How to pass NCLEX the first time

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This is my little story that I hope can help.

1)After graduation...take a week or two off to come to terms that YOU JUST FINISHED THE HARDEST THING OF YOUR LIFE!!!

2)Don't wait too long to take the NCLEX. I took two weeks off to relax, and then I studied for a month and a week before my exam.

3)During my study month, I did the following:

-Saunders Review-go over material you feel weak in, do the questions and read the rationales at the end of the book. Those questions are easier than the actual NCLEX.

-Lacharity Priority, Delegation book- I did most of the questions in the book and it helped me grasp how to do priority questions because my NCLEX was about 85% about priority! and 10% delegation.

Prioritization, Delegation, and Assignment: Practice Exercises for the NCLEX Examination, 3e: 9780323113434: Medicine & Health Science Books @ Amazon.com

-ATI Mastery app- pretty good questions...close to NCLEX style and difficulty with good rationales.

-UWORLD- DO THIS. if you do nothing at all...just do this. They offer one week for free, just google UWORLD FREE TRIAL. I did this every day the week before my exam. It has awesome rationales with pictures and graphics. ***THE QUESTIONS ARE VERRRRY SIMILAR TO NCLEX.***

-(Kaplan self paced online- i had access to this and my opinion was that this was the worst thing i spent my time on. The lady's voice was very annoying and it took her a very long time to go over each question ....i would have done double the UWORLD questions in that time. DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON KAPLAN...PLEASE...JUST DONT.) The little tricks that Kaplan prides themselves on....ok, you either have knowledge about how the body works and procedures, or you don't...and you either can use common sense and your brain to figure out what is dangerous or you can't. Kaplan will not help you in that and NCLEX is all about A) do you know your stuff B) do you know how to use your brain and think to figure out what to do and the first thing you should do (don't kill the patient).

-(Easy NCLEX book series....there is a free PDF floating on the internet, very funny and cute book, i looked at it sometimes to refresh my memory about some stuff).

-Study guide that is floating around on this website....I reviewed this twice on two days before my exam and i can say that it helped me answer 4 nclex questions.

Hints:

-know your labs (rbc, wbc, platelet, urine, electrolytes, DIGOXIN) the rest you can figure out by eliminating those.

-know everything about digoxin...just please do, you will not escape this on the nclex.

-no pee....NO POTASSIUM ( i just gave you something extremely important). Just learn everything about potassium...it's like another digoxin.

My test consisted of 265 questions. After the 100th, something told me to stop being upset and relax because I will be doing all 265...and indeed, i did 265. I felt like some questions were super easy. But then, I felt like many questions I was unsure about. I left thinking, hey if I didn't pass, it's not the end of the world. When I got home, I wrote down the topics I felt were most difficult for me in case I will need to study them if I have to do a retake. 3 hours later I went on PearsonVeu and used a visa gift card with $1 on it to register for another exam...and it told me i can't because a test is in progress (good pop-up). But I still was not convinced I passed. 24 hours after finishing my exam, I went on my state regulation and license website and found out that I passed (and it was free!).

Good luck fellow nurses! Anything is possible. And if you failed, think about it...45 days later you can retake it. It's not like you failed nursing school. Just get up, dry those tears, open those books, and then walk into the test center thinking....."I got this, I will be an RN today!"

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Congrats and thx for sharing your story it was Definitely motivation for me.

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Congrats and thx for sharing your story it was Definitely motivation for me.

When are you taking it? Don't freak out. It's not the easiest and not the hardest thing in the world. If u have no idea about an answer just guess and pick the worst thing on the list that can make sense with the body part or procedure. That's what I did.

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I test tomorrow 10/16.... I stopped doing questions Tuesday night all I'm going to do is review my lab values..... Thx again esp the lil pointers.

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Just what i needed to hear after taking the Nclex once and failing after using Kaplan. Thanks LadyRNER

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success?

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Saldridge did you pass?

what was your experience like?

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