Failed the NCLEX RN with 76 questions!

Nursing Students NCLEX

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I failed my NCLEX with 76 questions! i hated the exam, .. i really found the questions hard, but when i walked out of there, i honestly thought i passed, because i got so many sata questions , and two hours later i tried the pearsonvue trick and sure enough it worked, because i went all the way to the cc page, and today i checked the site, paid the money on pearsonvue and found out i failed, the exam is horrible, all they ask are priority questions, infection control and sata, i hated it!! i need advice from the ones who passed, i really need to pass this damn thing, please help..

Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

Concentrate on answering questions, I personally would go with Saunders because the explanation in the rationale I found the best but up to you

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Saunders CD is awsome because it gives you the rationale and strategy hints.

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No problem, he stated that he was nervous the first time which I found out that the student that grauated from a rival school at the top of her class failed with 75 questions as well just from nerves. He ONLY used saunders to prepare and when he went into the exam the second time he took his time and if he did not know the question he just made the best educated guess he could remembering that he has a shot with the next question. He also said that he treated each question individually and when he was getting frustrated he closed his eyes or took a deep breath. The first time I think he said he rushed through the questions and finished in 1 hour (works for some people) where as the second time he ended closer to 3 hours with a break at the 2 hour mark and 1 or 2 tghe last hour.

Not everyone can afford Kaplan and like my friend and many others on this board, they passed using only Saunders. I personally used Kaplan only because I did not want to confuse myself because each book would say something different which made me upset. A few days before my Kaplan I bought a Prentice hall book with 500 questions, I had Lippincott, NCLEX made incredibly easy, also had Saunders 3rd edition and a few more. I was overwhelmed with all these books so decided to use one book that worked for me.

I will personally pray for you and please trust in yourself and believe that God will help you. I am not the expert at the NCLEX but from many post on here, the stories and the moderators helped in so many ways. Good luck to you

Thank you for your encouraging words. I have faith and trust in God, Im sure I will pass this time around under the will of God. My exam is not till mid August, so i dont want to start studying this soon. I want to take atleast one week of no studying, just to give my mind a break, and then I will continue with my studying. I have decided to do the Kaplan course, that starts in july and ends in the beginning of august, they are meeting only on sundays once a week for four weeks. It includes class time and qbank (the Kaplan complete). I initially used Saunders, but was unsuccesful. I also rushed through the exam the first time. I wasnt really thinking the answer, and quickly picked my choice (wrong idea). This time I will take it slow like your friend and make sure i understand what the question is asking. I got my packet today from my bon detailing my weakness and strenghs. Therefore; i will make sure to brush up on topics that i was below passing in. Thank you for praying for me. Its so heart breaking to not pass especially after sucessfully completing nursing school.

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Concentrate on answering questions, I personally would go with Saunders because the explanation in the rationale I found the best but up to you

that is what most ppl are saying, that saunders is the best, but i was initially using saunders, and didnt pass, this time i will do kaplan and saunders, hope i dont confuse myself :icon_roll

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Specializes in corrections, psychiatric.
I failed my NCLEX with 76 questions! i hated the exam, .. i really found the questions hard, all they ask are priority questions, infection control and sata, i hated it!! i need advice from the ones who passed, i really need to pass this damn thing, please help..

The key is in your posting. Priority and infection control are the majority of the questions you had. That is because the program will keep throwing questions at you which it identifies you have problems with. So, if you study prioritization and infection control you may have a better chance of passing next time.

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If you're having problems with priority questions then get Priority, Delegation, and Assignment by Linda LaCharity. For infection control guidelines go to CDC.gov and read up on the different kinds of pre-cautions and know what kind are needed for the more common disease like MMR, RSV, DTP, TB etc. I used Saunders religiously in school and it helped me ace my exams but I didn't find it so useful for NCLEX because I already knew my content. If you already know the content then you need t to work on getting comfortable with answering priority questions. Do the entire Linda LaCharity book (cost btwn $25-$30) and read the rationales. Know Maslow's like the back of your hand and always think ABC when answering priority questions and you cannot go wrong. Also know the side effects of the most common drugs and if you have no clue about what the drug is for then try to break the word down and take a guess. I was able to answer a question about Lamictal correctly because although I had never heard of the drug I know that ictal refers to seizures so I was able to answer that. Had another question about side effects. I had to match the side effect to one of four different drugs. Now I didn't know for sure that the side effect belonged to any of the drug choices but since I knew what body system the drugs effected I was able to by process of elimination choose the correct answer.

That pretty much sums up my NCLEX experience. It can be a crap shoot but if you can prioritize and know your infection control (which is nothing more than recall) along with some drugs you can beat this test. The biggest part is the prioritization because that is the role of the RN...it's the biggest piece of the puzzle so if you can master that then you have a really good chance of passing.

Good luck!

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Hey Bronx RN, do u also take online kaplan that cost $400? but thanks for ur idea of helping other people in need, the lord will grant all ur heart desires, i just graduated last month...and preparing to take nclex rn.

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I didn't do Kaplan because I didn't have the $400 to spend. Spending $200 for the test and $135 for my license along with the books and the $50 for the NCSBN review was enough of a strain on the pockets. The NCSBN learning extension which was $50 for 3 weeks helped me a lot too. I went straight to the post test for each section and if I got 75 or better I moved on. If I got lower I reviewed. I was able to identify that I had some problems with the basics like prioritizing and infection control which surprised me but it saved my butt because I was able to fix my problems before the test.

Hey Bronx RN, do u also take online kaplan that cost $400? but thanks for ur idea of helping other people in need, the lord will grant all ur heart desires, i just graduated last month...and preparing to take nclex rn.
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You are so funny, but thanks alot..

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If you're having problems with priority questions then get Priority, Delegation, and Assignment by Linda LaCharity. For infection control guidelines go to CDC.gov and read up on the different kinds of pre-cautions and know what kind are needed for the more common disease like MMR, RSV, DTP, TB etc. I used Saunders religiously in school and it helped me ace my exams but I didn't find it so useful for NCLEX because I already knew my content. If you already know the content then you need t to work on getting comfortable with answering priority questions. Do the entire Linda LaCharity book (cost btwn $25-$30) and read the rationales. Know Maslow's like the back of your hand and always think ABC when answering priority questions and you cannot go wrong. Also know the side effects of the most common drugs and if you have no clue about what the drug is for then try to break the word down and take a guess. I was able to answer a question about Lamictal correctly because although I had never heard of the drug I know that ictal refers to seizures so I was able to answer that. Had another question about side effects. I had to match the side effect to one of four different drugs. Now I didn't know for sure that the side effect belonged to any of the drug choices but since I knew what body system the drugs effected I was able to by process of elimination choose the correct answer.

That pretty much sums up my NCLEX experience. It can be a crap shoot but if you can prioritize and know your infection control (which is nothing more than recall) along with some drugs you can beat this test. The biggest part is the prioritization because that is the role of the RN...it's the biggest piece of the puzzle so if you can master that then you have a really good chance of passing.

Good luck!

Thank you for recommending the book to me, I have placed my order for the book. It should arrive in a few days. I will focus on going online and reading about infection control. I really need to getting priortization correctly, ABCs always come first, but sometimes those are not my choices. So hopefully this book will help me. I am also thinking of purchasing the five week questions from NCBN.

Thank you for the excellent adivce you have offered. I will pass my exam this second time. I will work very hard to do so.

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The key is in your posting. Priority and infection control are the majority of the questions you had. That is because the program will keep throwing questions at you which it identifies you have problems with. So, if you study prioritization and infection control you may have a better chance of passing next time.

hmm never thought of it that way, but that sounds very right. I will make sure to study the subjects i was weak in.

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I guess I cannot say that my technique worked as I'm also waiting for results. I agree with Nurse4life4ever. I was glad I did the Kaplan Qbank. It was like doing the Qbank while doing the NCLX exam. Only thing was that I was just progressing 30 questions per hour. I treated every questions like it was the last questions (just not sure this was the way to go) I prepared for the long haul but was cut short midpoint with a priori question. Tommorow is my 48th hour.

First of all, i must say , Congratulations on passing the nclex! You should be VERY proud of yourself, that test is extremly hard. Secondly, thank you for sharing the information with me for about how you believe you passed. This is very helfpul. You gave a long a thorough reply about exactly what you did, and that was very nice of you to take your time and write all that for me. Thank you for your advice. I will follow it. I want to know, your friend, that failed with 75 the first time, and then passed with 75, that is excellent! (I honestly that I could never do that) i mean i failed so horribly, with only the minimum questions, its hard to pass with the number after failing with the minumim questions. That is very good. Do you know what he did? , or what was it that he did differently? Im thinking about investing into Kaplan, im going to have to talk to my husband about it. I really need to pass this exam. It feels awful to fail. Please keep me in your prayers. I really feel awful.
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