and 'select all that apply' questions, which seemed hard! So I thought, "Oh, I must be doing well because I keep getting these."

The test closed down and I was ecstatic that it ended so soon and presumably on a good note.

NOT.

I have always been a smart individual and I do NOT have test anxiety. I do so well on standardized tests and I had a good GPA from an outstanding nursing school.

On my Kaplan tests, I jumped around a bit - -but more or less hovered around the 60% margin. The last Kaplan predictor I took pegged me at 58.4%.

It's not that I didn't expect failing to be an option -- but I didn't expect to fail so miserably!

Failing at only 75 questions pretty much means that I was so far into a rut -- I couldn't get out. If I had lasted until 265, maybe I could have given myself some credit and said "Oh, I was close!".

But wow -- this failure has hit me really hard.

And I feel lost, because I am not sure how fix it.

I have Kaplan: the Basics and the Kaplan RN course book, as well as access to the trainers and qbanks on the Kaplan website.

My plan is to do a chapter of each book per day + 50 questions for the next 45 days until I can retake the test.

I feel like my head must be screwed on wrong.

My thinking process must be backwards -- and how can I change that!?

Any advice?

Right now I feel really disheartened and, well -- DUMB.

Most of all, I am disappointed in myself...

1) What should I do and how can I give myself a change next time around?

2) On a side note -- I keep googling "nclex CPR" to find out when it comes in the mail, and I can't find any information on WHEN it will be mailed to me. Does anyone know?!

Thank you!

I just found out I failed with 75 questions. I feel the same exact way you did when you walked out of the test. I didn't think I was doing that bad when I was taking the exam. I noticed you posted this in February and hopefully you passed the second time. Do you have any tips on what I should do? I took hurst and I'm debating Kaplan. What strategy did you use the second time you were taking the exam?

I'm so sorry you're going through that. I can only imagine how frustrating is must be. It definitely isn't a predictor of your nursing abilities or a reflection on how smart you are.

This time around you said that you did the readiness but did you do more Kaplan questions? Definitely do all the question trainers and the Qbank. I would say personally to do no more than 100 questions a day unless you're doing the question trainers. Look at your weak points from the tests and review the content for those.

I only took the HURST review and haven't done Kaplan. Do you suggest I take kaplan?

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