I passed my NCLEX-RN, can you find out actual score/percent?

sauconyrunner · Jul 7, 2012

You can not get your score...there really isn't a score because it's based on a different type of system. Not everyone answers the same questions etc. Some people answer 75 some get 122 and some get all the questions. Back when your Grandmother took the exam, it was a several day process- everyone answered the same questions, and thus you all could get a comparable score.

The test looks that you have the minimum knowledge to practice safely as a nurse. So if you demonstrate that in the first 75 questions, it shuts off. If you demonstrate it in 135, it shuts off etc. When your Grandmother took the exam, it was a traditional exam- and of course it varied from state to state with some states having very difficult exams and others being a bit easier...

DoGoodThenGo · Jul 7, 2012

Is that possible? I think all nurses can understand the need to know more... After preparing for the NCLEX and all the hype leading up to it, the score of "passed" is kinda anti-climactic. Nursing school was super competitive; I want to know how well I actually did. Is there a way to find out your actual score, percent, and/or ranking compared to other test takers?
My grandma took the NCLEX about 50 years ago. She always brags that she was pregnant, working full time, and didn't even study and got the highest NCLEX score in the state. I wonder if things changed and they gave you scores back then, but not nowadays.
I know if one does not pass the NCLEX, they will receive results showing which questions they got wrong...
THANK YOU!

There wasn't a "NCLEX" fifty years ago. Your grandmother like every other graduate nurse until about 1994 took her board exam administered by the state. Back then it was paper and pencils for an exam that was often administered (IIRC) in parts over two days for some states. Much like the tests many of us (of a certain age *LOL*) remember from school and college; everyone got the same exact exam. With that sort of set up it would have been easy for your grandmother to find out her "grade".

Today the NCLEX works on a different system. It is a computerized adaptive exam which long story short means it determines the skill level of the test taker and tries to work with her or him. Instead of a set number of questions there are three divisions basically easy, middle and difficult. Depending upon how one starts off the computer will either give eaiser or more difficult questions depending upon the number of correct answers given, If the system determines after a minimum number of questions that one is "safe to practice", that is *passing*. This is why some stop getting questions at around 73 while others go into the hundreds. https://allnurses.com/nclex-discussion-forum/how-nclex-works-749353.html

Most state board exams from your grandmother's day had very detailed questions regarding direct patient care. If your grandmother went to a good diploma program and did well that could explain why she did so well without studying. As for being great with child at the time, girls took their boards back in those days in various conditions ranging from broken limbs to being very close to confinement. One really had no choice back then. States usually only offered nursing board exams once or twice a year. If you missed the exam dates it could be several months or longer before it was offered again. In the meantime you could only work as a graduate nurse which usually meant under the direct supervision of a RN. That complicated staffing and some hospitals wouldn't keep GNs past a certain time frame. This applied to GNs who failed their boards as well.

applewhitern, BSN, RN · Jul 8, 2012

I took my RN test in 1989; it was pen and paper over a 2 day period. It was "pass or fail" then, too. I don't know if this is true or not, but my college told us they had stopped giving an actual "score" because of some sort of discrimination. They claimed that people were being hired, or not hired, according to their "score." Like I said, I don't know if this was true or not, it is just what they told us back then.