by blueprint

I take my NCLEX RN on May 5th and i have slowly been increasing the amount of studying ive been doing. I graduated in December but didn't really start getting into it until March. All i've been studying is test questions and reading hte rationales and reviewing the rationales or content im unfamiliar with. i took kaplan and the instructor said most of the test is Priority, delegation, precautions and of course some SATA. I've been doing about 200 questions a day and carefully reviewing each one. I'm doing fairly well with Saunders but Kaplan im getting about high 50's to 60's on the question trainers and about the same with Q Bank.

Am i doing ok with my studying? should i be reading hte comprehensive book more or should i just continue doing test questions.

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks all.

Re: Saunders and Kaplan Q Bank

im gona take my exam on may 20... still strying to read my saunders compre book as much as i can to cover the weaknesses that i have. im done with my qbank and im just doing it all again while waiting for the the time... im getting high 50's and 60's with my qtrainer too...and reviewing it again when i can...

as what others told me so, take time to relax... =)

Re: Saunders and Kaplan Q Bank

talked to a few of the alumnis who also took kaplan and they said they were getting similar scores if not lower... encouraging news but i still plan on doing about 200 to 300 test questions a day. i can't find the motivation to review the book unless i am utterly clueless with the question.

hopefully it pays off... getting pretty tired of just studying. would like to get the test over with.

Re: Saunders and Kaplan Q Bank

You only have a few weeks left. You're heading into the "I've learned all I'm going to learn" phase.

My advice is to relax. Kaplan is closest to anything I've seen in terms of NCLEX style. That's pretty much how it's gonna feel.

Don't freak out over the scores. It's too close to testing to worry about it anymore. It's only false reassurance even if you did better because those questions won't be on the test.

Regardless of your score the practice questions train you to think when you see a question. That's the key. To be able to eliminate. To be able to understand what the question is asking.

Read the rationals. It will give you insight as to how the game is played.

It's natural to want to feel like you have some mastery over the material but keep in mind this won't be like school.

You're used to being presented with a subject, study it then test. NCLEX is a standardised test that can cover anything on any given day. God forbid you have to take it again and you won't see the same questions.

Don't be frightened. Just understand what you're dealing with. You do practice questions and study content for a few months then test.
It's not enough time to change much of your study habits.

You go in with that and whatever you retained from school and hope for the best.

Good luck.

Re: Saunders and Kaplan Q Bank

thanks... i noticed at the beginning of testing i do pretty well but as the questions pile on i get lazy and start flying through it making careless mistakes. i took my time with Question trainer 6 and got a 78%...

kaplan's strategies and the decision tree are helping but i cant seem to apply it to half the questions asked. im encountering a ton of "knowledge" based questions but from what i was told was to practice on priority type questions such as who should you see/call first, triage, delegation, and teaching questions.

i am learning quite a bit just by reading rationales and reviewing content from questions im unfamiliar with. my scores have been getting better and kaplan suggests to be averaging atleast a 60% in QBank... as it stands now i have a 68% and my question trainer scores are getting progressively better.

Thanks for the advice.

Re: Saunders and Kaplan Q Bank

All I can suggest is practice as many questions as you can and understand the rationale to the ones you get wrong

Re: Saunders and Kaplan Q Bank

I talked to a friend who took and passed the NCLEX this past summer. She said that she didn't find the Saunders book helpful at all because they did not accurately reflect the type of questions she encountered on the actual test. Anyone else have this similar experience?