How I Passed the NCLEX in 75 Questions

McStudMuffin · Sep 24, 2015

Hello all! It's been an extremely long road but I finally did it! I graduated nursing school with a BSN, passed the NCLEX, and secured a job. And boy does it feel good! Ok now down to business. I know that one of the things I struggled with was trying to figure out how to be prepared for the NCLEX. I did a few things that helped me feel confident in passing the NCLEX so I wanted to share. Here is what I did to prepare:

1. HURST Review: I thought this was a great review. Not only did they provide a concise review of material covered on the NCLEX, but they also give you 6 practice exams (125 questions each) that I thought closely resembled the types of questions I encountered on the NCLEX. You have to do it ALL though. Simply going to the 3 day review in class is not enough. There is plenty to do after the actual in person classes are finished.

2. NCLEX-RN 2015-2016 Strategies, Practice & Review with Practice Test: While HURST provided a nice review of content, this book showed how to actually answer NCLEX style questions. It provides a nice review of content on each of the categories encountered on the NCLEX with practice questions at the end of each chapter. It also designates a section of the book telling you how to answer NCLEX style questions and there is also a 265 question practice exam at the end of the book. Minus the practice exam it is only about 270 pages so it's easy to get through. Highly recommend.

3. Saunders Comprehensive Review or the NCLEX-RN Examination: This book is a beast and I honestly did not go through the whole thing. My advice for this giant book is to go through the questions at the end of each chapter and see what content areas you are weak in. It's a good book and very detailed. I just believe it is more something that you review as you go through the content during nursing school, as opposed to trying to cram it all in before the NCLEX exam like I did. Still a good review of content though. The questions are pretty easy, not as NCLEX style like the HURST and Kaplan questions are.

Although I believe largely in having to know the content to correctly answer questions and not just learning strategy, I cannot stress the importance of learning how to answer NCLEX style questions. That is why I found this combination of material to be so helpful. This review material reviewed content AND gave me good exposure to NCLEX style questions. I believe they can help you too! Good luck and good skill!