How close Saunder's NCLEX-RN Q&A to REAL NCLEX Exam?

I think Saunders was way easier than the real thing. Hell, I think Kaplan was easier than the real thing.

I'm awaiting my results and am getting the "good pop up" but based on what everyone was saying, I was expecting to be ultra prepared for the boards, for it to basically be like a Hesi, and to be able to answer the questions very confident of my choices.

Nope, nope and nope.

Clearly the boards are a "thinking exam" and if you get questions right, it gives you harder ones. But that thing was the hardest test I have ever taken. Ever.

I just recently read a thread somewhere here that drugs on nclex only gives you generic.. not both

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I can recall some questions where I was given both and some questions where I was only given the generic. But in both cases they gave you the patient scenario so it was very clear why the patient was on it. One of them I know I got right. Another one I know I got wrong, not that I didn't know the drug but I really didn't like any of the answer choices... I could justify why they all were wrong! So I just picked one and moved on. (So I guess I didn't know that drug well enough...)

I think Saunders was way easier than the real thing. Hell, I think Kaplan was easier than the real thing.

I'm awaiting my results and am getting the "good pop up" but based on what everyone was saying, I was expecting to be ultra prepared for the boards, for it to basically be like a Hesi, and to be able to answer the questions very confident of my choices.

Nope, nope and nope.

Clearly the boards are a "thinking exam" and if you get questions right, it gives you harder ones. But that thing was the hardest test I have ever taken. Ever.

Congrats. How many weeks did u study for?

Many. I bought Kaplan's "On-Demand" review, which is the full program except that all the "classes" are video recorded. Some of the programs they have involve live classes so that you can ask questions etc. I forfeited the ability to be able to interact with the teacher for the ability to access the class at any time I want.

I ordered it October 15 so I had access until Jan 15.

In October I honestly didn't do much. I was busy with my last semester of school. After Thanksgiving I started making the time to be able to do the work. I plotted out what I had to do and knew I had till Jan 15 to do it. I divided up the work so that I would get it all done on time.

I didn't passively just watch the videos of the classes. I took notes like I would at any lecture, which meant pausing the video every couple seconds. So a 3 hour video turns into 10 hours when you're constantly pausing it to write. I filled up an entire spiral bound notebook.

Went on Christmas vacation for a week, didn't get hardly any work done. Did some, but not much.

Got the ATT Dec 30. Looked at available test dates. Jan 15 was open. Figured there was no reason to NOT pick that test date, especially since it was the only test date that had options other than 8 am.

I had it scheduled that I would have the work done by Jan 7. Just worked out that way when I divided the work up all evenly. Since I fell behind on work during Christmas, I was able to catch up. I took off work from my retail job for a week, my older son is school aged, so I sent my toddler to the babysitter and busted my butt doing work. This includes a whole lot more than just watching videos. There were tests... lots of tests. Some days I was doing 300 questions a day. Usually it was around 200. As I got closer to test day, there were some days that were more than 300.

Any content that I didn't know, I was looking up and refreshing on.

I was memorizing lots of numbers.

I was emailing Kaplan when I had questions.

When I was done with all that, I pulled out my Saunders book, did the Comprehensive Test in the back and questions from chapters on content that I struggled with.

On the 13th I tiered it down a lot. Just did some reading and a few questions... as in, less than 100.

On the 14th I traveled out to the town where the test center was. It's not terribly far from my house, but they were calling for snow yesterday, plus it was nice to be able to sleep without getting woken by my toddler.

So I think I put in a good 8 weeks of effective studying, especially the last 5 weeks.

SO MANY STUDENTS from my class said I was putting too much thought into this, that they just did questions from Saunders, walked in and took the test. And I had a higher GPA than some of them in school! With the level of difficulty that I faced on that test, I don't know how they passed with little preparation.