My Kaplan Journey Nclex-PN

[dafishman]

Hi all,

I am making this thread to discuss my Kaplan journey. Brief history, I took my Nclex-PN and failed a week ago and after getting a lot of feedback, I decided to give Kaplan a whirl.

I am doing the classroom anywhere. It cost me 108/month, billable in 3 monthly payments.

I get 14 hours of live online teaching with a live teacher which starts 9/15-9/18.

I also get access to the Q-bank, tests, content, etc for 90 days.

If you have any questions, ask away! I will update as much as I can about how it's going!

[dafishman]

I think it's personal preference. More visual learners seem to prefer simplenursing. Price point is similar from what I understand. He has some free you tube videos to try before you buy to see if the style meets your needs.

I pay 39.95/month, cancel anytime. Hurst was 250 upfront....I had to have credit card company chargeback hurst because they never responded to anything from me....See my other thread about it....

[dafishman]

I would watch his videos and I notice that there were mistakes on what he was saying; from that point forward I decided not to watch his videos. I like what he is doing but he needs to be more professional about it, specially if he is charging money!

I used this videos for my nclex and they were helpful and accurate!

I love this videos!

https://www.youtube.com/user/MEDCRAMvideos/videos

They have their videos as a review...got to love them.

MauiMaryRN - YouTube

I like how she explain the material and how she teaches you how to approach questions.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwozjkRz1ddYmozmjynxLPQ/videos

If you are having trouble with med calculations, this link is helpful and Rona is very funny!

I hope they help!

Yup, I have watched some vids and then the next vid hes like, in my last video I made a mistake! I agree, should be a little more organized and make new videos for sure! But so far, so good!

[dafishman]

I will check out them vids, look interesting!

[dafishman]

Update:

Watched Kaplan vids and they went hand in hand with their book but seemed to only hit the high points (or im hoping).

For example: TB. In the book they have like 10 S/S's. In the vids and their powerpoint, they listed like 6. I assume the top 6. Same thing with Varicella, Rubella, Mono, they hit the key points and moved on. In the book when your following, you can see much, much more info. Same thing for AIDS. They touched a little bit in the video and in the book their was 3 pages, same with Hepatitis.

Going to keep doing these vids and highlight in my book and make notecards and things I dont understand I am going to use simple nursing to further explain them since the videos really just tell you what it is and doesnt give a lot of examples to go with it.

Will keep you updated! Going to try a few more tests tonight and see if anything stuck or if i regressed or improved or still at my 50%. Thats my overall % after 18% of all the ?'s, 50% correct.....Kaplan says you need 60-65%. So, im subpar still.....Got a lot of questions to go though and I think I need to get this content done and quit doing things backwards and wondering why I score low....

I keep trying to put the cart before the horse!!

[dafishman]

Quick update.

Took about 6 tests, 25 questions each. Lowest was a 52, highest was a 72, few were 60's, so I am improving!

Kaplan videos follow along with their book. They tell you the high points and areas to know.

I watch the vids and highlight the book. Then I make notecards from my highlighted text.

One thing that I dont like it the biggest part of the test is coordination of care and safety and infection control, but the book BARELY touches the coordination of care at least according to the test question in the Q-bank. My scores are the lowest in that area. Like 46-50%, same with the safety one. I went through the book ten times, there is no more information I can get from it.

So, once I am all done with the questions and the book, I may look at another book and see what their coordination of care and safety and infection control looks like and see if that would have given me more info in regards to the questions I got wrong...

Kaplan will spend 2 hours on the 2 I talked about and 6 hours on a section that is worth 6-12%, just dont make much sense to me.....

BUT, I do LOVE it a lot compared to Hurst, hands down 100000% better.

Simple Nursing I now only go to if I need to know the entire patho from top to bottom, so far, I think its working as my scores have increased. I have did about 34% of the Q-bank questions and my overall score is a 54%. Kaplan says you need 60-65%. So, I can hopefully keep bumping them up.

I will try this weekend to add some pics of how the Q-bank breaks down everything in the categories and show some people in case they were wondering how it worked.....

[VanessaK83]

I love kaplan! I was scoring 60 to 70s% and was successful in passing my boards. I started off scoring around 50% and went and did the whole q bank twice and their questions really stuck in my mind throughout my exam. There lesson videos are awesome too!

[dafishman]

11/11/14 update:

Well, I finished all the vids except the pharm ones. I am going to do them on my own. When I took the Nclex I had 3 questions on Pharm. Not going to get too crazy with all the pharm stuff.

Anyways, 3/4 done with the book and making notecards, will be done with them in 1-2 days and then its just studying them daily and finishing my q-bank...

So far on the Qbank, I am at a 55% overall, I have taken 450 questions, so 45% of the way through them. I am REALLY hoping I can get to the 60%+ mark!!!!!

I really dont want to have to do the Qbank questions again, I want to be able to get their the 1st time!

Scheduled my exam for 12/8 (monday at 8am), wish me lucK!!!!

I will update in the next week, I should be about done with the qbank and see where I am lacking and then its studying the notecards every second I get. The cards are outlines from the videos. They highlight all the key points. I highlighted the book and then am going back and making appropriate cards.....Easier for me then thumbing through the book page by page and studying that way..

I am hoping what Vanessak83 days is true!!! I should be close to the 60%.

Talk to you soon.....

[dafishman]

Quick update:

81% of the way done, this is my 1st time and I am at 59%. I am hoping I can get into the 60's. I am planning on being done sunday at the latest.

I think after that I may have them reset the Qbank and retake the test and hope I score into the 80's, maybe higher......Try to reinforce some of the earlier questions and the ones I had difficulty with....

I do re-mediate after every test and put the content on note cards, seems to be helping.....

Will update soon!

[dafishman]

Update: Sunday night, Im at 94% through Qbank and my scores are at 63%. I plan on finishing tomorrow and hopefully I will at least stay where I am or maybe even increase a little more...

Test is 2 weeks from tomorrow. Update tomorrow. Night all...

[dafishman]

Update:

Just finished Q-bank. Ended up at 64% cumulative.

I am hoping I know enough now to pass the boards 2 weeks from today. If I retake the Q-bank I will update my new results, I would assume I would be in the 80's or better......

Any questions, ask away....

[dafishman]

Just took the exam. Shut off again at 85. I think I failed, I really do. had about 20-25 SATA (3-4 in a row once), 3 exhibit ones. 1 math. few UAP questions, couple 1st, priority, would you see 1st.

I hit next on 85 and went off....Man, I don't feel good at all. I will know in 2 days........I wish the PVT trick stick worked. Stomach is in knots....

[Leonelle]

Hey, check your local BON to see if your name is up there! You never know! Mine shut off at 85 as well and i got a crap load of SATA.