In December 2013 I graduated with my ADN. I was one of the students that got A's and a couple of B's in nursing school. I thought I was going to be fine the first time when I was going to take NCLEX. I mainly used Kaplan to prepare myself for the test and nothing else because everyone told me that kaplan was the main source they used to pass this test. I took the test on Jan 29, 2014 @ 10am. I sat down and stayed there for a good 4.5 hrs and all 265 questions. I thought for sure I was going to finish at 75 questions and be done within 2 hours. I was clearly wrong. After the test, I went home and tried the pearson vue trick and it went straight to the credit card screen. I was devastated and was in shock. I got my quick results and in big bold letters...FAIL. Everyone that knew when I was taking the test was in shock that I would even fail this exam.
I received my progress report a week later and saw that I was near passing in all categories expect pharm which I was below. I reschedule my exam for march 17, 2014 @ 8am and started to study again. Mind you I was working full time at night as a CNA and taking 12 credit hours towards my BSN (not the best idea for anyone). I again tried to do questions and used the Saunders book to understand some content. The day finally gave and again I sat there for 4 hours and all 265 question. I was super upset when I left the testing center because I did all that work. I tried the pearson vue trick again and it went straight to the credit card screen again! I COULDN'T BELIEVE IT! I paid the quick results and failed the exam again! I didn't understand what I was doing wrong whatsoever! I received my progress report again and it showed that I was near passing in everything expect psych where I was above. I had to find a different way to study.
I was talking to one of my coworkers who recently just pass the exam and she told me to use HURST. Hurst mainly does the core content because if you dont know your core content you can't pass the exam. I started to watch the videos and understand the processes of the diseases. I feel good this time around and told NO ONE when i was taking this exam. I was still working full time and classes were finally coming to a close. My anxiety was at a all time low. I also used the NCSBN 3 week review just for their questions. I was scoring between 60-75% on their exams. I schedule my exam for may 7, 2014 but decided against it and took it May 16, 2014 @ 11:30am. I arrived at the testing center early and they let me sit around 11:20am. I completely threw the kaplan test taking skills out the window because it didn't help me the first two time so why and try to use them this time around. I had about 15 SATA, 3 drop and drops, 1 med calculation, tons of priority question and medications I've never heard of. To be quite honest I didn't know if I was getting most of my questions correct but I felt good about it. I hid the question counter and timer and when I went to click the question counter it showed that I was at 74 questions. My 75th question I knew because one of the Hurst videos talk about it. I click the answer and the computer went blue. I look at the clock and it was 12:30. I just finished the exam an hour and 10 mins. My drive back home was horrible because I had 30 mins to go try this trick again and was a nervous wreck hoping that I pass that monster. I arrived home went straight to pearson vue to try the trick and it said "our records indicated you just recently scheduled this exam..." I was shaking and happy and I couldn't believe it! I actually finally pass that exam!
Sunday May 18, 2014 at 10:30am I paid for my results and it sure enough said PASS! I can't believe I'm a registered nurse now!!! PVT STILL WORKS!!! TRUST AND BELIEVE!!! NEVER give up and trust that you will conquer! TIME TO CELEBRATE!
