NCLEX and Kaplan, my thought on this...

So I took the NCLEX-RN yesterday.

First question- a regular multiple choice question, then I got like 8 SATA in row!!! I was really stressing out. Got a little teary eyed, but I decided to pray, and move on.

Two hours into the test I got prompted to take a break, which I did. By this time I was barely on question 25. After my break I continued with my test, I was so bothered that I kept on getting SATA, but whatever, I kept on telling my self, the test gives us a chance to redeem ourselves and to prove that we are competent.

"I am competent, I may not know everything, but I feel that I know enough", is what I kept on telling myself throughout the whole exam.

I also kept on praying to God. He was with me, throughout all my struggles during nursing school. He knows all the challenges I went through to be able to graduate, and I know that he was with me the whole time I sat in that chair taking the exam. If I where to pass it would be because God knows I am ready, and I am doing my best to show that I can be a nurse, and If I don't pass, well God's plan is always better than my own plan, maybe he wants me to prepare myself more.

I look at the timer and I have just under 2 hours left to take the exam, I am on question #74, at this moment, I prayed again, "Please God, give me a chance to continue" I didn't feel I was doing so well, all my questions where so difficult, I was asked about diseases and medications I was not so sure about. I answered question #75 and my test ends.

No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is what I thought to my self, again I can feel myself getting teary eyed, I wanted the test to keep on going, surely I did horrible and now it's over.

Four hours later, and 75 questions.

I left the testing center, sat in my car for a while and cried.

A few hours later, I got the courage to check PVT, and I GOT THE GOOD POP UP!!!!

I started to cry again, but out of joy!

I still can't believe I passed, the exam was sooooooo hard.

I graduated in June, and since then I only prepared by doing Kaplan. I attended the live review course with my class a week after graduation, then I would do 50 questions here and there.

It was not until I got my ATT that I really started studying. I scheduled my self, and from there, it was a daily ordeal. I would do 25 questions at a time on Kaplan. My reviews consisted of going back through each question, and if it was a topic I was not to familiar with I would review it using my nursing school texts or just google the topic. I looked up Pnemonics, youtube videos to give me an easy way to memorize certain things that you just have to memorize, like lab values, stages of development, etc.

I studied this way, completing the majority of the Kaplan's QBank. I think I was like 200? short of doing it all.

I also did the question trainers.

Overall my scores where:

Q1 69%, Q2 69%, Q3 63%, Q4 63%, Q5 62%, Q6 69%, and Q7 71%

According to Kaplan, their questions are harder than NCLEX.

Well, with my individual experience, Kaplan was easy! I don't know why they would tell you NCLEX is easier than Kaplan, in my experience it was not. Regardless of that I got the good pop up, I'm waiting for it to be official, unless there is a cruel joke for the PVT making me think I passed when I didn't.

As far as studying for NCLEX, I only did Kaplan, but as the days got closer for me to test I started to freak out because I never really focused on reviewing content, other than when I would review my questions. I also payed attention to critical thinking strategies from the rationales from Kaplan. However I found I didn't use the decision tree.

I didn't jot down lab values or anything on my white board. I used it as a place to take notes to be able to rationalize a question down. I also kept a tally on how many SATA ?, but when the test ended I was so shocked that I forgot to count them, but I did have a lot of tallies, I'm sure at least 20 questions where SATA.

Anyways, this was my experience. Hope someone finds it helpful.

Good luck to everyone that is preparing to test!!! Have confidence in yourself and know how to think about each question is the only thing I can say that got me through the test.