My NCLEX Experience

Hello all. This is my 1st post, but I've been lurking for about a year. I took my NCLEX a few weeks ago, and passed 1st time with 75 questions. It took about an hour and 20 minutes. To prepare, I did the entire Uworld qbank, and went back and reviewed topics. Uworld was so useful. I ended up with a 56% total. What I especially liked about Uworld was the search function - I could look up Airborne precautions, for example, and get questions with the Airborne Precautions chart. I did the same for droplet, and contact precautions. Also printed out developmental milestones, and the immunization schedules. I thought the charts were very easy to read. I was given some good advice - go into the exam expecting to do all 265 questions, so that I don't freak out if I get a ton of questions. I took this to heart, and brought in enough food to last for several meals, which I didn't even need. I think Uworld also did a great job in preparing me for SATA questions. I feel that I was able to look at SATAs and feel confident in choosing answers. In fact, on the occasions when I got 2 or more regular multiple choice questions in a row, I would start getting a bit nervous, because I thought that I was "slipping." I had about 30 SATAs. I left the exam feeling pretty good. I had heard from several classmates that they had felt like they had done poorly, or that the questions didn't make any sense, or sure that they had failed. But I didn't feel that way at all. I was a bit panicky the day before, but I entered the exam feeling very well prepared. I also used my Kaplan book - read the first part about how to look at questions and think about what they are really asking. My book came with 2 x 265 practice NCLEX exams, but I only did about 50 questions. I thought the Kaplan questions were much more complex than the NCLEX questions. However, I felt that the NCLEX was testing on multiple areas all at once. So be sure to know diseases, and expected findings, so you can figure out what is an unexpected finding. Know your lab values. Know how to prioritize. And don't too caught up in medication names if you don't know what they do. I mean, certainly you should know your ACE inhibitors, and Betas, and Diuretics, etc. But if you see a totally unfamiliar drug, you can probably answer the question correctly by using your nursing knowledge. Anyway, I know have my license, and it is a dream come true. Good luck to all of you who are about to take the NCLEX. xx