I PASSED!... On my 2nd try... What I did differently, with Kaplan/NCSBN/UWorld

LVN, RN, BSNT [bB] Okay, so I passed. Wow, I know. But it wasn't until my 2nd time that I did. My first time around, I wasn't the most focused. I tried to squeeze it in before family trips, I was continuously traveling- I just didn't have good quality time dedicated to passing/studying. I did the FULLLLLL test at 200 something questions, and I hated myself for a while. But anyway, I guess that's not important. Let's move on to my second attempt. NCSBN - I studied for 2 months. After I sat depressed for a few months, I recollected myself. No more tears, no more sorrows. I was an LVN on the med/surg/teley department for 4 hours, I knew I had it together! For the 2 months (I took an extraaaaa amount of time because I wanted to make sure this time), I started off with NCSBN. I found that really helpful for reviewing content, which I thought I lacked. I just went through information that I knew I needed to brush up on, and even if you don't know, that's fine. Just go ahead & study all of it, or even do the questions first, and go back and review what you missed. It helped that when I found important information or something new, I opened up word processor and typed it down, organized by sections. KAPLAN - QBANK - Lord, allnurses saved my heart attacks. "WHAT SHOULD I BE SCORING ON MY KAPLAN QBANKS" I found myself googling every other day to read the same stories!!!!!!!!!!! I bought the month-long review. I scored about 52-69% on all of the tests, doing 75 times questions, 1-2 a day if I could. The most important part was READING THE RATIONALES THOROUGHLY. After each test, I would add to my notes on word processor tips and things I learned or felt were important. Kaplan was amazzzing at test taking strategies, and the rationales for even the right questions helped a lot. I felt like i learned the NCLEX test here, which is probably most important to pass. UWorld - So my Kaplan month review ended a week before my test, and UWorld offers a FREE 7-DAY TRIAL! UWorld, compared to Kaplan, was waaaay more indepth about rationales and had muuuch more content review post practice-test. The questions felt harder than Kaplan. I completed the 7 day trail, scoring on average 60-65% on timed-mode with 75 questions each time. Again, TAKE TIME TO READ THE RATIONALES! Test day! I passed at 100-110 questions! Once I passed 75, I was like "oh here we go again". I felt myself become restless as I passed 75, so I took the break at 2 hours offered around 90 questions. I sat in the hallway for a few minutes, by myself. I told myself to breathe, which I did. I told myself "It didn't shut off, so theres still a chance. Lets do this". I went back, got to 100 and turned off the timer and the question numbers, and it turned off a few questions after. I felt good because I was 100% i got the last question right, because I remembered a nemonic and wrote it out, and it matched my study guide that I checked right after! OVERVIEW: i used

[*]NCSBN for content review

[*]Kaplan QBank Only - 52-69%

[*]UWorld - 60-65%

[*]Passed at 100-110 Questions.

[*]Oh, and this AMAZINGGGGGGG MUST READ STUDY GUIDE!!! I found it, and the rationales/nemonic on there are a MUST! In fact, "VEAL, CHOP", the nemonic I learned and used for my last question is from there.