My NCLEX

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I know these threads have been made many times before, but I thought this thread would go into a helpful discussion for those who want some NCLEX advice based off personal experience.

My Story:

I took the NCLEX-RN this year and passed w/ 75 questions. In all honesty, I thought I had failed seeing as at least 85% of the questions I did not know 100% what the answer was even though the questions all seemed pretty easy especially near the end of the test. After 2 days of stress and mentally preparing myself to retake it, I saw that I had my licensing number and what not on my states board of nursing site, and became wildly ecstatic, lol. Needless to say, don't ever doubt yourself or sell yourself short on your abilities; you may come to surprise yourself.

NCLEX questions:

A good amount of people say that if you get a large amount of SATA questions then you are doing good; but it's all speculation seeing as NCLEX is a CAT.

My question break down was:

8-10 (if that) SATA

2 Cardiac strips (the questions were based through a shown strip and knowing what rhythm the stip is showing and what "complications can arise from it; fairly difficult if you aren't strong in these content area)

2 calculations (super easy; didn't have a burns fluid patient nor a neutropenia calculation)

2 Exhibit (These were fairly easy as well; from my experience and from my friends the likely answer was the correlation to the "odd" value in the exhibit notes)

5 straight med questions (Most of mine were adverse side effects or contraindications; not too difficult; only generic names were)

The rest were all "prioritization" questions. (These were my most difficult questions and a bulk of my 75 questions)

Preparation:

Keep in mind that everyone has different ways they are able to retain information and knowledge efficiently and store it into their "long term memory".

I put in maybe 1.5 weeks worth of actual studying; which doesn't seem like a lot, but I studied for 4-6 hours each of those study days.

My main resource was Hurst online review, which I know some people may not be able to afford, but can say it was worth it for me - I for one did not bother with their supplied "study guides" for each section; instead, I made my own notes during the video lectures which helped a lot as I could key in on certain points and make notes on things I would easily forget. This also acts as a two way road of retaining that information through verbal means as per the video and visually through typing your own notes. I also used their "Formerly 5th day materials" resource document to remember drugs.

My second resource was the NCLEX-RN Cram book - I used this as supplemental reading after watching each of Hurst's videos; read the chapter that correlates to the topic of the video you just watched. I liked this book a lot as it broke it down in laments terms as well as noting key points you should know.

Miscellaneous resources were Saunders and LeCharity book - I didn't use these books that much to study since I had a good grasp of delegation, etc..during nursing school. For Saunders, I used it for the more specific topics such as Nutrition which aren't mentioned in either Hurst or the Cram book.

Kaplan for me personally is crap (mainly because my nursing school forced it down our throat), but if you have access to it, then it would behoove anyone to do the Q-banks and read the rationales for answers you missed. I hated it during nursing school even though they paid for my Kaplan Review at the end. I didn't touch Kaplan while studying for the NCLEX.

As far as questions go, I did 2 practice tests from Hurst the day before my exam; and the 10 questions at the end of each chapter in the Cram book.

Conclusion:

I personally think studying "Content" is much more important than doing questions mindlessly everyday. If you know the "Content", then you can answer the questions for the most part; but having a few tips and tricks to efficiently answer questions is great and both Kaplan and Hurst provide those tips. I only did 300-400 questions the whole time I studied for the NCLEX most of which was done the day before the test; but like I said previously everybody has a different way to study. This works for me, but may not work for some.

If anyone needs any resources (as I have plenty of notes) or help, then feel free to post any questions/concerns; and hopefully I can do my best to help.

GOOD LUCK TO YOU ALL!

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Congratulations, and welcome to the fold! :D

Just two quick notes: SATA questions really don't mean anything; people who say otherwise, believe that it means you are "doing well" are mistaken. They are above passing standard, they are also below passing standard, just like every other question on the exam. People just hate them routinely, though, that's consistent ;)

Studying the content is imperative, of course, but it seems that with some frequency people will insist that their content knowledge was smack on, couldn't figure out what was going wrong, why they kept failing, and it seems to be the case of not being able to APPLY that knowledge. Critical thinking. Knowing that 1+1=2 is essential, but knowing what to do if you don't HAVE a second 1 in the equation and yet still must end up with 2 is also essential.

Congrats again, and good luck to the rest!

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Congratulations!!! Everyone has different views on how to study for NCLEX and I appreciate you posting yours. Hurst is awesome and I love their content videos (I got it for free from a friend, yeyyy) and that's what I used for content. I also have Saunders and I use it to look up extra information that I need for a question. And my main resource has been.......Kaplan lol. I think its great, and we will see if it pays off tomorrow :eek:

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Thanks for the congrats, was definitely a great feeling.

Congratulations, and welcome to the fold! :D

Just two quick notes: SATA questions really don't mean anything; people who say otherwise, believe that it means you are "doing well" are mistaken. They are above passing standard, they are also below passing standard, just like every other question on the exam. People just hate them routinely, though, that's consistent ;)

Studying the content is imperative, of course, but it seems that with some frequency people will insist that their content knowledge was smack on, couldn't figure out what was going wrong, why they kept failing, and it seems to be the case of not being able to APPLY that knowledge. Critical thinking. Knowing that 1+1=2 is essential, but knowing what to do if you don't HAVE a second 1 in the equation and yet still must end up with 2 is also essential.

Congrats again, and good luck to the rest!

Yeah, application and rationalizing/analyzing information in correlation to content seems to the major issue for some; but some of my former classmates were great in the clinical setting but terrible at taking tests. I studied w/ a few, and they could verbatim spit out content but bomb the test. With that being said, the repetition of questions would probably help immensely; but me personally I focus on getting the content A1 and figure out answers from there.

Congratulations!!! Everyone has different views on how to study for NCLEX and I appreciate you posting yours. Hurst is awesome and I love their content videos (I got it for free from a friend, yeyyy) and that's what I used for content. I also have Saunders and I use it to look up extra information that I need for a question. And my main resource has been.......Kaplan lol. I think its great, and we will see if it pays off tomorrow :eek:

Haha, yeah, Kaplan is actually pretty good. My nursing school just shoved it down our throats every semester with their tests and remediation so I got sick of it. What I did like about it is you can focus on certain content areas that you miss, so you can hone in on your weaknesses since they have those available resources.

Best of luck to you on your test!

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Congratulations!!! What do exhibit questions mean?

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Congratulations!!! Everyone has different views on how to study for NCLEX and I appreciate you posting yours. Hurst is awesome and I love their content videos (I got it for free from a friend, yeyyy) and that's what I used for content. I also have Saunders and I use it to look up extra information that I need for a question. And my main resource has been.......Kaplan lol. I think its great, and we will see if it pays off tomorrow :eek:

GOOD LUCK TODAY loveSBK!!! Please keep me posted! I know you'll totally pass! You got this! ;)

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Congratulations!!! What do exhibit questions mean?

Thanks.

Exhibit questions are basically questions that present an issue or what not with a correlating chart of information. This chart contains general information about the patient, such as diagnosis, vital signs, etc...

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