I felt that the NCLEX is not as bad as I thought! Kaplan HARDER

2bNurse4life4ever · Jul 18, 2009

I have been reading here for sometime...I just took my NCLEX on Monday, I passed with 75 questions. HOnestly, I did not think it was that bad. I think it is more of a mental thing more then anything. It asked basic nursing skills IMO. I was a B-C student in nursing school. I took Kaplan, and I can tell you Kaplan is way harder then NCLEX. I got 6 SATA, 1 Med cal and several pharm....most I never heard of. I used q bank and got mid to higher 50's....... and I also used Saunders...I only did 100 questions a day for a solid 2 weeks..... Good luck to all those who are taking the exam!!

CONGRATULATIONS !!! Im very happy for you!!! HOw many questions did you do from saunders? And how many questions did you do from Kaplan? .. Im using kaplan this time, the first time, i only used saunders and failed... and this time i have not used saunders at all, im mainly using kaplan, is this enough, or should i still continue to use saunders?

Finallyrninva · Jul 18, 2009

I only did the comprenhensive exams in the back, but I went through and read things I did not understand. I did all of the Q bank and question trainers.....and I think thats what helped, because Kaplan was harder. I felt Saunders was a little easier then the NCLEX, but great for content review..KWIM....If you can focus on Kaplan, and do all q trainers and q bank, since they are harder, you will be good to go! :up:

2bNurse4life4ever · Jul 18, 2009

I only did the comprenhensive exams in the back, but I went through and read things I did not understand. I did all of the Q bank and question trainers.....and I think thats what helped, because Kaplan was harder. I felt Saunders was a little easier then the NCLEX, but great for content review..KWIM....If you can focus on Kaplan, and do all q trainers and q bank, since they are harder, you will be good to go!

If you got stuck on a question on the Nclex, did you apply the decision tree/kaplan strategy for the question? Did the decision tree help in answering questions? ...

Finallyrninva · Jul 18, 2009

The tree did not help with all questions. I did use it when I was stuck, and could not get to the right answer if I was able to use it. I think the only reason why Kaplan helped is because the level of questions were so difficult, I would go back to my med surg books and read the areas I was not getting correct on the exams.....I was freaking myself out. I think that is the whole point of Kaplan..lol Because it is a higher level of questions, you go to take your exam thinking the questions are that hard..I hope that made sense..lol

2bNurse4life4ever · Jul 18, 2009

Yes that makes sense :)...

HOw about in terms of content.. did you get questions where the diseases were very unfamiliar.. or where the the familiar ones such as cushings, addisons, diabetes, ect... did you find the questions easier than you thought?... My first time taking the test, i made a lot of mistakes, i hurried through my tutorial, therefore; i didnt focus on how many places the comp. wanted me to round, so i know i got the math questions wrong, not because i didnt know math, but because i didnt round properly... and whenever i had pain as an option, i would choose it, because thats what i learned in nursing school, but now that im doing kaplan, i learned that pain is physchosocial, and therefore it should be eliminated.. and if i didnt have pain as an option, i would choose things such as "remain with patient" , decrease stimuli, and these things are also physhosocial, now im learning that i have really apply MASLOW.. and not pick my distractors...

Finallyrninva · Jul 18, 2009

If you got stuck on a question on the Nclex, did you apply the decision tree/kaplan strategy for the question? Did the decision tree help in answering questions? ...

If I got stuck, I tried to use the tree if it applied......if it applied, I used it. If I was not sure of a question, and if I felt the tree did not apply, I took the best guess....There were some questions that I was unsure of and after using the tree I was still not sure, thats when i just guessed. But honestly, most of the questions I did not use the tree. I felt like I may run out of time using the tree for every question...As for the med questions.....if I did not know it I guessed....If you are fdoing Kaplan you will do fine!

yesdog, BSN, RN · Jul 18, 2009

Yes that makes sense :)...
HOw about in terms of content.. did you get questions where the diseases were very unfamiliar.. or where the the familiar ones such as cushings, addisons, diabetes, ect... did you find the questions easier than you thought?... My first time taking the test, i made a lot of mistakes, i hurried through my tutorial, therefore; i didnt focus on how many places the comp. wanted me to round, so i know i got the math questions wrong, not because i didnt know math, but because i didnt round properly... and whenever i had pain as an option, i would choose it, because thats what i learned in nursing school, but now that im doing kaplan, i learned that pain is physchosocial, and therefore it should be eliminated.. and if i didnt have pain as an option, i would choose things such as "remain with patient" , decrease stimuli, and these things are also physhosocial, now im learning that i have really apply MASLOW.. and not pick my distractors...

Always use ABC's and Maslow's to pick answers.

HeartsOpenWide, RN · Jul 18, 2009

I did HURST and Saunders and I thought the NCLEX was not that bad either. I thought it was going to be much harder. I passed with 75 questions too. I felt fine after the test but then started to worry that maybe I failed BECAUSE I did not think it was hard.

Finallyrninva · Jul 18, 2009

I did HURST and Saunders and I thought the NCLEX was not that bad either. I thought it was going to be much harder. I passed with 75 questions too. I felt fine after the test but then started to worry that maybe I failed BECAUSE I did not think it was hard.

Thats how I felt! And like I said, I was not a A student. Going through the questions, I thought.."this is basic, not that bad" some I got caught up on...and there were meds I never heard of before.

And I always use ABC to answer the questions as well....and if Maslow applies, I used it, I think that was Kaplans main goals

2bNurse4life4ever · Jul 18, 2009

Thats how I felt! And like I said, I was not a A student. Going through the questions, I thought.."this is basic, not that bad" some I got caught up on...and there were meds I never heard of before.
And I always use ABC to answer the questions as well....and if Maslow applies, I used it, I think that was Kaplans main goals

Thank you so much for your tips... I will make sure that i use ABC and Maslow...

but one thing i encounter when i do kaplan questions is that they may have oxygen as a answer which seems to be ABC to me, but the answer is to assess first.. did you make sure you were assesing first, especially if assessment was not in described in the stem of your answer? or did you still apply ABC?

yesdog, BSN, RN · Jul 18, 2009

Yes you need to assess. If you have choices of:

1) assess patency of airway

2) Administer oxygen

You are going to assess the airway first before you administer O2