How long did you study before taking NCLEX?

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Hi everyone,

I just graduated and am trying to come up with a study plan for the NCLEX-RN. I have a bunch of NCLEX review books and am taking a 1-week review class. I noticed the review books vary greatly on how long to study before taking the NCLEX. One book says to study 2 hours a day for two weeks, and one suggests three months of studying. All I know is that I do not feel anywhere near ready right now. What type of study plan did you have? How long did you study before taking the NCLEX?

Specializes in L&D.

I took Hurst review while in my last quarter of nursing school, plus I did ATI throughout nursing school. I take NCLEX on June 4 and will have studied for about a week. I'm honestly not worried. Maybe I should be, but I feel fairly prepared.

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\ said:
I studied for 14 days. I used the NCSBN review and thought it was great. Indeed, you can't study for the exam, but I do think doing the questions helped me because I found the NCLEX questions to be worded very similarly to the NCSBN questions. I finished 75 questions in 50 minutes. Took the test yesterday afternoon. Found out I passed this morning.

Congratulations! Glad to hear the NCSBN review is helpful; I think I'll sign up for that. How many weeks did you purchase and use it?

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I think a major point of nursing school is to teach you how to think critically. How are the questions so different from what you encountered during nursing school? All of my tests during nursing school were written in NCLEX style. I would imagine all nursing school exams are written in that style regardless of where you went.

Our questions were supposedly written in NCLEX style, but I feel like they were based more on memorization of content and not so much on thinking critically. The Kaplan questions feel very different. I am used to looking for the correct answer and not using elimination to determine the correct answer. However, I did extremely well once I got the hang of Kaplan style this week and was told by the instructor my Readiness exam shows I have a 95% chance of passing my NCLEX on the first attempt.

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I studied for a good two weeks and passed my first time.

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