Just wanted to let you all know I passed.

Well, my name was on the California BON this morning! Hooray! Like so many others, I didn't really believe this so I had to call my dad in the room to help me verify. It's a really good feeling knowing that I never have to take the test again - especially when I was convinced I failed! I missed several very basic "easy" questions which didn't help to ease my worries after the test either. I'm going to break down my test that best that I can remember and hopefully it'll help some of you still waiting to take the nclex!

And for the curious out there, I studied using "Suzanne's plan". Now, I don't want to put this method down because I did, however, pass. HOWEVER, I don't think I saw much of anything I had seen on her plan that was on the actual NCLEX. But still, I passed. I passed with 75 questions. My last question was an exact "easy" repeat question that I had received earlier on in the test. I actually left the exam parking lot feeling pretty good. But as soon as I started driving my mind reverted back to all of the questions I got wrong and I started to look them up in my books (almost hit a few different curbs while trying to do this, but that's another story.)

Anyway, here are my suggested study tips/breakdown that I used/had:

1. Study infection control! Holy crap I had a lot of infection control. And unfortunately, I don't really recall any infection control using Saunders. I had a lot of "if patient has X disease, what type of precautions would you take?" I found this really great link that I SO wish I would've reviewed before I took the NCLEX as it would have helped me so much. The link is http://info.med.yale.edu/ynhh/infection/. I don't know if I got so much infection control because the computer found out I didn't know about it, or it was just designed that way. In speaking to several other recent test takers, they, too, said they had received a LOT of infection control. So take a few minutes to review that link!

2. Try your best to know all of the basic diseases, like Cushing's, diabetes, and so on. These are pretty common topics to be tested on.

3. I did receive a few priority questions. My method was this: it's always airway first (examples of this would be wheezing, low o2 sats, stridor, etc.). It's not going to tell you directly that a patient is having trouble breathing. You have to be able to figure that out for yourself. And then if there wasn't any obvious airway problems, I looked for hypovolemia next. Again, what are some things that are signs of hypovolemia? Low blood pressure, tachycardia, decreased level of consciousness, etc.

4. I did receive two delegation questions. Just know to assign a floating nurse in your department the most stable patient that requires the least amount of specialized care. For example, patients on ventilators, chemotherapy, etc require special care and therefore you would NOT assign these types of people to floaters.

That's all I can remember for now. I'm not going to tell you not to sweat it, relax, because that's just an impossible recommendation to put into action. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll be happy to answer them! Good luck to all of those who have yet to take the test! B-)