How I went from 43% predicted chance of passing to passing NCLEX on my first try

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I just found out today from quick result that I have passed NCLEX on my first try. The Pearson Vue Trick is very accurate. Every person I talked to who passed received the "good" pop-up. One who failed said she did the PVT and it took her to the credit card page immediately.

I graduated from BSN program in the middle of May and took NCLEX in June. I was a B-average student in the nursing program. My GPA was around 3.25. Prior to graduating, we took an ATI Comprehensive RN Predictor Exam to see where our weaknesses are. I scored a measly 54.7% (passing is 69%), which gave me a 43% chance of passing (pic attached @ the bottom of post). I believe I have one of the lowest scores in my class as most of the peers I talked to has 90%+ chance.

In this post, I will write out all the materials I have used and how I feel they have contributed to my study sessions.

1. KAPLAN

Live review usefulness: 2/5

Q-BANK & Q-TRAINERS usefulness: 4.5/5

I honestly do not believe the live review sessions with Kaplan were not very useful. It's not something you cannot do by yourself. We basically just went over questions from QBank in a classroom using "Kaplan's Decision Tree". If I can redo it differently, I would've just bought the $25 Kaplan Book and QBank without the live-review sessions.

The Q-BANK, on the other hand, is an EXCELLENT study tool. It's formatted very closely to the actual NCLEX which really helped decreasing anxiety when taking NCLEX.

My Kaplan scores:

NCLEX Diagnostic EXAM: 52

QT 1: 56

QT 2: 39 (I did this back to back with QT 1)

QT 3: 50

QT 4: 56

QT 5: 56

QT 6: 62

QT 7: 62

QBANK: 100% done. Average = 53%

I did QT 1 - 3 and a huge majority of QBANK before doing any content review to get a feel at my weak areas. As you can see, my scores were not that high. I personally believe the scores do not really matters that much, as long as you reviewed the rationale of every single questions (both right and wrong) that you have answered.

2. Prioritization, Delegation, and Assignment by LaCharity

Usefulness: 5/5

Unless you are pretty sure you have the prioritization and delegation concepts 100% understood, please do yourself a favor and do a few exercises on this book to get a feel on the prioritization questions on NCLEX. Due to time constraints, I was only able to do the first few chapters of this book, which were enough to get basic concepts. If I can redo it differently, this will be the first book I would have used to review for NCLEX.

3. EXAM CRAM: NCLEX-RN Third Edition

Usefulness: 4/5

I read this book over the course of two days (3 hours each day). It's a great content review if you need a refresher of what you have learned in nursing school. It also has practice exercises at the end of every chapter.

4. Saunders Q & A Review for the NCLEX-RN Examination Fifth Edition

Usefulness: 4/5

This book is all I did 3 days before taking NCLEX. It has 1,000+ questions with great rationales for both right and wrong answers. The pages in this book are divided with the question son the left side and the answers & rationale on the right side. This is very convenient since you don't have to go to the back of each chapter to see what the correct answers are.

Also, I have heard great things from my friend who passed about the "yellow book" Saunders Comprehensive Review. If you are still in nursing school, the comprehensive review book is a must have.

5. NCLEX-4000 Software

Usefulness: 3.5/5

This is a nice little review software I used on my free time and with my study group. Great questions and rationales. I would say I did about 1000+ questions out of 4000 available questions.

If you are using Windows Vista, 7, or 8 on 64-bit and had trouble installing this software like I did, I think I have found a solution:

https://allnurses.com/nclex-discussion-forum/nclex-4000-windows-835263.html#post7360444

6. AllNurses "unofficial" Study Guide & Lab Values from the bottom of this thread:

https://allnurses.com/nclex-discussion-forum/passed-my-nclex-750555.html

Usefulness: 5/5

Reviewing NCLEX was made incredibly easy with this study guide! Excellent mneumonics, tips, and tricks that have saved me countless times on NCLEX. Highly recommended! Also, memorizing these lab values is a must.

p.s.: Does anyone has the .doc version of the .pdf study guide?

7. CD-ROM Question Softwares from Saunders, Lipincott, NCLEX-RN Review made Incredibly Easy books.

Usefulness: Varies

I would say the questions from Saunders are better than Lipincott's and Incredibly's easy in terms of quality and explaining the rationales.

If you have two weeks left until NCLEX and can't decide whether to study content or review questions, I would suggest spending more time on doing questions instead of studying contents. The rationale behind this is you will learn content by doing questions. I spent the entire week before NCLEX doing questions after questions for 6-8 hours a day. I would overall I have done 2500+ question reviews. Focus on the area you are weakest on and start from there.

If you are low on money but would like to get some materials to review NCLEX, I would suggest you to utilize your local library, hospital, or college resources. With exception of Kaplan, I didn't spend any money on any of these review materials.

Forming a study group is also an excellent idea. Five out of six people in my study groups has passed so far (the sixth one hasn't taken it yet). What we did was first going over the study guides and quiz each other. Then we do questions on the CD-ROM questions. To keep things interesting, we kept scores to see who can get most answers right.

That's all I have to say for now. Will add more when I can think of anything else to add. Please pardon any spelling or grammatical errors and please feel free to ask questions. Practice, practice, practice. If I can do it, you can do it too! Thanks for reading.

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Congratulations!!! Thanks for the wonderful tips too. Best wishes with your nursing career.

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Congratulations!

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.

Congrats....great resources for test success given. Welcome to the club!!!!!! :up::up::up::up::up:

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Congratulations! I am taking my NCLEX in a few weeks and will use some of the materials you suggested.

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How much is NCLEX 4000 software?

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How much is NCLEX 4000 software?

I think you can buy it from Amazon around $20-30. I would suggest checking your local library first and see if they have it.

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Im taking nclex on the 23rd of this month. I have kaplan, hurst and Saunders. Im almost done with my qbanks and need more high level questions. Do you think lacharity on kindle worth the$$??

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@jsanchez - lacharity is great!! I highly recommend it. I'm finished with all the questions on the Kaplan site and am now doing questions on the ATI site. My friend just took her exam and ended up letting me use her stuff :)

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How nice of her! When is your test date?? I'm doing questions on the 5th edition saunders cd and i saved my last 3 qt trainers for kaplan . la charity on my kindle won't hurt to have! Thanks for the response :-)

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