NCLEX August 2017

[seankirk23]

I took my NCLEX for the first time Friday, 8/25. A little background: I graduated with my ADN back in 5/15...over two years ago! My family and work situation ate up so much of my life that all of a sudden I look up and 2 years had flown by.

My BON (Florida) required I take a review class. I took the NCSBN 5-week course and finished it in less than 3. It was nuts. By the time my paperwork cleared it was early August and here we go again, back to my regular job (I teach high school). The last three weeks were ridiculous...honestly I barely studied since early July.

I went into the test having to convince myself that it is like when I took the SAT in high school, I'll definitely need to take it twice. The test was probably what everyone else experienced but for the first time in my life I froze. Literally. Question 1 and I was already frozen. I plowed through the first few questions and I honestly couldn't tell if they were the Easy/Medium/Hard questions...they all felt the same. I almost started crying after the first 20 minutes as there were 0 calculation problems and what seemed to be way too many SATA's. So like everyone else, I started doing the timing vs. question # game...my pace would definitely allow me to finish >250 questions. I got to #74 and I was really freaking out, I saw zero trend in the questions' difficulty-level. I was really hoping I could get at least 100 questions, I thought if I got that far that meant I had a chance. I was praying I wouldn't get shut off at 75. I finish #75 and boom...I'm done. It felt like I was at a funeral.

I got pretty buzzed that night so I didn't even bother to do the Pearson Vue trick...I resigned myself to having wait until Tuesday for the 48 business-hour Quick Results.

My wife told me the next morning that she did the credit card thing and I got the "Good" pop-up. Still didn't believe it. I really convinced myself I was a 75-question failure.

I read somewhere in these forums that the 48 hours is often done over the weekends...so I gave it a shot on Sunday (too early). At exactly my 48 hour mark the option appeared! I was so upset I had my wife do it and I passed. Yep.

I'm not sure what else to say about these last 48 hours that wouldn't have to include a long sob story about life these last few years. Everyone in these forums have complex and difficult lives, ditto for your study habits. My advice of course is not to wait over two years to try to take it (I'm now 45, I started my pre-req's all the way back when I was 39 and my daughter was still a toddler!). I did not pay for any review courses and the only review books I had were for my nursing school classes (I have Mosby's, and three of Pearson's). Our school had us do an ATI and I used the review book the most. I have several NCLEX review apps on my phone (free) that I barely used. Would it have been ideal for me to study more, of course. Get a review class, yes. Do tons more NCLEX questions...definitely. But I got lucky and somehow passed in 75 and that's good enough for me now (already have to start planning for the BSN/work route).

On the NCSBN review class: The review really is a ton of subjects done in note form w/accompanying quizzes and tests (which you can re-take to get your credit). They were a good review for me. I liked the NCSBN question bank but it is only valid for the time you purchased...which in my case, because of the huge delay in paperwork on the state's end, was almost 8 weeks from the last time I saw them.

Good luck all, I hope you have better luck dealing with the day of-/48 hours after- the actual NCLEX than I did.

[RNfindingherway, BSN, RN]

Congrats on a job well done. You had me cracking up here when you said, "finish #75 and boom...I'm done. It felt like I was at a funeral." Congrats again.