Nclex not as hard as I imagined

Nursing Students NCLEX

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I just finished my nclex exam & came home & got the good popup. After reading so many blogs I was a nervous wreck going in but I have to say it really wasn't nearly as hard as I imagined. I had only 75 questions. Over half were SATA it seemed. SATA was an area of weakness for me but I pushed through. I was actually disappointed each time I didn't get a SATA question after a while. I honestly don't think nclex was as hard as everyone says. Yes - I studied & I studied hard from the day I graduated May 18 - July 2. I had a 3.97 GPA. I scored 937 on exit HESI. I took Kaplan course & scored 73.3 on readiness test. I was determined not to fail NCLEX. I already have a job that begins July 21. I had the extra pressure of passing since I already have a job lined up. There were 150 applicants for the job so I knew there were plenty of people waiting to snatch it from me if I failed nclex.

My advice would be to study. I think I over studied by about 2 weeks. I did the entire Kaplan Qbank & all the question trainers. Maybe being prepared is what helped me & made the test seem reasonable & pretty basic. I wish I had done more SATA but it's a little too late to worry about that. I felt good walking out of the test. All I ever read was people feeling like they bombed so I want to let everyone know there is a different side to the story. If you put in the effort the results will show it.

At the test, I wrote on my whiteboard to "go slow" and "go with what you know". That was the best advice I got & it works. Good luck & relax. The questions are not nearly as hard as Kaplan or Hesi. If you have any questions about preparing I'd love to help in any way that I can for you to pass. You got this!!

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i am needing some advice! I've been studying ATI, doing a ton of ATI quizzes, i have 5 different NCLEX apps on my phone which i'm constantly doing practice questions on, I bought a Kaplan NCLEX Strategies book which i've read cover to back, I read the ATI leadership book, i mean i've been doing everything I can think of. I can't afford to buy a 300$ review program like Hurst or anything so i'm a little worried. Is there anything else that i need to be doing? :/ And congrats btw on passing!! :)) what an accomplishment!

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i am needing some advice! I've been studying ATI, doing a ton of ATI quizzes, i have 5 different NCLEX apps on my phone which i'm constantly doing practice questions on, I bought a Kaplan NCLEX Strategies book which i've read cover to back, I read the ATI leadership book, i mean i've been doing everything I can think of. I can't afford to buy a 300$ review program like Hurst or anything so i'm a little worried. Is there anything else that i need to be doing? :/ And congrats btw on passing!! :)) what an accomplishment!

I didn't want to pay a lot of money on NCLEX prep either so I did the NCSBN (people who make NCLEX) prep its only $50 for 3 weeks and I passed with 75 questions

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If you can afford it, the Kaplan Qbank questions worked for me. They had a lot of SATA questions that were harder than what I saw on the boards.

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This is such a relief when I hear stuff like this!! I have mine exactly one week from today and I am a nervous wreck! I scored a 1021 on my exit hesi 1 and 920 on hesi exit 2. I was mostly a B+ student through school. My anxiety level just got worse in nursing school. Anyways, I'm doing the kaplan exams. I am averaging 66% on the Qbank and got a 62 on the 2 Qbank short version NCLEX-RN tests and got QT Trainer 1-5 scores of 59-67. Doing QT 6 tomorrow and 7 on sunday or saturday. You would say Hesi was way worse though? I didn't think Hesi was terrible, just very wordy. I am worried I'm going to psych myself out though because this exam counts for so much more. In my school we didn't need a certain score for them to let us graduate so the pressure wasn't bad.

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Specializes in Emergency Department.

Given that you have very good scores on the HESI exams, chances are very good that you know the material you'll need to know to pass the NCLEX. Given your scores, you probably have an extremely good chance of passing first try. You might want to spend your time doing questions and paying attention to the why behind the rationale for each question and look a exactly what the question is really asking you for.

Once you're sitting in front of the computer, just slow down, breathe, and take it one question at a time. The only question that matters right then is the question that's right in front of you. You can't change the ones behind you and who knows what you'll get next, so neither matter. If your exam shuts off right at 75, at least you were most definitely a pass or fail. If it goes beyond that, even to 265, you're still in the game and you can still pass, so just do one at a time. Most importantly, do NOT rush yourself. If you're getting toward the end of time, just keep going at YOUR speed. You do NOT benefit at all from rushing through.

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I agree. I thought I had failed when it shut off at 75. Because I did not think it was too bad. And I barely studied. Worked too much. Just did the Ati practice exams.

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Hesi & Kaplan are much more wordy than nclex. Nclex is very straight forward. I highly recommend using the noise canceling headphones they offer- really puts you in your own zone. 75 questions took me 2hours! I think it was because of all of the SATA & that there was so much riding on it. I was doing 75 questions on the Qbank in less than 45 min. Also they made me empty my pockets so if you have any good luck charms you need put them in your bra beforehand! If you've been practicing questions & have a decent grasp on content you'll be fine. I was so frustrated that 80% of what I studied wasn't on it. It was things that I'd never seen in any book but reasoning skills work perfectly fine.

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