How I passed NCLEX with 75 questions

[EmiliaRN]

Hello!

Here's what I used to help me study for the boards. First of I used the Saunders Comprehensive Review for the NCLEX book. After the semester ended, I took a week away from studying and then jumped back into it. The best advice anyone gave me was to use the Saunders NCLEX book. It's broken down into sections and really give you core info that you need. I'd study two or three sections a day, depending on how well I knew the info. Next I used the HURST videos and review. It is simply the best. The lecturer gets into the core info like I've said is what you need the most. She really breaks down the info where you understand it. I watched her videos all through nursing school, including taking the specialty Hesi's and it definitely helped. I also used the Lippincott 5000. I did find it helpful, with the cardiac section because the rationales for the questions go into details, but I did about 1,000 questions with it, but what I found most helpful was reviewing content info. Last but not least, my school paid for the students to have a Kaplan review. Here's my take on Kaplan and their strategy, for me personally it didn't work, I tried using their decision tree, and I ended up getting questions wrong with it, I just stuck to my gut and that's how I answered my questions. I found the decision tree to be very time consuming. However, Kaplan's question bank was great. Their question style is very similar to what was on the NCLEX. They have 7 different test I believe; I did not do all of them, because some of them were 250 questions. However, you can create your own test, which is what I did.

I think doing questions is great, I strongly believe you have to know your content. So I chose to spend most of my time focusing on the content that I was not strong in. The Saunders book really is great with that, and it goes into meds at the end of each section. Read every rationale including the ones you got correct. You learn so much from it. Test day, I went into the testing center very nervous and quickly realized that if I didn't calm down I would screw up my exam. So I took a few deep breathes, minimized the clock on the screen and pretended I was taking another practice exam. I told myself that I would have more than 75 questions, that way if the questions continued after # 75 I wouldn't freak out and think that I was not doing well. At question 75, my screen turned blue and it was over. Tears immediately started rolling down my eyes; the next two days were not pleasant as I waited my results. I have been a RN for five months now, and I can truly say the struggle was well worth it. Good luck to all of you. Hope my review helps.

[Chrisley]

Thank you for this post!!

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

Moved to NCLEX forum

[jena5111, ASN, RN]

Agree that Hurst is great. I graduate in December and took the live Hurst review in August. It was a fantastic "boot camp" for the final semester of my program, and I'm confident it will comprise the bulk of my actual NCLEX prep, along with the trusty Saunders book. Now that I've viewed the specialty lectures and completed my workbook with Hurst, I have a super-portable NCLEX study guide whenever I want it!

Answering hundreds or even thousands of questions and hopefully remembering rationales may work for some people. But I believe the Hurst folks when they say the #1 reason behind NCLEX failure is lack of core content knowledge. A working understanding of what's happening and why, along with WHY certain nursing interventions are appropriate has helped me reason through plenty of test questions this semester when a number of my classmates have struggled.

Hurst also provides 6 practice tests with 125 questions each. I will start on those once my clinical rotation ends next week (Glory be! So excited). I also plan to take NCLEX ASAP after receiving my ATT--so many acronyms in one sentence, haha.