Passed the NCLEX RN the 2nd time around 12/2015

Hello all & happy new year! I wanted to tell my experiences taking the NCLEX RN for anyone who may be interested. I must have looked at the all nurses site 20+ times in the process of taking the NCLEX for reassurance and guidance.

I took the NCLEX the first time in October, about a month after I graduated. My school had set up Kaplan for us, unfortunately they did a crappy job of explaining how to utilize Kaplan and it was all very confusing. I am also to blame, I thought to myself 'you just graduated... you will probably pass because its all still fresh in your mind'. I did half the Kaplan Q bank and all the Q trainer testes. I received scores in the high 40's to mid 50's. I also completed all the questions in Pearson's NCLEX exam cram book (I would not recommended this book). I had no one to blame for failing but myself. I did ZERO content review, and my study time was sporadic. The 1st time I took the test I took all 265 questions, it took 5 me hours . I did not take the optional breaks and I left feeling as though I had failed. Now that you know what I did wrong I will talk about the second time.

Ok, so I wish I could say after failing I was ultra motivated and tore it up studying. This was not so. I ended up taking a whole month off and it was glorious. I only started studying again because I realized my expensive Kaplan was going to expire and I figured I might as well use the resource while I had it. Below is the meat and potatoes of how I passed:

I did all of the following in 3 weeks, studying 4-6 hours a day and every 3 days taking a one day break with no questions or content.

The second time around I watched all Kaplan's content videos (except psychological integrity because I always found those questions easy). I found taking notes to be to tedious so I just followed in my book as the people in the videos talked.

I did about 30% of the Q bank and received 62% on them. I did the Q bank 50 questions at a time.

I did all the Q trainers with scores as follows

QT1- 62%

QT2- 60%

QT3- 70%

QT4- 64%

QT5- 62%

QT6- 54%

QT7- 56%

(I was so bummed when I took QT 6 & 7 because my scores were lower than ever and I was 2 days out from my test!)

***One big piece of advice to those using Kaplan- look at every rational for each question, not just the rational for the correct answer but the others as well! This made my scores improve so much!***

The night before the exam I crammed (I know people say not to but I was far to anxious!) I looked up lab values, fluid and electrolyte imbalances, and hypo v. hyperthyroidism.

I took the test at a site that was 2 hours away, I had my sister drive me and I crammed while she drove looking at meds. We had lunch and I did 10 practice questions just before so I would be in the mindset before taking the test and I think this really worked for me.

DURRING THE TEST: I was not sure I had gotten any questions right at all... I had 75 questions 24 select all that apply, 17 medication questions. I figured since the questions were so hard it was probably a good sign. Once the 75th question popped up I though 'oh please please be over", then the screen turned blue and I knew I had passed. I wanted to cheer and jump up and down but I waited at my seat until they escorted me out per protocol.

That pretty exhaustive of my experience. I think the biggest take away is that you should study content and make sure to look at rationales. The biggest thing is not to psych your self out, which is easier said than done I know. Just take it 1 question at a time, you can do it!