Just passed Nclex with 75q! Here's what happened

I spent a lot of time reading the All nurses message boards to prepare for the Nclex, so I wanted to share my strategies, and hopefully help someone as much as AN has helped me. In my opinion, that test was TOUGH! It was not at all what I expected. The questions are very, very specific and I did not feel at all like I was prepared for them. My 1st question was a multiple choice. My next 28 questions were ALL select all that apply! Back to back! Then, I had 3 diagram type questions, and that was followed by 10-13 more SATAs off and on! I could NOT believe it. I felt like I was being punished lol. And to top it off, at the beginning of my test there was an error and the computer locked up. This did wonders for my nerves

Anyway I have seen a lot of people say that there are tons of certain kinds of questions. NOT always TRUE. This test is totally random and you can NOT anticipate what you will get. For my test, knowing content was very important. I used strategies very little (which ironically got me through many a nursing school test). I got 3 questions asking the same exact thing, but in different formatting. Other than that the variety was VERY wide. So be well rounded in your studying.

What I did: I laid out all the Saunders (5th Edition) content and split up chapters among 4 weeks and wrote them in on a little calendar. Then I read that sucker cover to cover. (P.S. I am not above pretty colored markers for motivation. I wrote the crap I needed read for the day on my white board and took great joy in marking those check boxes at night) I did every quiz at the end of each chapter, and I made flash cards for all the meds. (But I will be honest, I never had time to go back and look at them) Then I did all of the chapters in LaCharity PDA (But not a single case study)- Of all the questions I did, I felt LaCharity was most similar to Nclex. (I tried about 6-7 different sources for questions and materials). I did a handful of the tests on the Pearson Vue website as well, but these were mostly easier than the Nclex. I had to dig up my old school notes on EKG strips because I completely forgot how to read them. That was time well spent. FYI, I never really consistently scored higher than 70% on any of my practice stuff, so don't sweat the scores too much. The NAN study guide was SO helpful for infection control. I will add that as well. I would highly recommend these 2 books, if nothing else: LaCharity, & Saunders.

Testing day, oh my, so nervous!! It really helped that I did not do an AM test, I actually got a great nights sleep, because I knew I would have all morning to worry and cram. (scheduled worry time, haha.) OH- One final piece of advice; do NOT test on a Friday unless you are a very patient person!! I tested on a Friday, and Monday was a holiday, I did not get my results until 9pm Tuesday! I thought, well no problem, I'll just do the pearson vue trick to see if I passed. Well, because I had that error, they had to file an incident report, so my results were on hold and they never did release them. LONGEST weekend of my life! It was worth the wait though :) Before the test I was so nervous, and I was asking God to calm my nerves. The verse that popped into my head was "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you." I repeated that to myself many, many times before and after the test, and it did give me some peace.

Best of luck to all of you, you really do know more than it feels like. (And honestly, I think the amount of questions you have to get right to pass is actually pretty low.) Finally after 4 years, I get to breathe a sigh of relief and relax. At least until the job hunt starts