NCLEX-PN guide by the Average student

Nursing Students NCLEX

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Specializes in Psych/Med Surg/Teaching.

Before I begin, I would love to thank NurseBre94 in advance for helping me calm down prior to my test.

I'm writing this for the other non-straight-A students who are very nervous about their exam. I'm right there with you, I spent many hours stressing and worrying about my exam and not believing that I could pass it. My resources were a Saunders Test strategy for the NCLEX PN book from 2006, ATI questions (Provided by my school), and the NCLEX Mastery App ($30, BUY IT), and the NCLEX Mastery PN Simulation exam ($10 more, and it is VERY worth it!).

I know when I was reading about NCLEX strategies, I wanted to see how people were doing on their practices. On the predictor, I scored a 64.7% and I was given a 77% chance of passing the NCLEX. I was initially scoring in the 50's and low 60's on ATI before running through them again. My strategy was to think about selecting an answer before I selected an answer. The second time running through the ATI's, I was scoring in the 70s. I scored a 55% on the NCLEX Mastery Simulation and 56% on everything total. This app was amazing and I can't thank the developers of it enough! I just want to repeat again: it's worth the $45 to get the app! ATI was also a very important app and I just want to say that it was frustrating with the way they wrote their answers. However, I stopped running through ATI as I was remembering the answer choices. At the end of my LPN program, I had pulled a 3.0 GPA.

I started studying 3 weeks prior. The first week, I put in an hour-a-day. The second week, I REALLY kicked it into high gear, studying 6-8 hours a day. This was a terrible idea as I was blowing my summer away. The last week, I put in 3-4 hours a day with 2 in the morning and 2 at night. There were nights where I would study more at night because I do better. The last 2 days, I did not study at all. I went cliff jumping the first day and got a pretty good sunburn which led me to stay inside and play Xbox for the day before the test. Whatever takes your mind off the test! I took my mind off of the NCLEX to give my brain a rest. I told myself that I put in enough time and work.

So I took my NCLEX yesterday and stopped at 85 questions in less than an hour. My heart stopped after the screen turned blue and I thought that I failed for sure. However, I had at least 20 SATA questions on there which brought me relief because I knew I was doing good because of these. AT THE SAME TIME, around question 80, I had started thinking that what if those SATA's were the experimental questions which led me to panic a little. I was also given an EKG strip, a picture, "put-in-order" question. The whole thing. It was everything that I expected with no surprise. Remember, there are 25 questions in the test that are used to gather data and aren't counted against you.

I did the PVT using the remnants of a gift card (less than $2 on it), got the good popup, and started celebrating! Of course, this will be short lived as I work towards my RN now :).

With all this being said, you don't have to do what I did. I'm writing this to help the other average students. You can do it. You made it through nursing school and we all know how hard that is. Just put in a little more effort and DON'T STRESS YOURSELF OUT! Give yourself time to study and put in the work, I must have answered over 3000 practice questions before taking it!

I wish all of my fellow PN testers the best of luck, you all deserve it.

Specializes in LTC, Med Surg, Renal Care.

Congratulations!!!

Congratulations ... Your story has inspire me so much

Thank you and congratulations! I've been calming all of my classmates down but 3 of us have passed in our class of 9 :).

That's amazing! Congrats to you! You as well @NurseBre94. I am inspired as well. Are there any books you can recommend I study for the entrance exam for LPN school?

Specializes in Psych/Med Surg/Teaching.

Depends on the test. Is it the TEAS V? If it is, I would buy the book and package from ATI.

One school is the Teas and the other is cnet. Thank you, for your response.

Specializes in Psych/Med Surg/Teaching.

I can only vouch for the TEAS as I've taken that

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