NCLEX-My Success Story!!

Hi my fellow nursing friends, as promised, I am sharing my NCLEX success story. I recently took NCLEX this past Friday, March 7, and just found out yesterday (Sunday March 9) that I am officially a REGISTERED NURSE!!!! :) I wanted to share my success story and what I did to prepare and pass because I relied a lot on allnurses.com this past week for my sanity to keep my calm before the big day! Bear with me this is kind of long, but hopefully it helps!

1. Do as many practice questions as you can! I found myself doing between 200-300 practice questions a day. From those practice questions I would read the rationale, for almost every single question, regardless if I got it right. The only time I wouldn't read the rationale is if it was an extremely easy question. From the rationales, anything I felt that I needed to brush up on, I would take notes from that. I made a special notebook just for NCLEX and took pages upon pages of notes. Even though I never re-read any of the notes that I took before NCLEX, I feel that just writing it down again helps and is a good way to study.

2. Don't get too caught up in content! I feel that the key to NCLEX is knowing how to answer those types of application/analysis, critical thinking questions. Yes, you definitely need to know your content to be able to apply your knowledge, but you made it through nursing school didn't you? You have already been taught your content, now you just need to apply it. If there are things you feel you need to brush up on (i.e. labs, EKG rhythms) definitely do so. But don't spend all of your time trying to rememorize content and everything you learned in nursing school because: 1. You're wasting precious time where you could be practicing questions and 2. Each NCLEX exam is different and completely random! I had the most random content on my test ever, and the stuff that I wanted to go back and study, but ran out of time, it wasn't even on my exam.

3. If your school uses ATI, that's great! I felt that ATI highly prepared be for the NCLEX and I found that the questions were very similar. We took the ATI predictor once before Christmas break of our last semester and I got a 93% chance of passing NCLEX the first time, and then we took it again after our ATI NCLEX review class and I got a 99% that time! Use ATI to do practice questions if you need to. Also, I would highly recommend the ATI review class if your school offers it.

4. Here are the practice books I used:

a) Kaplan 2013-2014 book (don't waste your money on the newer 2014-2015 version if you have the 2013-2014 version like I did; they're EXACTLY the same)! I spent time learning their decision tree, I went through all the practice questions in the book, and I did the practice exam that came on the CD.

B) Lippincott's Q&A review for the NCLEX 11th Ed. This book is GREAT; however, it's extremely long, it's over 6,000 questions. I regret not buying this my first semester of nursing school and using it throughout to coincide with the chapters I was learning in school. That way I would have been able to practice NCLEX questions for that specific area of nursing and would have had time to get through the book. Anyways, out of that book I did 4/6 190 question comprehensive exams.

C) Saunders Comprehensive Review 6th Ed-Great book, especially for content, but again, there's just so much information, should have started it at the beginning of nursing school. This is where I did the majority of my practice questions; however, I used the Evolve companion website because I like to do computer questions vs. the book. If you wanted to save yourself money, I think you could buy just the online code for the Evolve website. They have a 75 question assessment that tells you your strong and weak spots and then it comes up with a detailed study plan (I didn't follow the study plan because I didn't have that much time). You can do questions in exam mode where it'll give you like 75, 100, 150, or 200 questions. Then you can do study mode (this is what I used) and you can pick from a variety of things such as content area (this is what I used), type of question (analysis, application, etc.), and there is even a part where you can pick all alternate format and practice those dreaded SATA questions because unfortunately they WILL be on the NCLEX and you WILL get a lot! I had at least 25 out of my 77 ?s that were SATA. The study mode is great because it gives you the rationale for the question, and it also gives you great test-taking strategies (i.e. if answer choices are comparable or alike, more than likely that is not the correct answer, etc.)

D) Lippincott's Alternate Format 5th Ed-I went through this entire book because SATA questions were my weakness...This book was a lifesaver for me, it really helped build my confidence and ability to practice SATA questions!

E) PDA book by LaCharity-I had to purchase this for my leadership class and then we never even had to go through it. I wasn't going to look at it, but had read on allnurses that this book was a necessity (which I highly agree). I dug up this book and got through about half of it (simply because I ran out of time I didn't finish it). I would HIGHLY recommend this book as well because for NCLEX, you MUST know how to prioritize, delegate, and assign, it's VITAL for NCLEX!!

5. Take the day before your NCLEX off! Do NOT study. Go do something that you enjoy, something relaxing. For me it was going to get a manicure/pedicure and a one hour full body massage, and then catching up on all of my favorite shows at night! Reward yourself for your hard work and for being so dedicated to studying! You definitely need this day to relax, unwind, and destress before your big day!

6. PRAY!!!!! My faith definitely shined through this challenging time and if it wasn't for God and my faith I don't think I could have gotten through it and passed! I prayed every night before bed that I would pass and that he would lift my anxiety. I prayed when I woke up the day of my exam, before leaving my house, numerous times sitting in my car before it was time to go in, before starting my exam, and numerous times throughout my exam.

7. Study like it is your job! I studied here and there starting about a week after I graduated, but then 2 weeks before my exam I literally studied morning, afternoon and night for a total of about 9 hours a day!

8. Take your time during the exam, read the entire question and answers numerous times and make sure that you are answering what the question is asking. Also DO NOT READ INTO THE QUESTION!!!!! That is the biggest mistake you could make. Try not to worry about the number of questions you have because they say people pass in 75, they fail in 75, they pass in 265, they fail in 265. I found this to be very hard, but just try your hardest not to pay attention!

9. As far as I know, the PVT really works! I told myself I wasn't going to do it because I was just too nervous, but after I got home from taking the exam I found myself upstairs on my computer trying it and I got the "good pop up." I found out 48 hours later through the Pearson quick results that I was officially an RN. It gave me some type of peace of mind knowing that more than likely I had passed.

I hope that this helps you guys and I hope for all of your success. Please do not hesitate to contact me on here if you have any further questions!! BEST OF LUCK TO YOU ALL!!