Becoming an RN in 75 questions!

Hey everyone! I was asked to write a blog about my experience with NCLEX and some advice I would give those going in. I promised I would write one so here I am!

First things first...RELAX!!

Everything will be OK I promise (I sound like such a hypocrite to those who know me because I was stressing so hard before I took mine LOL; I wish I hadn't though). This test is a safety test, they just want to know that you are a safe nurse and will make safe decisions. So take a deep breath, count to 10, and clear your mind. Great! Now that, that is over with let's get down to business.

Listen to your guts. Study what you don't know.

When it comes to studying you know what you know and you know what you don't! Do not let others persuade you into studying a way that is not beneficial to you individually. I've had a lot of people say that since I graduated college May 23rd and NCLEX was coming up, there was no use in studying content...WRONG! For some people, they can get by, by just doing strictly questions but I knew I was weak in content. I was getting the same scores on Kaplan for every practice test: 55,56,57, one time I got a 60 but that was it LOL. So I took a step back and said to myself "Hey maybe if you knew the content you could answer these questions!" so I listened to my gut, and that's what I did.

I used only 3 sources of NCLEX review: Kaplan, UWorld, and Hurst for content.

I did Hurst review in-class back during winter break of 2015 before my last semester of school and I still had my content videos. I would sit at my kitchen table from 10am-1am the next morning (I was not playing lol). Every day I would pick a system, or 2 if one system was short enough, to review and watch the content video of it while reading along in my Hurst book. Once I had studied that system enough to the point where I felt good about the info I would do UWorld questions on only that system because Kaplan doesn't let you separate questions by systems. UWorld gives great rationale! I was given the great advice of not to focus so much on the scores, it's all about learning. That's all that matters at the end of the day! Sometimes I would get above avg, sometimes I wouldn't (big deal) the key was that I would go back and write down every rationale of all the questions I got wrong and study it! Even if I got something right but didn't truly understand the rationale behind it, I still wrote it down, it sticks better that way. It may seem tedious but hey I passed in 75 questions so I guess it worked lol! After doing that I would go back to doing Kaplan questions about every 2 days. I swear after doing so many questions they start to repeat themselves in some type of way.

Schedule Exam

I scheduled my exam for July 18th; the day before I "relaxed", still did about 30 questions throughout the day, unfortunately, smh I swear I don't listen. The morning of my exam I woke up, ate breakfast and PRAYED! I had been praying since I started studying and the last thing I knew I had to do on this journey was put it in Gods hands. I did not finish the Kaplan Q-Bank (still have about 800-900 questions left, I didn't finish all of the Q-trainers; stopped at #4 actually, didn't even do the readiness test. As long as I had the content down I felt I was good! I got to the testing center about an hour and a half before I was due to walk in so I brought my notebook and studied in the car for a while, nothing heavy until I felt it was time to tackle the beast. I walked in did what I needed to do at the front desk and I sat down for my exam. I had 75 questions, only in there an hr and a half; my test was at 2 pm I chucked the deuces at 3:30. I had like 10-15 SATA, 2 EKG strips, and like only 3-4 pharm questions (they weren't bad though), I didn't even study pharm; didn't have time to with everything else. I didn't even really study Maternity, Peds, or Ortho, I only did questions on UWorld and tried to study a little that way for those topics. I had an amazing Maternity instructor that drilled information into our heads during school and had to really teach myself during Pediatrics so I never really lost that knowledge; only had 1 maternity question & I believe only 1 Peds question. Still, study it though LOL don't be like me, everyone's test is different remember! But all other questions were a priority, teaching (about 5), or application. I got up and felt like I bombed the test because it shut off at 75 and I had so much adrenaline I couldn't even remember what I answered for the questions. I came home and told my parents I was at a study group. It was hell waiting that 48 hrs man smh! I got peer pressured into doing the Pearson trick 24 hrs after I received my completion email LOL. I got the "good pop up" but I was still cautiously optimistic. The next day I was refreshing that quick results page ALL DAY! It finally popped up around 3:00 pm and that's all she wrote...at the age of 23 I have received my Bachelors of Science in Nursing and am finally an RN!

Last bit of advice...Take your time!

Do not worry about how many questions or what type of questions you are getting if you notice you are getting "easy questions" don't panic!!! All it means is you got a high-level question wrong and they are giving you a chance to stay above the line. The high-level ones will come back, trust me. They WILL NOT ask you anything you have NEVER SEEN BEFORE!!! If you studied enough (especially UWorld) these questions are easy I'm telling you! I thought I was doing terrible because I thought everything was easy LOL. Kaplan is almost an exact replica of NCLEX format wise; down to how the screen looks. I thought I was taking a Kaplan practice test!

I have faith that whoever follows the path that best suits them will do just fine. Remember be a safe nurse, don't do anything you wouldn't want done to your family member or YOU! Well guys, that is all I have if you have any specific questions let me know and I will answer as best I can!

Hope this helps....GOOD LUCK!!!