NCLEX Study Prep Tips.. PLS HELP!!

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Specializes in Med/Surg.

Hi,

I am currently in my final semester of nursing school. I am beginning to prepare an outline of my NCLEX study plan. I am looking for recommendations for resources (ie. online programs & texts) to prepare for the NCLEX.

I have been reading mixed things online and am confused as to where I should start.

I currently have Saunders Comprehensive Review (7th edition). I used this for nursing school. I feel this is much more content focused. I scratched off the code in the front cover and am planning on doing the included 2500 questions.

I also have Lipincott Q&A. I am confused as to whether this is just purely a content text or actually mimics the questions on the NCLEX. Can someone clarify please? I have been doing ~ 20 q's per day and have been reading over each rationale (right or wrong). Will ramp this up to 100 q's per day following Christmas break.

So my plan as of now is:

Lipincott Q&A --> Complete practice q's (~100 per day) & review all rationales. I plan on completing these daily during my final semester in hopes of completing all 6000 practice q's.

Then, 4 weeks prior to writing my exam (most likely mid May or June) I will complete the 2500 Saunders online practice questions.

I am just seeking insights into the NCLEX prep process. Obviously this is new to me as I am just completing nursing school. Tips & some advice to my current setup would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

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Specializes in Clinical Leadership, Staff Development, Education.

I think doing the 2500 nclex questions is great prep. Also, I wrote an allnurses article on the anatomy of NCLEX questions and you can read it here https://allnurses.com/nclex-discussion-forum/focus-on-students-1170195.html

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I found that the single best thing I did to prepare for NCLEX was to do practice questions. I did them every single day (50-100) a few weeks before my exam and passed after 75 questions, on my first try. I am NOT a good test taker at all. I realized that for me it was just really knowing they types of questions to expect and not spending time memorizing facts, drugs, etc. I had ONE drug calculation question. ONE. I also had maybe two nursing theory questions. Everything else was very much knowing what to do in a particular scenario- exactly like the questions I had been practicing. So I would make sure you have many resources available to you to access practice questions. Good luck.

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That Saunders book and the Kaplan course/all of their available questions in the bank saved me. Prioritize your understanding of prioritization, I got a lot of those when I took the NCLEX in 2017. Don't overload your brain, 100 questions a day sounds good, but make sure you're absorbing information, don't just do them to do them.

And remember - you will make an amazing nurse. Don't doubt yourself. Trust your gut. Use your resources You can do it because you sound so prepped and ready to go! Best of luck to you.

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Specializes in Med/Surg.

Thank you all for taking the time to respond. It is greatly appreciated!

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I took my NCLEX on 11/14/18 and passed the first time with 75 questions. I bought the Saunders book near the beginning of my program, but I wish I had just saved money and not buy it because I didn't really use it. My school included ATI in our program, and a lot of our exams were based off of ATI. I felt that was helpful. But once I graduated my program, I stopped using ATI and bought UWorld (30 day). UWorld is awesome! I highly recommend UWorld. The format is almost exactly like NCLEX. I also like the explanation of rationales. Read all of rationales; they really helped me understand why I got my answers wrong. I did about 1400 questions from UWorld about 3-4 weeks before my exam. I studied in a sequence: all the med-surg questions, then all fundamentals, then all pharmacology, then some of the specialty courses. I did about 75 questions a day, sometimes even more. Goodluck!

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Hey there, don't stress -- the fact that you still have a few months before your exam is great. Most people I speak with generally say they only spent a week or two beforehand preparing. Folks that browse student nursing forums are the exception/overachievers :)

Believe it or not nursing school does a great job of preparing you -- the first-attempt NCLEX pass rate for U.S.-educated nursing students was 87% last year.

Anyways, in terms of study tools...

I'd do two things:

1. Invest in a uworld account (The interface looks just like the NCLEX and the rationales are detailed and include charts/visuals)

2. Sign up for an nclex question of the day service, my favorite was Free Question of the day by Daily NCLEX Challenge (Free and gets you accustomed to the format and style of the exam and makes sure you're doing at least a tiny bit of studying every day)

Good luck!

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