FEN Failed NCLEX-RN First Take

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FAIL was the word I first saw once I opened my eyes after hitting that submit button for the payment. I stared blankly at my screen for about a good 2 minutes. Then I signed out realizing I'm not one of the 30% FENs who passes at first take. Sad? Yes. Crushed? Yes. But mostly, I'm ready for another take. First attempt I did not get to prove I am competent. I know I got what it takes and I am not giving up because I failed once.

I have reflected over this for the past 48 hours. Right when I walked out of the testing center I just knew I failed. I had 89 questions, most of the questions I haven't even heard about. I felt like nothing I studied for were in the test. I did not get any OB, PSYCH AND PEDIATRICS at all. I got a lot of PHARMACOLOGY and PDAs. No LABS, ABGs but a few EKGs.

Set this aside, I'm excited to re-take NCLEX. What I used before may have not worked for me so I am willing to try another way to study. Materials I used were, Mary Ann Hogan Comprehensive Review, PDA by La Charity and Michael Linares NCLEX75.com course. I will now get my refund for not passing from the nclex75.com course and I am looking at KAPLAN OR HURST REVIEW. I don't know much about those and I'm still trying to do my research. Suggestions will be helpful. :) Please let me know what worked for you, at this point I am back to zero. I am open for anything.

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Kaplan! It's worth it. Follow their test schedule. Keep your head up. Take a break and try again!

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Hi chelsh! I am on a break. I'm actually in Houston right now trying the release all the stress. Will be heading back to California next week to study again! How long is the access for Kaplan? How much is it if you do not mind?

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No OB, PSYCH AND PEDIATRICS? Fuuuuudge. Those are the one's I'm good at, and I take it in a month.

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No OB, PSYCH AND PEDIATRICS? Fuuuuudge. Those are the one's I'm good at, and I take it in a month.

Oh yeah... Those were the ones I felt confident in also. But hey don't worry too much every exam is unique. Maybe we should focus on our weak areas and scan through those we know we do pretty well on.

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Hi,

I would definitely recommend Prioritization, Delegation, and Assignment: Practice Exercises for the NCLEX Examination, 2e by Linda LaCharity because I feel as though the questions in this book really mirrored the formatting of the real NCLEX. It served as a great guide and feel into feeling more confident about the exam. It is broken up into chapters with topics such as oncology, hematology etc. What my suggestion is to get a great content review book such as Saunders, read up on a certain subject and then do the questions that correspond to the topic you have reviewed for the day. For example, in Saunders if I read about Oncology, I would then correspondingly do the La Charity oncology chapter for the day.

I also used Lippincott's NCLEX-RN Alternate-Format Questions 5e (Point (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins)) to help me with select all the apply questions. Although I would get a lot wrong, it still helped me really get into the feel for answering select all the apply questions and gave me a little perspective on how to answer. I truly felt like it helped me the day of the real exam.

I used HURST for content review, but if that is something you are not able to spend money on right now, I think Saunder's is a great option for content review and much cheaper to buy from Amazon or borrow from the library.

I used Kaplan for their question bank and online review class. I felt as though the online review class did not really help me much as their strategies can be found online for free. However, I think the qbank and the trainers really mimicked the difficulty level of the real nclex.

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kawaiibows Hey I'm also an FEN, I will be testing in nov, it will be my first time taking the test. I bought the hurst review and I think it is great for content, they are good for explaining things in a way you don't have to memorize. I also bought the kaplan on demand one wk ago and I am also really liking it because it has lessons in which they teach you how to attack each question, plus it comes with a question bank, diagnostic test, question trainers, and also content videos (which I'm not using because instead I listen to the hurst videos over and over they are very entertaining). You can look for a video on youtube that is called "hurst review introduction" so you can see how they teach, before you decide if you want to buy it (that's what I did) but I don't regret spending the money on that review, before hurst I had read the saunders book 5th edition, it covers everything, but it took me forever to read it all and it is not the same as sitting down to watch somebody teach. Anyway look into it and see what is best for you;)
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