MARCH 2014 NCLEX [passed 2nd attempt]

Published Apr 10, 2014

1 Post

I've been wanting to write here for the longest time especially when I didnt pass the NCLEX the first time. Here's my story:

The first time I took the NCLEX was Sept 2013 with 265 q's and failed. I had just finished nursing school in August and thought it would be a good idea to jump right ahead and take the test. This may or not may work for some people and in my case it didn't work for me. I took the Kaplan one week class and did everything and everything on Kaplan and still failed.

I remember walking out of the testing center and having the worst feeling ever.... I knew I failed. To make matters worse, I did the pearsonvue trick and sure enough it went to the credit card page.

So the waiting game for my ATT began.. and long story short it didn't come in until mid January.

For those long 4 months, I was extremely depressed and thought that I just wasn't meant to be a nurse. I felt like such a failure that I couldn't pass with minimum competency. But in reality I didn't truly study enough content. Eventually I turned my CAN'Ts into CAN's and started to think really positive.

Since I got my ATT in January, I scheduled my test for March 26th. I made myself a study plan so that every day I was going over content and knew in my head that I had to accomplish whatever I planned out for the day. I also remembered that the first time I took the NCLEX I had many priority questions and safety questions about precautions. So, everyday I would do standards and write out all of the precautions for contact, airborne, droplet as well as writing out all lab values.

Study plan/books:

-5 week NCSBN and reviewed that until the subscription was over.

-NCLEX 4000: SATA + diagnostic test & would review the section of my lowest scores

-ATI NCLEX Review book

-HURST! (I can honestly say that I wish they taught us like this while I was in nursing school. The main speaker (marlene), is so good at explaining different nursing topics and it was easy to remember while taking the NCLEX.

-lastly.... the day before my exam I did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT RELAX!!! (something that I didn't do the first time).

So the big day was finally here and I arrived 2 hours early at the testing center. Right before I went in, I said a couple of prayers and reviewed once again the lab values and precautions. As I walked into the testing center, I felt confident and just had a positive mentality.

And there I was..sitting in front of the computer with ear plugs in my ear and this time my palms weren't sweaty and my heart wasn't racing.. I was actually CALM.. maybe too calm because it took me almost an hour to get through my first 10 questions since those matter the most hehe. In the back of my mind I was thinking "I got this or this seems too easy". Once I got to questions 75 and the computer didn't shut off I took a deep breathe and told myself it's okay, the computer is giving you a chance to prove yourself and that's exactly what I did. I proved to the computer after a long 265 questions that I AM A COMPETENT NURSE and just DIDNT STUDY THE FIRST TIME. I got the official results 8 days later and when I saw my name on the BRN website.. I was in tears!!!! It's the best feeling ever!! I had to check it again and again to make sure it was real.

Note* to all the retakers..You can do this! You wouldn't have made it this far and have graduated nursing school.Believe in yourself and think about how bad you want this (to be a nurse). Take it one question at a time and remember to breathe while taking the test. I say to truly focus on the topics that you are the most weak in. Prioritizing is #1 and most of all... you want to do the SAFEST thing possible. You never want to do something to harm a patient & you never want to do NOTHING! Whatever you do...DONT GIVE UP!