It all comes done to time running out and 256 questions

As I attempt to take in every grain of information I can before my NCLEX -RN exam, I sit in the car with my wife and read my notes and think about what kinds of questions I will receive.

This was my second time taking the test and the first time I stopped at 75 questions and the computer shut off. I had a strong feeling that I failed because I had 2 medical calculation questions, 2 select all that apply questions, and I had no priority, infection control or delegation questions. With this said I pretty much knew I failed and was waiting for my results.

It was pretty funny now that I hink about it. I knew I failed my first time and was expecting to fail and expecting to get that letter that says I failed. However, when I got my letter and read that i failed I got really ****** off and started to swear.

Fast forwarding 2 months from the first time taking the nclex. As I sit in on the second attempt at the nlcex, I was pretty calm. I was closely approaching questions 75 and the nclex didn't shut off. Then I waited for the 100 question and still it didn't shut off. At this point, I knew I was in it for the long haul. I braced myself and went for a ride, a very long ride.

During the entire test, I was recieving many SATA questions (sometimes 3 at a time, then it goes straight into a priority question), many priority questions, many more infection control questions, and pretty good amount of delegation questions. Of course, I recieve my fair share of medical calulation questions (3) and content based question such as psychology, surgical procedures, therapeutic communication, and lots of meds I never heard of before and some procedures I never learned of or heard of.

I look at my time and I only had 5 minutes left on the clock and I was on my 255 question. Before I know it the screen shuts off and my last question stopped at 257.

Here is a very interesting thing that I observed during the nclex exam. I had 3 medical calculation questions, 2 difficult and 1 pretty easy. I knew for sure I got the answers correct because I check it 2 times and it was very similar to the practice question that I had. So I answer the question, and expected a hard SATA, priority, delegation question...but NO the next question after that was an easy question, content based. This went on for 3 of my med calculation questions. I thought when you get a question correct it move up to a harder question.

Another interesting observation was that I had about 3-4 question that were repeated but it was phrased differently but still pretty much the same question but with harder choices.

Another interesting observation was that I recieved about 4-5 infection control question that were select all that apply. This was really hard because all the answer choices looked good. I also had about 4-5 priority question that were select all that apply based.

As you can see, I had it pretty difficult.

Anyhow I just wanted to share my story with you guys. So to sum it up, this was my second time taking the nclex, I ran out of time at 257 question. I had many SATA, priority, delegation, lots of infection control, and my fair share of content based, questions.

I am not going to ask you guys, how I did or what are my chances of passing because no one knows...only the pearsonvue and the BON knows but I jsut wanted to share my story.