NCLEX-RN Experience 3/20/2015

1 Post

Hi everyone!

As many have said, this is just me feeling the need to reach out to all future nurses who were in the same position as I was just a few days ago! I would love to share my experience with the NCLEX-RN exam because boy was it a struggle! I'm not sure how many threads I read on here to get through my days, but it had to have been at least 75. This site gave me my sanity back, i swear! Sooo lets begin!

1. Graduation- 12/19/2014 from the University of Toledo- I live in Columbus now.

2. Prior to graduating, my school FORCED us to take the ATI predictor test to determine where we stood for taking the NCLEX and whether or not again we would be forced to go through VATI. We needed an 85% to skip VATI, and I got 84.5... I was beyond upset because I didn't want anything holding me back from taking my test and getting my license. I HATE ATI.. && i certainly still do but I will speak more on that subject later.

3. I didnt send in my application, or pay Pearson until around 01/10/2015. I thought I was behind, but I just didnt have the money prior till then. When I finally did, the Ohio Board of Nursing updated some part of my application WEEKLY :cautious: . Everything was in except for my letter of completion from my school. I was fine with it because no on in my class had received it yet anyway.

4. Now back to ATI. The VATI process is basically just a series of modules that consist of powerpoints summarizing key points about each subject- Med-Surg, Mental Health, Leadership and Management, Pharmacology... & so on. You have to get a 65% on each assessment under the subjects in order to keep moving forward to get the Greenlight for the school to send off the rest of your info and for you to get your ATT. If you get below the 65% you have to other a couple more assessments, pass those, and then take another one to finally move on. It took me a whole month to finish ATI, and throughout the process I honestly felt like I was learning nothing and felt nowhere ready to take the NCLEX. Told my coach this, she suggested more assessments to make me feel better.. umm okay. I ignored her and focused on getting my application processed fast and set up a test date.

5. First week of March was when my entire class received their ATT's since graduating in December. I did not get mine that week because come to find out, the lady in charge of sending our letters to the Board messed mine up. I got married, changed my name, and informed the school through email & voicemail to please be sure to change it as well so it would match up with my application. Of course she didnt do it. After calling several times, and sobbing from anger, she emailed the board my letter and made sure it was a priority. To the board it wasn't. I called and called nobody answered. I left messages and sent emails nothing. So finally, I called, clicked over to the receptionist, and requested to be transferred over to the lady that CONFIRMED to my school via email that they received my letter of completion and ask why she didnt send off that information to Pearson. We talked and right there on the phone (i was not letting her get off there) she sent my information through, and I received my ATT in less than a minute!

6. Study time. I gave myself three weeks to study! Just three weeks! I know myself, and I knew studying much longer wasn't gonna do it for me. I get bored too easily, and I honestly felt like I had the content I needed from nursing school. Throughout nursing i was an A-B student so I felt fairly confident with my content level. Here's what I did. I bought the Kaplan NCLEX-RN strategy book from amazon for I think $24 (I was and still am a broke RN who babysits lol), I asked one of my friends from school who had Kaplan if we could come up with a schedule for both of us to use it to practice questions, and I got my Saunders Comprehensive NCLEX-RN review book out to study (I already had this through nursing school to help me).

a. I read through the Kaplan strategy book and did the chapter questions (which by the way reminded me a lot of the actual questions I had while using the Kaplan Qbank). This book also comes with a disc with the lady explaining how to use their strategies and talks to you about how things work in NCLEX-land. Very helpful!! Also this book comes with a 265 question test to do to see where you stand to take the NCLEX, as well as an 180 one online. They recommend you being at 70% and above. Ugh boy is it difficult to get that with Kaplan, unless you're super duper smart and I am just smart minus the super duper :). I loved this book and recommended it to my friends a lot! I do believe if you don't like to study a lot and feel like you know a decent amount of content to definitely get this and get through it. Its really easy to and super short!

b. Now kaplan! LOVEEEE IT!!! DO IT if you can. Its expensive, I was never going to spend the money on it, nooo way. So beg your peers lol I sure did, or ask someone to split the cost with you! Its worth it. Okiee, now more details. I didn't do the Diagnostic test because you can only do that once on the account, so I didn't know what I had to work on. I did however decide to do their three-week study plan that they recommended. I started with the question trainers, did all those, did all their sample q-bank tests, and got through as much of the qbank as possible. When I first started Kaplan I literally was getting 48% and barely 50%'s lol. Awful. But I did three 100 question tests, looked at my weaknesses through their performance charts, extensively read through the rationales, took notes on everything and popped open saunders to refresh on the content before heading back to the questions. I spent a week doing that. The last two weeks I just did as many questions as possible nonstop- laptop, ipad, iphone.. did it all!! Literally while babysitting i would be changing a diaper, reading my question to the baby, asking them what they thought while thinking it through lol it helped!! Anyway I also seriously went through every single rationale and wrote down the ones I didnt know to review before bed and just whenever I didnt feel like doing questions. Doing this eventually helped me go from low 50s all the way up to 77% on Kaplan in the Qbank. As for the question trainers, 6 and 7 are the hardest and most like NCLEX.. ehh harder than the NCLEX. I got 65% on 6 and 51% on 7 :no: that thing was way too long. I definitely started praying then that God would do me the favor of shutting off my computer early. I took that the tuesday beofre my exam on Friday. I was really upset because it made me feel like I was nowhere ready. You need a 60% or higher to be NCLEX ready. My husband was not having it at all lol. He made me review all my previous tests and calculate my average score- 62%. That helped me a lot! That was my last time with Kaplan before my exam. I didnt feel like doing anymore questions, I was exhausted.

c. Lastly, all wednesday I did that the NCLEX nursing study guide that floats around everywhere! It was long but i pushed and got through it alll && it helped!! It did, i remembered so many goofy things from there that stuck just because it was funny and not serious you know? Love it && thank you to whoever made it!!

d. Thursday- day before the exam- this chick did not study at all, actually I went to a bar with my husband, had two blue mooons, sloopy fries, wings, and enjoyed a buckeye basketball game. It felt so damn good to not study! I realized that it really added to my stress and anxiety because I felt like I just wasn't learning enough or practicing enough before my exam.

7.Friday- the big day!! Did i sleep the night before? Heck no! I thought I was going to wake up late for my exam at 2 lol I was soo sooo nervous. I got to the test center around 1:15 with only my phone, and ID. I went through the whole finger printing, pocket searching, and deep breathing process, and started my exam at 130! I was scared! BUT as soon as I started it looked EXACTLY like KAPLAN! ALL MY STRESS LEFT ME! I instantly relaxed, told myself I got this, God is with me and started taking my exam! I honestly couldn't tell if i was getting any easy questions or hard questions. I thought they were all easy in the sense- I didnt see anything unfamiliar except for trade names of medications lol. It was difficult because of course I always got down to two answers. I got all kinds of questions from everywhere. SATA, drag and drop, medication calculations, and tons of prioritizing. You guys, I literally felt like I was at home taking another kaplan test. I got to 75 and got scared. I didnt want the test to shut off because I wanted more chances to prove to the computer that I knew my stuff and I was born to be an amazing nurse! WHOOO! Literally said that in my head with a fist pump (i akwardly stared at the camera above me and wondered if the proctor thought i was weird lol). Anyway, I kept testing 80 came and past, 90 came and past 100 came and i started getting nervous. I told myself if I got to 120 I would stop and take a break to regroup, and remind myself to cut it out with the anxiety because there was absolutely nothing wrong with me- I knew my stuff and was going to get through it. I kept going and between 108-112 my exam shut off!! Oh lordie! I about peed on myself! I was shaking the entire time throught the survey at the end. When I walked out, I called my husband and the more I talked about it the more I started thinking I failed and that I didnt pay enough attention to the questions to figure out all the stuff i read about on allnurses that "helps" you determine if I was doing all the right things to pass. Then the biggest migraine hit me. I was soo miserably and didnt want to talk to anyone. I got home and slept.. when my husband got home I cried, sobbed, snotted all over him and told him I was sorry for not passing the exam after all the stress I put us through. He comforted me as best as he could and offered me my favorite bottle of wine. Yes guys, I thought about the PVT but i was soo scared and didn't want to add to the pain I was already going through of believing I failed the NCLEX. I was so anxious and so annoyed that Pearson would chose 48 hours to post the quick results.. so ridiculously long agh! Again, I contemplated doing the PVT. Here is why I didnt do it, I wanted to give it exactly 48 hours for pearson to recieve the computer results, and then come up with my second result. SO Sunday morning, I got out my VISA giftcard with 50 cents on it lol, and attempted to reschedule the test. I went through the whole process, put in my credit card, hit submit.. shut my eyes.. and opened it to see "the good pop up" whooooooooooooo!!!! I knew right then and there I passed and couldn't wait for the next 4 hours to go by to see "pass" when I paid for my quick results! I was soo happy! I finished my exam around 330, and at 3:01 on Sunday my quick results were available for me to see "pass" the most beautiful 4 letter word I had ever seen at that moment!!

SO sorry this is super long- but I really wanted to share && thank everyone from 2010-2015 who took the NCLEX and shared their experiences with everyone- me && giving me the courage and drive to keep going. Also one thing I didnt mention, I put together 4 of my favorite motivational scriptures, saved them on my phone and every single morning I read them and prayed to God for Guidance and the spirit of excellence! Please pray if you are religious, talk to your friends, boyfriends, husbands, sisters, dogs, babies, and you will get through it! Please anyone, feel free to leave me your email for tips, study help, or whatever else! I am here and open! Also sorry if there are any mistakes in this!!

KISSES & HUGS && TONS OF LUCK TO EVERYONE!!

TSNELL BSN, RN.