NCLEX and Kaplan, my thought on this...

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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. :nurse:

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.

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Congrats, RN! You passed. The way the test works is that you can miss every single SATA question and still pass. The more SATA you have, the better you are doing and means you are maintaining above the "passing line." I don't think many students understand that. The SATA and alternate format questions are the highest level above the line. If you miss it, you go down a level, which is still a passing question. Basically, if you walk out of the exam and think, "well, that was easy." You probably failed.

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Also, I wanted to add: I took NCLEX yesterday at as well (at 2pm) and had my results up today at 9am including my license number. I am in FL though. What state are you in? I may be able to find a website for you to check test results.

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Specializes in Peds acute, critical care, Urgent Care.

that's an awesome thing to know, I have been panicking about the SATA questions because I have heard of so many people getting like 30 of them, but to know that they are the higher level questions makes me remember the formatting and how the pass level is calculated in the nclex books, and that is indeed true now that I think about it! Ok so now I want to go into the Nclex test site with war paint on my face ready to tackle those!!

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Congrats, RN! You passed. The way the test works is that you can miss every single SATA question and still pass. The more SATA you have, the better you are doing and means you are maintaining above the "passing line." I don't think many students understand that. The SATA and alternate format questions are the highest level above the line. If you miss it, you go down a level, which is still a passing question. Basically, if you walk out of the exam and think, "well, that was easy." You probably failed.

thank you and congratulations to you too aswell! I wish I would of known that the SATA where passing questions, it would of kept me calmer during the exam, i was under the impression that SATA where below level questions since they are usually knowledge questions, but the SATA I got where not knowledge questions, they where hard analysis questions.

Either way we passed do yay!

im in California, so no clue when ill get an official notice or license number, and this is a holiday weekend, of course yhey won't be open till Tuesday. that's great that Florida id on top of things!

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Specializes in internal medicine, telemetry, medsurg.

Congrats on passing now you can relax. l also believe God has a purpose and plan for us. l test this thurs. and happy to hear that sata can be a good thing LOL bc l sure do miss those on the practice tests. Congrats again and l hope to feel your joy on thursday!

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hey, my exam stopped at 80 questions, and i had about 15 SATA questions.. i checked the website again and its letting me register again, i failed right :/

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Dashinka - I'm sorry to hear that it is letting you register again. Unfortunately 15 out of 80 is not really that many on NCLEX. It seems you were below passing more than above it. But have faith! There have been false negatives.

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Cali license lookup

http://www2.dca.ca.gov/pls/wllpub/wllqryna$lcev2.startup?p_qte_code=RN&p_qte_pgm_code=7800

It never hurts to try!

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thanks NurseTurtles! my license has actually been posted on the brn as of today Im a RN!!!!!!!!!

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