Review of NCLEX-RN Prep books

Wow, this ended up much longer than I'd expected! But hopefully this is helpful to you as you select NCLEX prep materials. Please keep in mind that this is only my opinion and experience as I prepared for the NCLEX:twocents:. 27 yrs after graduating nursing school, not having worked in nursing for 20 yrs, I passed NCLEX in 75 Q, 1 hr. I didn't do any online review courses, only studied from these books.

Comments and reviews of NCLEX prep books, in order of general difficulty of questions, easiest to hardest :

Saunders 5th Ed. Comprehensive Review (I did not read all the content, I tried to prioritize and go over areas I felt I was weak or topics I thought more common and therefore possibly more common topics on NCLEX) I did use the CD for questions and did around 3000 Q from here. This has a pre-test that you can then print off a suggested 6 week study schedule. Really it just lists out all the chapters in the book in a different order every time you try the pre-test. It doesn't ever leave out any chapters, no matter how well you do on them, or suggest going over it twice if you do poorly on that topic. It wasn't quite what I expected in that regard. It is quite a detailed content review, maybe a little more than I really wanted. It's easy to get overwhelmed with it. I think this would be a great book for during nursing school though.

Saunders 4th Ed. Q&A I did do most of the Q in the book, I used this CD a little, but I liked the format and appearance of the CD with the 5th Ed. Comprehensive Review book, so mostly used that one. Both these Saunders items are about the same in difficulty of questions. I would say they are a little easier than NCLEX. I was glad to start with easier questions though to help encourage me. For both these Saunders books you download the CD program to the computer and don't have to insert the CD in order to use the program.

The next three are about the same in difficulty, a little harder than Saunders, and I think these are about the same difficulty as the actual NCLEX. I think NCLEX was a little less convoluted in the way the questions were asked, the real thing is actually more straightforward than most of the practice materials.

Hurst NCLEX Review book (this is the book you can buy from Amazon or at a book store, NOT the online course materials). I did most of this book. The CD isn't all that impressive, not lots of questions. I think the real strength of this book is the decision making (much more straightforward and practical than I found Kaplan to be), and the great charts of information she includes as content review. This really helped me with organizing and memorizing a lot of detailed content. CD program is loaded on the computer.

Exam Cram content review and questions book. This had maybe not quite as much content as I'd hoped for, but still very good. The questions are challenging but not unreasonably difficult. It did throw me a little that the questions are the end of each content review section don't necessarily deal with the information that was reviewed in the section. The CD was good, you must have the CD in the computer to use it. I did go all the way through this, only did one of the 275 Q practice exams. I saw a note at the beginning of the book that said if you get 90% right on the practice questions, you should have a good chance at passing NCLEX. Honestly, I found that pretty intimidating, and I think that might be a little inflated. Most sections I think I was getting around 75-85%.

Kaplan NCLEX Review books, 2009-2010 and 2010-2011. Again, these were the paperback review books, NOT the online course materials. I got these from the library. It was surprising to me how different the content portion of these books was. The 2009-2010 includes a little explanation and a picture of the "decision tree", the 2010-2011 does not. The CD practice questions and the practice tests in each book were very similar however. I found the decision tree to be more frustrating than helpful. You've probably already learned things like, "What is the question really asking?" "Are you taking an action, gathering information, evaluating an action?" "Does the answer actually make sense and answer what they were asking?". Those you already know from nursing school, or you wouldn't have passed. I felt it wasn't worth the time it would take me to memorize all the decision tree steps and I'd be better served by using that time differently.

Kaplan QTrainers (the ones posted online, NOT the actual online review course) I'm guessing these are older questions, and there are some errors (not a lot, but some), probably due to not catching that an answer should be changed when the question was edited. These questions are similar in difficulty to the Kaplan review books mentioned above. I did most of these that I found online, never at one sitting, I just didn't have the time to do that, scores were mostly low 70's.

I do think that these, Hurst, Kaplan, Exam Cram, are similar in difficulty to the actual NCLEX, but NCLEX is more straightforward.

Harder than NCLEX:

Lippincott's Alternate Format Questions. Alternate formats are in general harder, just because if you don't click exactly in the right spot, or have all the steps selected, or every step in exactly the right order, boom, the question is wrong. There is NO partial credit on NCLEX. I think if you work through this and get anywhere from 50% to 75%, you're doing well. I meant to use the online audio questions, but just didn't get there, so I really didn't practice any audio at all. I'd suggest using this off and on while you are doing some other question resource, it can get discouraging if you're not doing as well as you hope. I did want to use it since most resources only have a few alternate format questions to practice with.

Davis Q&A, I bought this toward the end of my studying and I'm glad I didn't get it sooner. I'd have been pretty discouraged if I'd started with this one. A lot of the questions are tricky, definitely harder than NCLEX. I loved that it was set up topically, so you could go directly to questions on the areas that you are weaker in. I think the practice exams are a little easier than the questions in the topical sections. While the book part is great, the CD stinks. It's visually not as pleasant to use as Saunders or Kaplan, and there are more errors in this than in any other resource I used. (I didn't find any errors at all in the book though.) That really throws off your CD practice scores (and I know they are errors, like a pediatric med being 12.5 mg and their answer is 125 mg). I ended up not using the CD, but definitely used the book and was glad I did. I like the format of the book with the questions on one side of the page and answers on the other.

Prioritization, Delegation and Assignment by LaCharity. I saved this to do near the end of my studying. The chapters at the beginning are more helpful than the case studies. This was definitely helpful in covering PDA topics, well worth doing. The questions are challenging and involved, harder than NCLEX for sure. This format as the questions at the beginning of the book, all the answers are at the back.

I did look at some free online resources, the best of those are mostly things I found on allnurses NCLEX forum (like the infection control mnemonic). Mostly though, I was concerned that there might be some errors and I wouldn't realize they were wrong, so I was pretty careful about freebies.

Although everyone has ways they find work best to study, I'd suggest spending no more than 2-4 hrs per day studying and even then taking breaks as you study. That gives your brain a chance to "file" that information before you put more in. Use charts, mnemonics, drawings, lists, whatever works for you. Review a couple of those at the beginning of your study session, do questions, review one list, do questions, review lab values, etc. When you are changing the amount and style of input periodically, that helps that filing process too. I liked to write down one of the infection control mnemonics, then do some questions, review some lab values, more questions, review a med, take a break, that kind of thing. I also change books, some days work on the CD, some days only in a book, some days only flashcards, mnemonics, labs.

Best thing about using review books... You can work at your pace, take breaks as needed, learn that you don't have to know it all. It gives you a chance to get over that instant panic if you read a question and think, "Wow, I have no clue!" When you realize that it will happen, I think you have a chance to calm down and try to reason it out rather than panic and just pick something. Using books from different publishers gives you a chance to see questions that are written in a different style (though it surprised me how often questions seemed to repeat from one publisher to another!).

I really hope this helps someone, especially if you are like me and can't afford an online review course!

God bless all of you working hard to prep for your NCLEX!