Failed the NLCEX, how to prepare for 2nd attempt?

Silverdragon102, BSN · Jul 19, 2015

Hello and welcome to the site

Moved to the NCLE forum where there are many threads discussing the NCLEX

strawberryluv, BSN, RN · Jul 19, 2015

I'm sorry you failed. Make sure you get your money back from Kaplan. Kaplan in general is not very good for people who are weak in content from what I heard. I didn't take Kaplan. I took the Hurst Review and they are very good in teaching you the core content! Take the 90 day online access from them, watch every online video lecture and follow along with the worksheets they provide. Study the worksheets until you can recite every piece of their worksheet without a doubt or hesitation. And I mean until you MEMORIZE it and you will be good. Take all their qreviews.

Give yourself the full six weeks to study on Hurst. I passed with Hurst Review. Good luck.

JROSE89 · Jul 20, 2015

hey hang in there, you're not alone. I used saunders for content, kaplan and ncsbn for practicing questions and PDA by La Charity which i believe is a MUST HAVE book for nclex. good luck!

JaaaeyRN · Jul 20, 2015

First I would assess my own learning skills. Many students failed to recognize their own abilitu to learn. Then i strongly recommend do that before you decide to purchase or pay for those paid resources.

So, you might want to ask yourself if you can study alone or you need a friend (s) to study with?

Are you a visual/audio or kinetics learner? Because every resources approach learners different way. NCBSN - no audio, but their reading materials were good and over 1000 q bank.

Or if you like to listen or watch from video. Maybe hurst or youtube...

Well, good luck next time.

NurseIndependa · Jul 20, 2015

I agree with PP about the Prioritization, Delegation & Assessment by LaCharity.

myriahalexis · Jul 20, 2015

I'm preparing for my second test and I found that the NCSBN questions are great to practice with because they mirror the questions I saw the first time and they are pretty reasonable with pricing compared to others.

krws0027 · Jul 21, 2015

I began doing practice questions to see which areas I was weak in and actually went back and read through my textbooks on those subjects until I felt confident. Once I did that, I completed a review book, and surprisingly came across many things I had not learned in school. I focused on those areas that I was weak in, again. Once I completed the review book I watched the Hurst lectures online. These were very helpful in making things simplified and easy to understand. Definitely a great resource if you need content refreshers. Once I finished all of that I worked on practice questions. I literally completed more than 10,000 questions. I used anything from Kaplan, to Lippincott 10,000, UWorld, and NCLEX Mastery app. I would read the rationales and it reinforced all the information, whether I knew it, or it was new to me. It also helped me with how to answer the questions. That was probably the most helpful, because I am from Canada and they just started the NCLEX this year, and our previous style of exam was very different.

As difficult as it is, try your best to relax when you are prepping for, and writing the exam. A little bit of anxiety can be beneficial, but I have personally experienced the negatives of high anxiety levels when testing. Good luck, it is possible!!!

klv5088 · Jul 21, 2015

I recommend Virtual ATI. I know many people have bashed it on here, but I strongly believe there is no way I would have passed without it! My school also utilized ATI, and I did terrible on the predictor. (Only a 72% chance of passing the NCLEX on first attempt). I knew for a fact I needed to spend the summer preparing well. I did virtual ATI and cannot say enough good things about it. For six weeks, this program completely changed the way I approached NCLEX style questions. This program got me from a 72% chance of passing NCLEX to a 99% chance of passing. I passed the NCLEX in 85 questions last week! Goodluck and stay positive:)