Kaplan-NCSBN-Saunders: Perfect Combo for Review

[HGTA10808]

Took my Board this morning. Got lots of SATAs, Drag & Drops, & tons of Pharma & Prioritization Questions (Who do I see 1st ??). Computer shut off @ 115 in almost 2 hours of testing. Believe me, it was hard that I felt like all my gray & white matter, CSF, my cerebrum (name it...) were just to explode! It was an "excruciating" (for want of a better term...) experience, yes, but part of me was saying, "I did good"! As of this writing, got the PVT adorable pop-up. (Very premature to jump up with joy but @ least a good sign!)

I had to share with you the good "combo" which I believed help me a lot. From the day I got my ATT end of May, I started to search for review preps that I can use. Went to libraries, compare books & companion CDs, etc. I work full time, NOC shift so I really had to be organized & efficient with my review. I was alternating KAPLAN (Strategies, Practice & Review) with that of Saunder's companion CD to 4th edition book (Note: The most recent edition does not come anymore with Companion CD but rather an access to online review). Kaplan's "decision tree" were perfect , very structured way to approach almost all NCLEX items, no matter how hard it could be. Saunders is great @ content & concept building (Rationales and Strategies were well-written, easy to understand, "no sweat"). Three weeks before my test, I purchased the 3-week module from NCSBN learning extention site. Put together by the test-makers themselves, it did provide me a real look on how NCLEX questions are. This is very crucial because one can be thrown off by the way a question was written. It has good packaging of content, the way they were specified in the NCLEX Test Plan (Funny but I found out that a lot of nursing students were not aware that such a Test Plan exists where specific topics covered in NCLEX are laid out--- Health Promotion, Coordinated Care, Pharmacological, etc. Visit the NCSBN Website for this, I encourage you!). Also, the NCSBN online review provides you with the real info per NCLEX standard (i.e lab values, interventions, updates based on recent studies, etc.), not the confusing & inconsistent inputs from other sources.

I went to the test site ready to hurdle 205 Qs for 5 hours. I went there with the Forrest Gummp's liner, "...its like a box of chocolates.You ain't gonna know what you gonna pick".

Bring all your richness...

do your best ...

& leave the rest to the Boss upstairs!

Hope this helps...

HGTA (And sings my soul, my savior God to thee... How Great Thou Art!)