How Much Time Do You Invest in Studying?

I studied about 2-4 hours everyday while in school. I broke it up, though. An hour here, get out and take a break, then an hour there. An 82% on your first exam is great! Once you get used to the exam style that nursing programs use you will more than likely see your scores go up. A great way to improve your exam scores and to practice questions is to utilize NCLEX books and focus on the section r/t what you are currently learning in class. Just an idea. Good luck.

For nursing I've been studying at least an hour every night, after we got to the respiratory system. My normal way to study was always to save one day a week for a major study fest. That worked in science classes for me. But tonight I just finished the respiratory chapter that I started last week. I take the power point slides, my book, internet, colored pens and highlighters, notebook, index cards and I fill up my notebook with info and pictures! Sometimes I don't use the highlighters. Then when I have a test and reread my notebook (I don't need to open my book or pp's or anything else now!) I use the high lighter as I review for the test.

I agree that an 82 on the first exam is great!

Btw I read each page in nursing books now. I know people say you can't read every word in nursing school, but on the last test I skipped the mental status assessment pages and got the question on the test wrong about it so I don't read every word but I make sure I look at every page.

Class days: 4 to 6 hours outside of class. Non clinical days: 8 to 10 hours. All time broken down into 20 minutes of study, 5 minutes of review time, 5 minutes doing something physical before rinse and repeat. On full study days, typically 30 to 60 minutes for lunch and the same for dinner.

About 7 hrs a week, an hr per day, just to review everything :)