NCLEX-RN, 240 questions, 3.5 hours--passed!

[Chelekat]

I know I posted earlier, but I said I would post again later when my results were more confirmed. :) I took the NCLEX-RN on June 21, and when I did the PearsonVue trick twenty minutes after leaving the testing center, I got the good pop up. A few minutes ago, I checked my board license verification website and found my name--I know without a doubt that it's me because my middle name is very unique despite my first and last name being very common.

Best. Feeling. Ever.

I know lots of people have said this, but trust me, if I of all people can do this, then you can, too. I don't know if it will help, but I want to tell my experience just in case it helps anyone's nerves (sorry, this is really long, and I don't know if anyone will be able to sit through the whole thing what with studying to do, but here it is anyway).

Bunch of background:

I wouldn't say I'm a bad student, but I have test anxiety that factors into terrible study habits. It doesn't help that I never had to study as hard as other students I know ever since elementary school. When I got to college and found I actually had to study, I definitely struggled, and I still do. I got As and A-s about evenly and one B+ in my nursing courses, but I personally think more than one professor took it easy on us. In the pre-req courses, I got mostly Bs. The only medical job I have worked in was as a nursing assistant in a nursing home for two years about four years ago. I graduated from my nursing program in April of this year. I did not take the NCLEX-LPN. I was placed as an alternate for the one year BSN program at my university before being offered a spot in the fall semester group several weeks later.

Day before the test:

Anyway, I was a ball of crying nerves most of Wednesday evening and Thursday morning because I knew I was not nearly as prepared as most of the people I know who took the test already, and I was CERTAINLY not even close to the level of preparedness that most of the people here are when they take the test. I refused to tell anyone that I was taking the boards until Wednesday when I broke down about it to my mom over the phone when she called to inform me that my dad would be discharged from the hospital (he had knee replacement surgery on Monday) on the same day and about the same time as my test. It was already too late to change the exam time at that point. During the phone call, my two roommates overheard, which only made it worse to me because they asked about it. I know they were just trying to be good friends by asking if I was okay, and it only stressed me out even more. I have difficulty expressing emotion, and I hate talking about something this terrifying for me with other people.

What I used to study:

I know I might seem like a drama queen here, but I was really breaking down. Like a lot of you, real life kept getting in the way. I've been under a lot of stress from multiple jobs and a personal side business and my dad's surgery, and I could hardly bring myself to study because my anxiety kept me from doing it--the only thing I used to study was ATI since it was provided by my school. That was it. I couldn't afford Kaplan, and I never went to the library to use the Saunders book. Instead, I did a good majority of the ATI practice exams here and there, and I looked at the AllNurses Study Guide a few times for review. I took the ATI predictor exam in March since it was required by my school, and I got a 64.9%, which translated into a 90% chance of passing the NCLEX-RN. Most of my nursing friends got in the 70s. One of my professors suggested I do one of the online NCLEX reviews in addition to ATI--yeah, never did.

Several days before I was scheduled to take the test, I started doing 50-150 ATI questions a day. It was all I could manage. I'd been doing 30-50 ATI questions on and off since the beginning of the year, but that was about it. Two days before the test, I skimmed through the AllNurses Study Guide. I seriously debated moving my test date into July so I could take it after a scheduled vacation at the end of June, but I'd been putting it off long enough, and my professors had told me that the longer I waited, the harder it would be to pass. So I kept the date.

Test day:

On the day of the test, I arrived an hour before my scheduled test time, and I sat and cried in my car because I thought I was going to fail, and the only person I had to blame was myself for not trying harder to study. I'd eaten hardly anything for breakfast because I get severe nausea sometimes when I am dreading something stressful. I got into the testing center, got into the computer, and got started. It wasn't that bad, LOTS of SATAs, a couple calculations, and then I got to question 75...

The test didn't shut down. It kept going. And going. I felt my stomach sink. The test questions passed 100. Then 150. At 225, I hid the test question numbers because it was making me sick inside. I know that the total time for my test was less than three and a half hours because I never got the popup suggesting the second optional break, but I didn't take a single break. I figured if I was going to fail anyway, then a break wouldn't matter, and I may as well plow through it. I drew a lot on my note board, though, so I hope the person who cleaned it off was amused. I must have reached 240 questions (I know it wasn't 265) before the test suddenly shut off.

PearsonVue trick:

At that point, I'd resigned myself to failure. I started planning right then how I was going to study for the retake. I couldn't face my roommates, and I couldn't face my parents, so I parked in one of my university's parking lots where I could get internet access and tried the PearsonVue trick, bracing myself for it to tell me I had failed.

After getting the good pop up, I almost started crying again (I swear, I've never cried this much over a non-death-related event). I tried it again and again and again, and I reread the trick post several times to make sure I hadn't misunderstood (yeah, we're all paranoid). My state board apparently updates their license database every day because I managed to find my name posted at midnight the day after taking the test. I'm not even going to bother with the quick results at this point. But hey--I passed. I can't believe it, but I PASSED.

My advice:

I know that my amount of studying does not work for everyone. There are tons of people out there who have studied way more than me and failed the test, sometimes more than once. But just keep trying. Please don't give up, and please don't think you're any less of a good nurse or a smart person than anyone else.

Because I don't have much to say about how to study for this test, my main advice is to not freak out. There are people who are supporting you and know what you're going through. On a religious note, I said a lot of prayers and read a lot of scriptures to calm myself down, especially the day before the test and the day of, and it seriously helped a lot. Honestly, I don't think I would have passed if it hadn't been for my religion and my God. However, If you aren't the religious type, then do whatever it takes to keep yourself relatively calm.

Also, definitely STUDY. Get your hands on anything and everything you can get. I really wish I had swallowed my anxiety and gotten into the Saunders book or done something else. I tried to do the ATI content, but it was difficult to focus on it, and I ended up preferring to just do practice test after practice test.

Then when you actually get into the test, trust yourself. You should know by now (or very soon) how you answer questions. Maybe you're the type who has to cover the answers while reading the question. Maybe you're the type who can trust your instinct and go with your gut. Maybe you have to sit and reason through each answer. Maybe you tend to talk yourself out of the right answer and into the wrong one. Doesn't matter. Just as long as you kind of know.

On that note, make sure you're reading the question right! I cannot tell you how many times during my practice tests that I got a question wrong because I misread the question. I was determined not to do that during the real exam, so I reread the question several times, broke it up into parts to reread, and then reread it again before I even glanced at the answers.

If you're one of the people who gets a really, really long test, take a break. You maybe don't have to leave the room, but look away from the computer for a few minutes. Draw a picture on your note board or write something silly. Give your brain a rest. Two hundred questions was almost more than my brain could handle, and if it weren't for those little drawing sessions here and there, I probably would have shut down all sense of logic.

Topics:

Prioritizing patients. Which patient should you see first? I kept getting these over and over again. About halfway through, I was absolutely sick of them, but they just kept coming.

Infection control. I got A LOT of questions about infection control. We never went too much into this in school, so looking at the AllNurses Study Guide was a godsend.

I got a freaking ton of medication questions, too, and sadly, most of them were medications that I should have been familiar with. There were a few, though, that I almost didn't believe were real medications because the names were outrageous. Then there was one that I'd taken before, so I answered that sucker with utter confidence.

Lastly, just remember that not everyone is the same, and that is especially true for the NCLEX exams. We all get completely different tests, we all answer questions using various methods, and we all study with various reviews. It's helpful sometimes to see and hear about what other people are doing, but you know yourself better than anyone else.

To anyone who's read this far and is taking the test soon, I sincerely wish you the best. I hope you are able to put in your absolute best effort, and I hope that no matter the results you remember how awesome a person you are to get this far.

[nurse671]

Aww. Such a nice post. Congrats to you. :hug:

[caliotter3]

:ancong!:

[jpinay28]

Awesome!!! Congrats!!

[MissRNBlue803]

Congratulations!!!!

[CCLegnon]

Nice post,it really inspire me.CONGRATULATIONS :)

[Monae2003]

Congrats!! taking mine in a week...#nervous

[Nerdy Nurse]

I know this thread has been made 5 years ago and sorry if I'm reviving it, but I just couldn't help but feel amused and comforted while reading the thread. You and I almost have the exact same NCLEX experience, it's kinda scary. I swear, I was you three days ago. I got a bit disheartened when my computer didn't shut off after the 75th question as I was confident that I did good in the previous ones, which wasn't actually the case. I stopped looking at the timer and item number when I reached 200 and conceded that I may have to retake it. I promised my aunt, who was going to pick me up from the test center, that I wouldn't take 6 hours to finish the exam. So I breezed through the questions without reading their entirety and just picked the key words (don't do this please lol, read the entire question carefully) and went with my instinct for those that I wasn't sure of.

I know I didn't reach 265 because the last time I glanced at the item number again, it was around 234 and there were a couple more questions before it finally shut off. I felt relieved and defeated at the same time when I walked out of that test center. Relieved, because I didn't have to go through the full 265. Defeated, because I wasn't confident that I passed. When I got home, I did the PVT and got the good pop up to my delight. I tried it again and again and searched around the internet if there had been any instances of false positives. There was none and I decided to completely trust the PVT. Although I didn't tell my family or friends that I know I passed until I get my results.

Fast-forward to yesterday, I finally got that final piece of reassurance -- and that was to see the word "PASS" in my result page.