can someone help me out? please!!!

"Every nurse gets 50% correct, and 50% wrong, that is how the test is set-up."

Sorry, can you please explain? I thought you had to get 3/4 of the test right to pass.

Thanks a bunch. I'm still sweating it out waiting for my results.

liddle

It's not unusual to feel like you've failed boards.

If she did well in school, she most likely did well on boards. Give her a hug

and some reassurance and prepare to celebrate her success!

my wife took the NCLEX today and it shut off at 89 questions

she is in a state of panic because she totally thinks she failed!!!

she seemed to have a lot of "priority" questions and less questions from other topics. she stated that after question 75 she seemed to do better and thinks that because of that they were giving her easier questions and then failed her at question 89. can someone provide some insight? something i can say that might help? i think she is under the assumption that shutting off at 75 means pass and anything else means fail!!! my take on this is that its a board exam and regardless of how many questions one has you always think you failed!!!

so, the bottom line is...

is 89 questions a gray area?

does the fact that she had easier (easier to her) questions towards the end of the test mean anything?

thanks!!!

-cb

I've known people that have passed with 75 questions and I've known people that have failed with 75 questions. I've known people that have passed with 265 questions, I've known people that have failed with 265 questions.

So, what's my point? My point is this...ANYONE can pass with ANY number of questions. If your wife had 89 questions, it just means that she was riding the line of either pass or fail and it had to give her more questions until she was out of the "gray area", either way.

All I know is this....no matter what happened, it's over for your wife now and it's out of her hands. There is no point in getting so freaked out now. Lots of nurses think they failed after taking the test, but they didn't. If she did fail, then she'll just have to take it again.....I know plenty of good nurses that didn't pass on the first time. It does not mean she'll be a bad nurse.

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for her. Let us know what you find out.

The above posters are all correct. The number of questions you have has no bearing on how you did.

Last year when I took my boards I drove my family insane for days. My husband would call and ask how many times I checked for results since the last time he called. The computer shut off for me at 75 and I walked out of there absolutely positive I'd failed. The vast majority of my questions had to do with prioritizing and delegation. Not one on drugs or calculations.

Not one of my friends who passed felt they did well when they walked away from that test, and every one had a different number.

Unfortunately, there's no point in telling your wife not to fret. She will until she gets the results.

thanks!!! its not really helping her feel better (obviously i'd assume), but i know she will appreciate your kind words. i went out and got her all her favorite stuff and now its just the wait. she already has a job lined up so i think that's what is really making this hard on her. moreover, i should confess that i am an NP and my NCLEX shut off at 75 - so that is prolly making her feel bad as well. oh, and i thought i failed both the NCLEX and NP boards (passed the NP boards by like 2 questions - whew).

i think the NP boards are better cause they're pretty much straight-forward with a certain % you have to get correct. i hated the NCLEX cause you really couldn't estimate how well you did. everyone in my program seemed fixated on 75 = pass.

i tried to tell her that i personally think a lot on 1 particular subject is not really bad cause it means you did well on the other topics. i had a ton of maternity questions on the NCLEX and i prolly bombed all of them!!!

...my own personal opinion (totally my own view) on the NCLEX is that a lot of questions really have 2 correct answers (but they don't tell you that). i think they are just making sure you will be a safe nurse and as long as you pick an answer that demonstrates that you will be safe (even if its not the real correct answer) then you still get credit for that. that's just my little personal conspiracy theory. :)