How does my study plan sound? (for nclex)

Nursing Students NCLEX

Published

I plan on doing the following:

-All the questions in the "Prioritization, Delegation, and Assignment, 3rd Edition" By Linda A. LaCharity

-Questions following each chapter in the "Saunders Comprehensive Review for the NCLEX-RN Examination", 6e book (I'm NOT doing the CD - just book)

-All the questions in the Saunders "Strategies for Test Success" book & CD By Silvestri

-All the flash cards in the "RNtertainment: The NCLEX® Examination Review Game" board game

-NCLEX Mastery Iphone App

* Side Note: I really struggled throughout nursing school. I made average of B's/C's. I took the NCLEX once and did not pass. I used HURST review (focuses on content) when I first took NCLEX. I feel this didn't prepare me enough for the actual NCLEX. I struggle with prioritization and SATA questions particularly. Also I did not work as a Nurse's Aid throughout nursing school and I am begging to wonder if this is negatively impacting my test taking skills (not that there is anything I can do about that now..). Also I am putting off applying for jobs as a RN so I can get this down now (living at parent's home)! Anywho..I have all the time in the world to study. I just want to make sure I study efficiently.

Open to all comments!:)

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To the OP:

Ultimately, it is of course up to you as to what you want your study plan to be. I personally found the HURST review to be, essentially, a waste of time.

The source that I would most recommend is called uworld. It is gaining popularity on this site, do a search for it. There was a thirty day free trial for it and it was extremely useful. The questions were just like kaplan questions if not a tad harder, but what makes uworld stand out are the rationales. They were detailed and most importantly understandable. For example if you had a question on uworld about chest tubes, there would be a diagram of the chest tube with an explanation of what each chamber was for and an explanation for what was normal/abnormal.

What I suggest doing:

- get uworld and do it mostly on tutor mode. If you are a notecard person like I am, I suggest having some sort of online notecard service open and making notecards of the things that you don't know from uworld (sometimes it's not even necessarily a question but something related. For example, if you get a select all that apply about hypoglycemia and signs and symptoms, a notecard would be like "true or false, tachycardia is a sign of hypoglycemia" and on the other side I would have the answer written. These should be made specific to you though and what you are unsure of/don't know. That's the only way it will be helpful. This way you are learning content in the context of questions, which is honestly the best way to do it in my opinion.

- do the prioritization/delegation book...I did not very many of the case studies but it is a very useful resource.

- learn infection control mnemonics. Just learn them. do a search for them on allnurses and good ones come up (spiderman, etc).

- see if the kaplan decision tree method works for you. I found that it did help me when I had absolutely no idea what a question was getting at.

- the nclex mastery app is useful for unofficial studying. I didn't make notecards or anything from this but you don't realize how much time you spend on your phone!

You can do this!!

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Just letting you know I passed NCLEX in 75 questions on Dec 2nd! :) Thank you for your words

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Just letting you know I passed NCLEX in 75 questions on Dec 2nd! :) Thank you for your words

Congratulations!

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