Another Kaplan Question

as_nurse · Jul 7, 2014

Hello! Here are my quick recommendations for you...

-First and most importantly, cut out all negative thoughts like, "I feel like such an idiot" from your vocab. I know it is a super stressful time right now and so hard not to compare yourself to to others, but give yourself some credit on everything you've accomplished so far. You can do this!

-Secondly, 3 weeks is plenty of time to get a lot of studying in so you can feel prepared to rock the NCLEX. I personally found it really helpful to have a calendar with my goals of what I wanted to get through each day. My rough month schedule consisted of the Kaplan test one week, hard core content review (all the Kaplan videos while taking notes in their book) and some questions my second week, and then questions, questions, questions the last two weeks. I would maybe try to do your questions in blocks of 75 questions if you have the time vs. smaller blocks of 25 or 50. That is the minimum you are going to be sitting for so I think (for me at least) it really helped me get into the right mental state of sitting for awhile doing questions.

-Also, I do think that there is something to be said for having too many different types of study materials to look at. I know I thought i was going to go through all 4 of my NCLEX review books and key notes from school, but it got too overwhelming. Pick a program that works for you and go with that. For me personally that was the Kaplan program, but again you do what works for you.

-Also, don't beat yourself up about your scores. Are they important, yes... or maybe no. I think it is more important that you understand why you did or didn't get the questions right or wrong. I went back through every questions I took with Kaplan and looked up anything I didn't remember. Then I read through the questions again to see how I should have gotten to the right answer. If you are really looking for scores to "compare" yourself with I can tell you it looks like yours are pretty similar to where my scores were to start. I was so frustrated especially with my question trainers 4-6 and initial sets of questions from the q bank because I could not break out of the high 50s despite having scored mid-60s on my diagnostic and readiness exams. The two items that I believe ultimately ended up helping me were 1.) more time/questions and 2.) when I stopped obsessing over my scores and checking the internet to see what my "chances" of passing are based on my scores or what someone else did. I ended up doing 83% of the q bank and all of the question trainers with a 61% average. Did I want that number to be higher, of course, but guess what I passed in 75 questions. For me personally, I thought Kaplan questions were much harder than the NCLEX, but I also thought that I was well prepared. I'm sure there are people out there who don't like the kaplan program for one reason or another, or with higher scores who failed, or lower scores and passed. You can drive yourself crazy trying to find all that information, so instead take care of you. Do what you need to do to feel ready and remember... you can do this!

-Finally, take a deep breath before your test - whether it is a question trainer or the NCLEX. Take a moment to just collect yourself. When I felt like the exam was getting away from me because I had a couple hard questions, I started stopping myself and taking another moment to breathe, say a quick prayer to calm myself, and start again.

Good luck! You've got this.

(sorry that didn't end up being so "quick")

OneHappyRN · Jul 7, 2014

Three weeks is a lot of time. My scores weren't that great (mid to high 50s - then some low 60s) I just did question after question. I would always do the tutor mode so I could see my wrong answers immediately. I would do 50 questions 3 times a day for about 2 weeks and finally something "clicked". I took the readiness test and got a 62%. I took the NCLEX immediately and passed in 75Qs.

Jericho9mm · Jul 7, 2014

Thank you as_nurse for your words of wisdom, I was obsessing with my scores too in Question trainers. And now I've fallen to studying 3 guides with Kaplan, Saunders, and NCSBN, now I just need to narrow it down with the one that helps me to understand it better... Thanks again for your advise!