Excellent Student, NCLEX ridiculous.
First, let me just say that this post is not about boasting or to massage my ego. I guess it's just trying to reach out to everybody waiting for their pending NCLEX results, as I myself am doing.
I am an excellent student. I excelled in high school, excelled at my original major at a different college before transferring, was accepted at Ivy League Universities, heeded scholarships and graduated with a high GPA. I received a 92% on the Exit HESI. Not only was I book smart, but I was accepted at two different "Magnet" Hospitals for internships and asked to stay on as techs and eventually nurses at both. I have already received an offer at one of these Magnet Hospitals for a job pending my NCLEX boards.
I took the NCLEX this morning. I'm not sure if the fact that I think that test was ridiculous is a reflection of myself, my University, or whomever is ultimately responsible for the design of the exam, but I found the NCLEX to be obscene. There were entire questions based on side effects of medications I have never heard of, in my studies or in "the real world", questions that didn't even offer any hint to what it might be. I had to go back to my "college exam" tactics of actually picking apart the name of the drug to try and GUESS at what the drug was used for based off of the name itself. I went on to google the names of two medications later, only to find that they weren't even listed on common drug websites.
My "gripe" so to speak with the design of this exam is that I had possibly a sheer handful of questions, if that, on diabetes and heart disease, not a single math question, and was overloaded with infection control regarding shigella. I'm sorry if this is bold but please tell me that when I finally become a real nurse, good nursing practice still includes looking up infection control for things you may not come in contact with often and checking with drug guides and physicians before administering medications google can't even come up with.
To all who may be "preening" this forum for reviews on the examination: please test our future nurses on vital information and not on random facts and test taking skills. Lives depend on it.
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