Kaplan Scores Compared to NCLEX RN 2017

Published Jul 1, 2017

2 Posts

Like many of you I spent many days frantically searching allnurses for the most recent Kaplan scores to compare mine to in order to give myself an idea of where I was at. I told myself that after everything was said and done I would post my scores to help out anyone that I could.

I graduated from my nursing school the beginning of May. I allowed myself to hold off on studying for two weeks afterwards. I told myself I deserved this break and that in a couple weeks I would be ready to get back to things. To give myself peace of mind I decided to take a Kaplan course, so I attended the live review days the third week of May. (I took my NCLEX exactly one month later, so total study time was about 4 weeks including the live review) Taking Kaplan was one of the best decisions I could have made. It gave me a structured study plan to follow as well as challenging analytical questions. Since this program is not cheap I wanted to get my moneys worth, so I completed all 7 question trainers, all practice test, and the entire question bank. I only watched the videos on content that I was not familiar with. My score are posted below:

Diagnostic: 71

QT1: 63

QT2: 63

QT3: 43

Practice: 73

QT4: 59

QT5: 63

QT6: 57

QT7: 62

Readiness: 74

I did about 150-200 practice questions per day. On weekends or days I was more busy I would be sure to at least take one 75 question test. Kaplan instructors stress the importance of remediating all questions you got right and the ones you got wrong. If you are like I was and worried about how to do this thoroughly, do not worry. After each exam I went through every question and kept a notebook to write down any content/rationale that I did not know. At the end of each day I would review all my notes (from that exam and previous exams) to be sure that I understood the content.

One thing I did notice was that my scores were significantly higher in the afternoon than they were in the morning. I'm not sure why maybe I was not fully awake yet, but because of this I scheduled my NCLEX for the afternoon- 2pm. I finished my last question bank test two days before my NCLEX and spent the next day completely relaxing. Even though this is hard to do and may make you anxious, it is important to give your brain a rest. I passed my NCLEX in 76 questions and my license was posted to the MN State Board of Nursing the next day by 10 am.

Do not stress about your scores. I know this is easier said than done, but be confident! You made it through nursing school, and if you went the extra mile to take a Kaplan prep course you are going to be ready! If you are not hitting the 60%-65% mark, change things up! Try taking your test at a different time in the day, take more breaks, think if I could only do one thing for this patient what would I do. Kaplan does a great job at providing very detailed and tough questions. Remember that these are meant to challenge you so come NCLEX time you are able to breeze through the basic content needed for a new nurse. You got this! Good Luck future RN's :)