I have been reading a lot of threads on here to prepare myself for the NCLEX and figured I would share my experience to hopefully inspire others in our shoes!
I finally took the NCLEX yesterday and for me it was a crazy experience with the questions that I got. Without going into details I had my first SATA at question #7 and remember thinking OMG! Half of that test must of been SATA's for me, and the rest was prioritization and even more prioritization's. I had a few med questions, and I think that you really needed to know your meds to answer those questions. The same goes for the few lab questions that I had too. I expected a lot more med questions then I received, but I'm not complaining with the few that I had. There were a few psych questions and very few OB questions. I did have a few questions with answers that just didn't make sense so it was easy to eliminate those. I could tell that I must of been doing well at one point because there were questions with topics that I never even heard of, and it must of took me a few minutes to figure out what they were getting at, sheesh! Then I went back to the SATA's and prioritization loop
I remember reading somewhere on here that if you have a lot of SATA's and prioritization questions, then you are doing well so that helped calm me down a bit while I was taking the test. The computer shut off at 75 questions after 2 hours and the survey screen popped up!! So I was literally in tears at that point and couldn't focus on the silly survey because I had a feeling that I passed and had tears of joy. The personnel there must of thought I was crazy with my smiles and tears! ...I was checking for the PVT as soon as I left the building like a mad women and got the good pop up, so now I am just waiting on the official results on the BRN's website. Hopefully it won't take to long because the suspense is driving me crazy!!
I prepared by studying for two weeks straight on top of the 4 day Kaplan classes. I also used the Saunders and Lippincott's book, but found the Kaplan book and content lectures to be really helpful. Kaplan was very dry for me and was really hard to focus at times, and now that I think about it I didn't use the "decision tree" with a lot of the questions. BUT I took all 7 of their Q trainers and used 60% of their Q Bank which helped me review the content that I was weak in which was a lifesaver in the end for me.
I think that success on the test requires a combination of knowing the content and how to really adapt yourself to the NCLEX style of questions.
Well that is my 2 cents, and nothing is official until my name is posted on the BRN's website but things are looking really good! :)
Hang in there peeps and it will all be over before you know it! Now it is time to find that elusive New Grad job which is stressful and exciting at the same time.
...I was checking for the PVT as soon as I left the building like a mad women and got the good pop up, so now I am just waiting on the official results on the BRN's website. Hopefully it won't take to long because the suspense is driving me crazy!!