first of all, i want to start out by thanking god, the almighty. without him, i would not have been able to pass this exam. my journey through nursing has been very tough. i have two young children under the age four and a very supportive husband who was there for me till the end. he has a minimum wage job and has been trying to pay the pills and bring food to the table ever since i started my studies. i grauated in may of 2009 , and had scheduled my first exam for june 22 2009. the only thing i used for my first exam was saunders. as most people that i knew told me that saunders would be enough and that they had passed by using saunders alone, i thought, okay, i should save my money and just use the review book that i already have. i would do 100-200 questions a day and was scoring anywhere between 70-80s in saunders, and i thought i was prepared.
day of exam #1
i arrived an hour early at the testing center. my test was suppose to start at 1pm, but i started at 12:15pm. i had so many priotization and sata questions, and i thought i was passing! i had 3 math questions, but get this no delegation?! so anyhow, as i had heard, satas and priortiy questions means you are passing, i thought, wow, i must be doing great. the nclex is made in a way that you are never 100% confident about your answer, you just need to make an educated guess and move on. the answers are very vague and they are designed this way on purpose. but here were my mistakes, for priortiy questions, as nursing school had taught me, i would always pick the patient in pain. this is wrong! regardless of looking or thinking about the other patients, i thought pain comes first, so its pain! another mistake was i would pick answers such as reassuring the client ect, which are phycosocial needs, becauase i thought, i should do this first, then anything more important. fast forward, i ended at 76 questions, i come home, and do the pearsonvue trick! i was braught all the way to the credit card page! i thought thats it?! i failed?!!! my heart sank! i told my husband about the trick and how i was braught to the cc page. he also froze momentarily, and was deeply hurt. the questions were much harder than the saunders book i was using. the saunders book has patterns sometimes you can see two similiar choices and knock them out, well the nclex makers are smart, they try to avoid similiar choices, each of nclex choice's for answers are totally different and very vague!! i didnt find saunders helpful for me at all. im glad it works for others, but i believe that they are naturally good at critical thinking. but for me, i needed something more challenging. the next day, i had to go to work. with this bad economy, i was lucky enough to find a job, and the first thing the director of nursing asked me was how i did on the exam? i told her honestly about how there was a possibility that i failed and why i thought that. she refused to believe in the trick and waited until my quick results came out. and ofcourse two days later, i had really failed! although, she wanted me to continue working, i decided no, my goal is to become a registered nurse, and i wont let anyting distract me! the first time i think i was also pressured by work, they wanted me to have my license, and i picked the earliest date available so i could satisfy my director of nursing and get my license asap.
preparation for exam #2
i took a week off to cry and vent. i needed a break between studies and had to get myself together. i knew if i tried to study right away, i would get distracted and keep thinking that i failed. i cried every day for a week and had sleepless nights. the second week i really got serious and had to start studying. this time i did not want to use saunders for questions. so what i did was enrolled myself for the kaplan complete with in class review and qbank and qtrainers and also enrolled in the 3 week course with ncsbn (learningext.com) questions. i heard that these two combined for studying for the nclex, and you are golden! i also purhcased the kaplan 2010 strategies book and did all the questions in that book. i didnt have time to get to the cd questions. and last, but not least, i also purchased linda la charity's book priotization and delegation assignment. so with all these sources combined, i was hoping that i would be just fine! i read the kaplan strategy book cover to cover and also watched the "decision tree" video kaplan offered online before the class started. kaplan class started on july 12th for me , and the last day of class was august 2nd. the class met every sunday for four weeks, so there was a total of 4 in class sessions. most people dont find the class useful, but i found it very useful. the keplan strategies are stressed and the diagnostic and readiness tests are very useful!! okay so for my scores
i scored 69% on my diagnostic and 67% on my readiness test, kaplan gave me a 97% probablility of passing the nclex with my score that i got on my readiness test. and here are my scores for qtrainers
qtrainer 1 56%
qtrainer 2 68%
qtrainer 3 47%
qtrainer 4 51%
qtrainer 5 52%
qtrainer 6 60%
qtrainer 7 53%
my overall qbank average was 59% which was ranging anywhere from 46% to 78% and i always choose 50 question tests and would click on all content, because the nclex is made to question you on all content, so i always choose all content. after i completed all of kaplan questions, i quickly reviewed the ones i got wrong, to make sure i understand what the correct answer was. i read all the rationals, even if i got the question wrong. my first time i only read rationals to the ones i got wrong, this time i read all rationals, regardless of getting the question right or wrong. then after finishing with kaplan i on august 3rd i purchased the ncsbn questions which were a total of 1500 questions and i would do about 100-200 questions per day on those. the ncsbn has a qbank which is very helfpul. on my post tests for ncbn i was getting between 80-100 on thier tests! 80% was the lowest i got for that site. i wanted to finish kaplan questions first so i could train myself with the harder questions and then go for something that was easier and see how i do. the ncsbn questions were alot easier than kaplan, but kaplan had prepared me on how to answer them. had i not done kaplan, i think i would have scored much lower on the ncsbn questions. however, the ncsbn questions were alot more challenging than saunders. i think saunders is too easy. and i needed more challenging sources. i made sure to read the review study material that ncsbn has and then i did all the questions and read every single rational! i was a totally different person when it came to answering questions this time. i learned that pain is pyhcosocial for the most part and my test taking strategies. but what helped me the most was how to prioritize , and i give all the credit to kaplan for that!!! i will call the kaplan staff and say thank you to them! because without kaplan i would not have passed!! i also feel that delegation and priotization book is really good, although i didnt have a chance to complete it i did the first 6 chapters and then some chapters in the middle such as resp, and endocrine, and med surgical emergencies chapter. all of this really trained me on how to critically think and prepared me for those passing level questions on the nclex which are all priotization and delegation. the last 4 days before my exam, i opened my saunders, yes i still opened it! but not for questions, i wanted to read the major body systems. i skimmed through endocrine, neuro, resp, gi . i also read the infection control chapter and did all the questions from infection control in the book, which were not too much. then after doing that, i felt as prepared as i could be.
exam #2 day
this time my exam started at 8am, and i was done at 9:15. i read each question carefully and more than twice before i picked the answer. i was surpirsed because i felt the questions were "easy" all that hard work paid off! kaplan questions are much more challenging and i am thiankful they were. because it was easier to answer nclex questions because of that. although i was not able to use the decision tree/ kaplan strategies on any of my quetions. i could not use the strategy assessment vs. implementation because all my questions were implementations, but the only strategy that worked was maslow, abc, and "determine the outcome" . i would suggest do as many priotization questions as possible!!! i cant give you exact test questions, but that would help more if i could, because then i would be able to explain what i mean by read the answer / question carefully. anyhow, this time i got delegation questions, which was different from my first!! my first time i didnt get any delegation questions. and towards the end of the test, the questions started to get very difficult, and i started to cry coming out of the exam, because i thought , did i fail again? the exam is made that way, so your never sure of your answer. but you just have to make an educated guess. i stopped at 75 qestions! my first time i stopped at 76 questions. i came out with my heart pounding and with tears running down my eyes!!! the proctor said "whats wrong, why are you crying" i told him my experience about how i failed the first time with 76 questions and that this time the computer shut me off at 75. i had number phobia with the minimum questions. i wanted more questions!! i told him that this computer never gives me a chance to prove myself. it always ends me at the minimum questions! and he said "dont think so deeply, the number of questions doesnt mean anything. i know you passed!" i thought he was just reassuring me..but when i came home and did the trick, i got the infamous pop up!! so now i'm beginning to think that the proctors know if we have passed or failed!! and today, i paid for my unofficial results and i saw pass!! i printed the page out, and started to cry with happiness!!!! one thing i want to say before i forget is that on my second test, i got totally different subjects!! i didnt get almost any infection control or endocrine. the computer saves your profile and makes sure it doesnt give u the same questions. therefore; i can say that for repeat testers, review everything! because the test will never give u the same questions.
i am a living proof of failing with the minimum and then passing with the minimum!! it is possible! i didnt go in confident, i thought for sure, 100% i was going to fail again, but maybe this time in the 200s because i was doing kaplan so much more challenging questions. i proved myself wrong and suprised my whole family! if i can do it, so can you!!! i hope my story helps others who are struglling. last but not least, i want to thank this site!! i found so much useful information on this site, and everybody was so supportive when i failed my first time! and ofcourse to god, i am very thankful to him!!! 
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