I graduated from an ADN program back in 2015. Just to give you a time line of my NCLEX Attempts:
LPN FAIL
LPN PASS
RN FAIL
RN FAIL
RN FAIL
RN FAIL
RN FAIL
RN - PENDING
The point of this post is to address my failures. All the attempts I made were just attempts. I never 'tried'. I had the mentality that if someone is bad at basketball, they will eventually make a basket if they keep shooting.
I kept 'shooting' and not 'practicing' - if that makes sense. Now don't get me wrong, I graduated nursing school with a 3.7 and I have very strong clinical skills. I was just too lazy to take the exam seriously. I almost gave up - but in Illinois you MUST past within 3 years of graduating or you must show 2 additional years of nursing school. I did not want to go down that route.
Today is February 3rd, 2018. I am reaching the end of my ropes and I took the NCLEX RN at 8am.
How did I study before? - Very inconsistent use of Kaplan. (This resource taught me strategy so I tried to pass using only strategy. That didn't work.
How did I study now? - From December 18th - February 3rd I used Mark Klimek and UWORLD.
I studied 6-12 hours per day EVERY SINGLE DAY UP UNTIL THIS MORNING. I completed all 2,000 UWORLD questions and read every single rational.
My UWORLD scores got better the more I utilized it. I started out averaging 50% on my exams. That slowly progressed to 60-68%. Every single exam I scored higher than the average. And my UWORLD Self assessment exams scored me at 'Very high chance of passing'. UWORLD Recommends a 65% average on QBANK. I finished with a 60%
My NCLEX today shut off at 75 questions with 20 SATA.
My thoughts? Well, I either completely bombed it or I did very well. Keep in mind, the RN exams I took in the past never shut off before 150 questions. I feel more confident. I also feel nervous. I am so drained from the amount of work I put.
I will find out Monday morning at 8AM. My friend told me to do the 'PVT' after I received the Email from Pearson. That is what I did about 2 hours after my exam. This is the message that I received.
"Our records indicate that you have recently scheduled this exam. Another registration cannot be made at this time."
I used my credit card with a different expiration date. I did do the PVT back when I first took NCLEX and it actually charged my card. This time it didn't.
Now I know NCLEX is graded twice and I know the PVT is not accurate by any means. I do not know what to think or feel. Just thought I would share my story.
I currently work as an LPN in an assisted living facility and go to school for health administration. Last time I took NCLEX was in 2016.
