Passed NCLEX in 75 questions, and YOU CAN TOO

I always said that if I passed my NCLEX, I would make a thread on this website. Reading others' testimonies gave me so much encouragement my last semester of college, while I studied for NCLEX, and the day that I took my test (and thought I had failed).

Trust me, if I can pass the NCLEX at the minimum number of questions, you can too!

My study plan was sort of all over the place. I didn't really stick with a plan, I just went with the flow. My school used ATI and passpoint for NCLEX prep. I always struggled with ATI - would make the very minimum level 2 (if I made it at all) for each class. Sometimes I would make the highest level 1, it would drop my grade from a B to a C, and then I had a ton of remediation to do. The first time I took my comprehensive predictor I made a 78% chance of passing. I was devastated. But it's only a number, it does NOT mean you will pass or fail the NCLEX! Because of my low score, I was put into a remediation class during my 5th semester of nursing school. I had to do anywhere from 150-250 questions on Passpoint at 85% or better each week. Sometimes that meant taking 1000 questions until I made the scores I needed. It was brutal, but that class taught me how to critically think through questions. Looking back, I'm very grateful for it...though i wasn't so much at the time! After taking that class, I took a second comp predictor and scored a 99%! Like I said, just a number, but it gave me a lot more confidence as I graduated nursing school. I think that's also a testament as to how great passpoint is!

I had a huge gap for about a month prior to graduating because I had finished precepting pretty early. I took a much needed break during that time! The week of our graduation, there was an optional Hurst Review at our school. The cost for the course in person was $350. I know that's pricey, but it was definitely worth it for me. It cleared up so much content that I was always fuzzy on during nursing school. You also have access to all of the lectures you had during the live review for 2 weeks. So, if something isn't clicking, you can watch it again. Hurst recommends that you know all of the content they present to you (which is about 250 or so pages) without a doubt or hesitation. I don't think I ever got to that point, but I did feel like I knew something about each topic that was presented - enough to make educated guesses on questions, at least. All I did to study through was rewatch each video from the live review and watch the specialty lectures (maternity, peds, management/delegation) twice. I would try to watch a video or two per day and take about 75 questions on passpoint (and of course, read ALL of the rationales). Passpoint sets their tests up by levels, not scores. I mostly made level 8s score-wise. I also worked through the extra ATI tests that they give you during their live review. I made what I needed to on all of those. They recommend above 60%, and most of my scores were 65-75%. After I rewatched videos, I read through the book. I didn't spend a whole lot of time doing that, either. I just made sure that it made sense to me and moved on. Hurst also gives 6 Q Reviews that you are instructed to take after knowing all of your content. To me, these questions were the MOST like NCLEX out of any other practice questions I had taken. My scores were not good:

Q Review 1: 67/125

2: 72/125

3: 84/125

4: 76/125

5: 74/125

6: 78/125

They recommend an 84/125, but as you can see, only ONE of my scores met that. Barely. I freaked out and wanted to reschedule my test day (which was about 4 days away). Looking back, I'm not sure that it matters too much how you score on these - unless you're scoring extremely low. As long as you get your brain thinking like NCLEX and then read the rationale to every question you missed and truly understand why the right answer is right and the answer that you may have picked is wrong, I think that is one of the keys to studying. These tests were hard, but they helped tremendously, especially with select all that apply questions. SATA was one of my weakest areas in nursing school, but after taking these, I felt like I rocked my SATA questions on NCLEX.

After my freak out moment, I came to this site for encouragement. I was reading the same thing about the Hurst Q Reviews from a few people. Then I stumbled upon a book which helped SO much with NCLEX: LaCharity's Prioritization, Delegation, and Assignment. It was only $30 on Amazon, and with my Prime membership, I was able to get it in 2 days (which was helpful, with my test approaching soon). It's nothing but questions and rationales to those crazy questions like "Which patient would you see first..," "Put the following in priority order," "Which patient would you discharge first," and so on. I struggled with those questions and the NCLEX was full of them, so this was a great investment - even if I didn't spend much time with it. I only did the set of questions in the front since I was limited on time. I didn't do the case studies, but I'm sure they were just as helpful!

If you didn't read any of my above rambles (definitely don't blame you), my study plan included: ATI and passpoint during and a little bit after school, the Hurst review, and half of LaCharity's Prioritization, Delegation, and Assessment.

The day before my NCLEX, I tried to relax (LOL). I finished up the LaCharity book (I had 3 sections left to do - about 100 questions) in the morning. Then I mostly chilled for the rest of the day. I met up with friends for dinner and watched a movie on Netflix that afternoon. I read over some notes I had made for myself on lab values and that sort of thing and called it a night. The morning of the test I ate a big, mostly healthy breakfast and drove myself to the testing center. I arrived about 30 minutes early and was able to start my test before 8:00 when it was scheduled.

I'm just going to warn you, my testing experience was bad. I'm very thankful I don't have to go through with it again - it was mentally and emotionally draining. My test started and I felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest - especially since I wasn't even confident in my FIRST question. To be truthful, I was confident about less than 10 of my answers. I felt like I was swimming in the dark throughout the majority of the test. The questions were easy to decipher and re-word, but the answers all seem so good. They're very similar and vague; NCSBN does a GREAT job in writing out this test so as not to license an unsafe nurse. I had one med calc question, about 20-25 SATA, and the rest were multiple choice. My SATA were at the beginning, and to be truthful, those weren't all so bad. They stopped around 56 or so, and the rest of my test was multiple choice. But it was the hardest multiple choice questions I had seen in my life!! I just KNEW since I wasn't getting any more SATA, I was failing. But I should have known that since my questions were getting so much harder, I was actually doing well. When I got to question 70, my heart started pounding again. Somehow, I had a feeling my test was going to shut off. I probably spent about 3 minutes going back and forth on question 75, praying I would answer correctly and I could prove to this test that I knew something! I clicked next and it happened - blank screen. I wanted to start bawling. I really thought I had failed. Then, of all things, you have to take a survey.. flew through that, raised my hand to leave, did my palm vein scan, collected my things, and tried to make it to my car before the tears started flowing. I called my mom and my best friend crying because I knew I had failed. They calmed me down enough to drive home (about 40 mins from my testing center). I didn't even listen to music in the car. That whole day was a sad blur. I kept thinking of questions I KNEW I missed (which seemed like a lot more than the ones I knew I had gotten right). My stomach kept sinking. I couldn't eat or sleep, I just cried and whined about how horrible I had done to have failed at the minimum. I was not someone anyone wanted to be around.

I live in AL; here the state board posts our license number by 8 AM if we passed. Thank God, I don't think I could have waited another day or two without completely losing it. I didn't even want to look, but much to my surprise, I PASSED. Apparently, it's totally normal to walk out of the test feeling the way I did. I know because I stalked this website all day after taking it! My friends have also all said the same thing, and almost all of them have passed too.

Believe me, if I can do it, YOU can do it. I hope this post was encouraging to at least one person!! Buckle down and study, but also be kind to yourself. After all, you just made it through an intense program with hundreds of tests... what's one more? Take a deep breath and conquer it like you've been doing for 5 semesters. Good luck and blessings!