My NCLEX Story

Nursing Students NCLEX

Published

Specializes in Emergency Nursing.

Hello Allnurses!

It almost feels surreal that I am writing about my experiences with the NCLEX. Nursing school passed by like a whirlwind, and now I have tackled the final challenge in my journey towards becoming an RN. I took the NCLEX this afternoon at 1400, and the computer shut off at 75 questions. I was startled at first, since the last question number I looked at was #71, and the computer seemed to shut off one or two questions later :eek: I was afraid at first that I didn't even get to 75! I reassured myself that that was impossible, raised my hand, waited for the proctor, gathered my things and left.

As I walked to my car and took inventory of my test questions, I became more and more nervous. I've read on here that math questions are the lower level difficulty ones, and I got TWO of them! I had many, many questions on meds that I was totally clueless about, and it seemed that well over 50% of my questions were SATA. I was almost relieved when I got to answer a regular multiple choice question. I did not get ANY alternative format questions besides the SATA and one image question, which also made me nervous. I just reminded myself that I need to keep my faith in the Lord, and that he will bring good results if it is his will for me to become an RN.

I can't say that my preparation for the NCLEX was ideal. I bought almost a dozen NCLEX books, from Kaplan to Saunders to Lippincott to LaCharity to Mosby to you name it. Anything anyone remotely recommended I went and ordered (used, thankfully) from ebay or amazon. Then life got in the way. A mixture of my own procrastination, plus my sister's wedding last week across seas, and other things here and there took my attention and I barely studied, even though I had graduated over a month ago. When I got back from the wedding this weekend, I threw myself into study mode full time. I signed up for the Kaplan Q bank and answered questions from sun up to sun down. I did 87% of the Q bank in 3 days!! I averaged 66% in the Qbank, and I got a 68% on Q trainer 6 and 74% on Q trainer 7. I really did not review any content at all. My only study sources ended up being the Qbank and Q trainers. I took these scores, prayed to my God, and decided I was ready.

I got the good pop up this afternoon, and I am praying to see my name on the BON tomorrow or Friday.

To anyone reading this, I hope it brings you some hope even if your study plans haven't exactly panned out. If nothing else, I enjoyed the bit of catharsis from typing this all out. Good luck to all the future NCLEX warriors!!

Congratulations!! I took mine this morning at 8 and got the good pop up, but I'm still waiting to see my name in the BON site too!!

Thanks so much for posting this... it does give me hope!! I am scheduled to take my test Saturday and I feel like I've barely studied. I've been so busy planning my wedding, training someone at my previous job, and spending time with my fiance because he is only here 2 weeks out of the month because of his job. This past week I've been doing Hurst review and right now I'm doing lots of questions but I just really started to buckle down for it this week. I studied ALOT over a month ago for HESI but I feel like I've forgotten everything!! Congrats on the good pop-up! I hope I get to say that Saturday : )

Hello Allnurses!

It almost feels surreal that I am writing about my experiences with the NCLEX. Nursing school passed by like a whirlwind, and now I have tackled the final challenge in my journey towards becoming an RN. I took the NCLEX this afternoon at 1400, and the computer shut off at 75 questions. I was startled at first, since the last question number I looked at was #71, and the computer seemed to shut off one or two questions later :eek: I was afraid at first that I didn't even get to 75! I reassured myself that that was impossible, raised my hand, waited for the proctor, gathered my things and left.

As I walked to my car and took inventory of my test questions, I became more and more nervous. I've read on here that math questions are the lower level difficulty ones, and I got TWO of them! I had many, many questions on meds that I was totally clueless about, and it seemed that well over 50% of my questions were SATA. I was almost relieved when I got to answer a regular multiple choice question. I did not get ANY alternative format questions besides the SATA and one image question, which also made me nervous. I just reminded myself that I need to keep my faith in the Lord, and that he will bring good results if it is his will for me to become an RN.

I can't say that my preparation for the NCLEX was ideal. I bought almost a dozen NCLEX books, from Kaplan to Saunders to Lippincott to LaCharity to Mosby to you name it. Anything anyone remotely recommended I went and ordered (used, thankfully) from ebay or amazon. Then life got in the way. A mixture of my own procrastination, plus my sister's wedding last week across seas, and other things here and there took my attention and I barely studied, even though I had graduated over a month ago. When I got back from the wedding this weekend, I threw myself into study mode full time. I signed up for the Kaplan Q bank and answered questions from sun up to sun down. I did 87% of the Q bank in 3 days!! I averaged 66% in the Qbank, and I got a 68% on Q trainer 6 and 74% on Q trainer 7. I really did not review any content at all. My only study sources ended up being the Qbank and Q trainers. I took these scores, prayed to my God, and decided I was ready.

I got the good pop up this afternoon, and I am praying to see my name on the BON tomorrow or Friday.

To anyone reading this, I hope it brings you some hope even if your study plans haven't exactly panned out. If nothing else, I enjoyed the bit of catharsis from typing this all out. Good luck to all the future NCLEX warriors!!

:yeah::yeah:CONGRATULATION!!!i wish i can make it to PASS..im taking soon..

Thanks for posting your experience and good luck with your official results.

Specializes in Emergency Nursing.

To God be the GLORY!!!! It's official: my name and license number are listed on the BON website :yeah:I serve an awesome God.

PVT works! Best wishes to all future NCLEXers!

I am also taking my NCLEX soon, and feel the same way... life gets in the way. I am also feeling like "if I haven't learned it in the last 2 years, there's no way that cramming is going to really help me". YIKES!!! Congratulations to you and your achievements! PS, what is a "good pop up"?

Specializes in Emergency Nursing.

@rottielover:

Thank you! The "good pop up" refers to the pearsonvue trick, an unofficial way of finding out almost right away whether you've passed NCLEX or not. This thread explains it all: https://allnurses.com/nclex-discussion-forum/pearsonvue-trick-part-403722.html

Many thousands of test takers have used it (myself included) and it seems to work almost 100% of the time. Good luck with your upcoming test! Be confident and I am sure you will do well :)

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