How i studied for my nclex exam

hello and congratulations! i am an avid reader of this site. and your story just inspires me. i have been reviewing since mid january. i graduated dec. and it's already march and i still haven't received my eligibility to test. so it has been a long process and waiting for this test. just like you, whenever i feel like i don't even want to look at any of my books i just grab my laptop lay on the couch and browse at allnurses.com and reading success stories to inspire me. so basically i have been studying for almost 4 months now. on and off. i would skip 1-2 days and go study again for 3-4 consecutive days for 2-3 hrs a day or 50-100 qs. i have two kids a 2 years old ( very handful) and a 2nd grader who has a lot of extracurricular activities that i needed to drive to. a husband who works two full time job a day and a house to manage on top of all that. it's very very exhausting sometimes.

i'm using saunders basically to study. i purchased the kaplan q bank only as i do not have the $$ to buy for the whole review thing. i have to say, i bought the kaplan qbank last feb and until now i am still on 50% usage. i don't seem to like kaplan because they do not provide good rationals for the questions. but i think the questions harder than any other books that i've used. i also have the judith miller video and i went to library ones to take my daughter and i saw the hurst book so i borrowed and read aunt marlene's strategies. i liked it but the cd that came with it wasn't working. so, i was wondering if you could be so kind and spare me the hurst video? i'm not sure if its even possible or if you still have it. right now, i just feel like i'm done with whatever materials that i have and maybe something new would get me up and going again.

i am beginning to feel nervous about my nclex because i think that i'm not really retaining a lot. i would cover a system and would take 100 items test on it and i would get 60-80% but when i do just random questions i usually get below 70% or 70% top.

please help! anybody! i don't know what else to do.

thank you

how i studied for this monster exam. i started studying around december, i set my date for jan 19th, and i was really looking forward to this day. right around dec, one of the allnurses members sent me some very valuable study material, and i cried, i couldn't believe it..some ppl are just . it was jan 19th,i was very excited and nervous at the same time but i was ready to get over with the exam. i got to the center on time and we had to wait till the place was open. when we got in the lady asked for the id's i gave her my green card, because i had just moved to a different state and i had applied for a driver's license which was not ready at the time. i thought a green card is one of the id's as it is government issued, wrong...i was not permitted to take the exam and that meant losing every penny i had paid for this exam , i called four different phones provided and no one seemed to want to help, all i could do was ...two weeks later i paid everything and applied. i got myself together and i posted if anyone wanted to study together here on allnurses thru skype, i got a good response. some ppl just wanted to get some materials and disappeared the next day....i got a young lady from new york and we did well for a few days. we had different schedules.. she had to work, and i totally understood. .another member asked me if i wanted to study with her and she has been a blessing clueless28..:loveya: iam forever thankful. we studied together whenever we could. i chose not to work so i could study for this exam, i have two girls 4 and 6 and my schedule has to fit in theirs as well, am sure every mom can relate. many times it was frustrating, sometimes i just did not want to touch the books whatsoever. when i felt like that i would come here on allnurses and read other ppl's posts about passing, i wanted that for myself. i knew i had to change something. another member here asked me how i was studying and i told him...we decided to study together,,..it worked , so we came up with a plan...to do questions together. he had kaplan and so we used that, skype lets you share the screen we did that. it was working and i stuck with it. i chose to study mostly at night wee hours:sleep: when kiddos was sleeping... that worked. anywhere from 12am -5am..had to be up at 6:45am get the kids ready for school ..i slept in the morning while every one was gone, depending on the day.

a must do! deactivate your facebook.:nono:you will get back on there as soon as you pass. i have, and it feels good knowing i don't have to study. anything that you know will distract you, sometimes i even cut my phone off, for days.

books that has proved helpful

1.saunders 5th edition... great practice questions. please if you don't get a chance to view anything do the pharmacology section 978 questions, it sounds like a a lot but it is worthy every practice. most of the meds that appeared on my exam are in this practice.

2.kaplan on demand i did not pay for kaplan because i had so much books and material. but as i stated i had wonderful ppl that shared what they had, i had full access to kaplan and i took advantage of it. i believe god makes things possible for us,i will be forever thankful to anyone that has helped me thru this. practicing and listened to some of the videos. its a great tool

3.hurst review. it's another best tool that i used to study for my nclex exam. some good friends shared ..so i had full hurst review..i listened to marlene hurst and learn a lot. she is the best as far as content. she helped me understand a lot of things that never made sense, i listened to the videos over and over. content wise i would recommend hurst. let me know if anyone has a question on hurst.

4.nclex-rn review (http://www.amazon.com/hurst-reviews-nclex-rn-review-marlene/dp/0071484310/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1.

at the time i did not have hurst review, so i decided to get this book, another great tool must have. 50% of my exam was infection control. i rarely used this book, and looked at it right i finished the exams because i saw so many similar questions. it has alot of practice questions in the back as well as on the cd

5.la charity, i bought this book while in nursing school because our instructor was hard on these type of questions and i used to get them wrong. i hardly used it and it went in the piles of books i had.

6. exam cram, i had all the books. a friend of mine after passing his exam gave me the books, both content and question, i rarely used them but they have very good questions on diet. so i browsed thru.

7. after a friend told me about feuer review, i got the whole program, i loved it, the content is great. it helped as well. .the questions are great...it has most of the content that other reviews doesn't have.

8. nclex 4000. its another great tool, sata questions i did them twice its 243 questions, i was able to answer some of my questions, based on some of the rationales.

9.. my medical surgical book from nursing school. we used lewis 7th edition. a friend of mine who graduated with me, told me to just use that book and don't buy no more books..... i laughed but after i was not getting enough information in some of these books, i started using and it has all the information we need. if anyone is short on cash, i recommend using your med surg book. remember nclex is book based. most of the times the very things we over look in the book is what is in this monster exam.

i have read how ppl say don't use a lot of sources. you have to do what works for you. iam just a type of a person who will get anything i hear helped someone. so don't go by me. i bought most of my books while in nursing school because i would talk to seniors anyone ahead of me what they think is the best material to pass nclex. so whenever it was a new semester, i would buy some of these books alone with the nursing books for that semester. i have tons and tons of book i will probably donate to the local library. waiting on my niece to makeup her mind if nursing is what she wants to do...

finding someone to study with was the best decision i ever made. my study buddy and i studied everyday, this was working so good that we decided to take the exam on the same day. it worked....we both passed with 75 questions god is good. so i wanted to shout out a big thank you to [color=#a52a2a]malenurseil, i enjoyed the questions was the best part. congrats to you. i also wanted to thank my buddies clueless28, kb, and kiwi82, futurern34, me2006. :cheers:the phone calls, the pm's emails and everything too many to mention....may y'all continue to have god's blessing. i also want to thank anyone who have responded to my posts, pms.....thank you thank you. really this is the best website. to all my fellow nurses to be wishing you all the very best. you all can pass this exam.

please feel free to ask anything. i have some material tools that i don't mind sharing, if anyone need any help.. we are all here to help one another. many stories and ppl that i will probably never meet have touched my life from this site and that is my goal to help someone else.

if i think any anything else i will continue to post.

most of these books are found at local library. wishing everything the very best, and i know that if it wasn't for god i have not done any of this, he remain my hero above all forever thankful.

p/s i did not spell check..

Hi Diana, I don't have the skype but I am downloading it right now.

My school forwared our application to the boards. I actually decided to call the board last week and they said that they received my application on Feb.25 and so it'll be 2-3 weeks more because I hear from them. So if that's the case Im looking at 3 weeks from now before I can take my test because Im planning to take it just a few days after I get my ATT.

So how do we use the skype? Im almost done downloading it.

Really I can do that? call them everyday so they move faster? wow! I would now!! LOL

So, I added you on skype I assumed you have the same name? I used diana2520 I hope its you. Mine is alice oh

I didn't get any PM. Please try my username ***

Thanks for posting and congrats!

Good read. Congrats! What edition of Kaplan did u used?