Hi there fellow peeps,
Back in the day, before I got accepted in nursing school, I needed help passing the NET test, but could not afford the books for it, so I created my own, "how to" which helped many people. Now I see that a great number of you would benefit from getting a "how to" for the NCLEX. I can't guarantee that you will pass the NCLEX because that depends on YOU! However I am doing my best to get you in good shape to tackle that monster!
During my last semester in nursing school, I started getting NCLEX books, and reading, them many of them, because I was tired of biased opinions regarding which books were best. Getting a review course was out of questions, since I did not have the money for it, all I had was a library ID card! Based on my experience with the books, and how to study I tried to come up with a generic game plan strategy, that you can tweak to your needs!
- Understanding the test: Congratulations! You graduated nursing school, when it comes to the NCLEX the system knows what you learned in nursing school, and it assumes that you know the basics of it all. With that in mind, your NCLEX questions are going to be application questions, applying the knowledge that you had throughout school, into the PERFECT nursing environment, it will make sure that you can prioritize, and offer the best safest care to your patient.
- Preparing: If you graduated from nursing school that means you got it! You went through it all, and learned as much as you could, experienced a lot, more over are ready to tackle this beast! If you just graduated, take a breather, take a week to chill, and refresh, if not then jump in!
o You will need a good review book something that doesn't have questions, plain and simple review, to the point, all you need is to freshen up and get your mind in shape again, I would recommend the KAPLAN (either the one from the class or the bookstore), MOSBY, or, NCLEX review from Prentice hall. the infection mnemonic that you can find here: https://allnurses.com/nclex-discussion-forum/infection-control-mnemonics-299890.html a
o You will need a good question book, I found MOSBY-RN in conjunction with LaCharity, to be the best combo books for questions you could get, since they are written in a higher level, the rationales are simple and to the point, you have SATA questions as well in it, and I felt that out of all the books (KAPLAN, SAUNDERS, DAVIS etc..) these had the most challenging questions, they were actually harder to answer than the NCLEX.
o All right, books on the table and let's begin! I would recommend approaching the study on a really nice way, so that you do not cram info, get bored reading, or get headaches from answering too many questions.
o I broke it all down on steps!
1 - you want to get your question book, on the subject you decided to start today, and you want to answer about 40 questions on that subject, after that, correct your answers and see how you did, if you scored less than 28 right questions, open your review source (whatever you chose) take a break, and go read on that subject, take your time, but don't procrastinate, after you are done with it, back to the questions! Now you will answer another 40 questions on that same subject and expect to get +28 right answers. If not don't panic, read over the rationales again, understand what you got wrong, and move on to another set of 40 questions on that same subject.
2 - after you covered all the subjects, which should take you about 14 days if you devote a solid 2-3 hours on it, you will now move to the LaCharity book, their chapters are small, plan to tackle 3 chapter per day and you will be done with 1 week (the study scenarios are optional) and after you are done with the book just go on taking more questions (your book should have thousand of them) I recommend at least 100 per day!
3 - its endurance time, so at this point you are already ready! What you should plan to do is 1 week prior to your NCLEX, start your endurance plan, where you will attempt to answer 265 questions every day, of course you can take a break, but come right back to the books, since you are training to tackle it, whether you get 265 or not, at least you are prepared for the fight
4 - The day before, all you want to do is read the random fact threads and the infection mnemonics, don't sweat it, just chill, read a little, and try to go out watch a movie, or anything else you can do (other than partying like a rock star) so that you are less anxious.
5 - Day of the test: wake up in time, make sure you eat something, and wake up early enough so you are neither groggy nor late! Bring something to drink, and a snack, and game on! You are ready fellow RN
