How much time did you give yourself to study?

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Hi everyone!

I graduated from an ADN program in May of this year and took the Kaplan class at the end of May. Since then, I have completely blown off studying due to the huge delay in getting ATT numbers here.

Some classmates called the BON and we will have our ATT's this week and now the reality is setting in. I have wasted over a month just taking a break from the last 2 years of school and I am starting to get anxious about doing so!

My question is, how long did you give yourselves to study (really, really buckle down and study) and how many hours a day, before taking the NCLEX?

Any advice and tips would be greatly appreciated! :)

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I graduated from a ADN program in May. We also used Kaplan and I must say it is a fantastic resource. Honestly, I studied on and off. 2 hours then a break, 2 more hours then another break. I did this everyday. The last few days before NCLEX I studied for maybe 5 hrs each day and I completed all the Q bank questions and all the trainers. I passed with 75qs, and it was not too bad at all. Now, this may not work for everyone. I am strong on content, so it was really only strategies I focused on. If you know you are weak on content, you may want to spend more time studying material.

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Everyone is different so it's hard to say. My anxiety gets bad so I have really know content well to be able recall it through my anxiety. I have to spend more time studying to kind of calm myself down as well, if that makes any sense.

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Like you, reality didn't set in until I got my ATT and I too slacked in the studying department until then. So when I finally got it, I scheduled my exam for 10 days later. I did not study an ounce until 8 days before my exam. (I did however do practice questions here and there since graduating in May... so that's something I guess but it wasn't truly hardcore studying). No review course, only the Kaplan Strategies, Practice, and Review book, googled Kaplan Q trainers 6 and 7, and ATI online practice questions (the program my school used). I also read over the 35 page study guide that is floating around on allnurses and found it helpful!

Anyways I studied my butt off for one week straight and freaked out the entire time. And with study habits like that, I passed in 75 questions. So for me, one good, hard week of studying and it did the trick!

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Thank you everyone :) I'm giving myself a solid 4 weeks to study. Hoping it's enough!

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That person that studied a week before is my hero. I'm giving myself 3 weeks minimum to study.

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Agreed! I feel nervous about 3-4 weeks but I feel if I give myself more time, I will just end up slacking and finding excuses not to study. Now I just need to get into the mode where I don't find a million other things to do around the house while I study. ?

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