NCLEX

prettymica, ASN, BSN, MSN, LPN, RN, APRN, NP · Aug 16, 2011

It's Pass/ fail no score. LPN boards minimum 85 question and RN minimum 75 questions. The max questions 200'something. The more questions you answer correctly the less questions you may have to answer. The questions vary on subjects/ specialities in nursing.

Jenni811, RN · Aug 16, 2011

um, no you don't need 75 to pass. its really difficult to explain. but you get anywhere from 75-265 questions. So you cannot get anything less than 75 questions or anything over 265 questions. You can fail at anytime. You can fail at 75, you can fail at 160, you can fail at 265. Same with passing...you can pass with 75, or 160, or any number. The number of questions you get are depending on how well you are doing on the test. Its called computer standardized testing.

It's really confusing to explain, but your school will explain it once the time gets closer.

it's not out of percentage. So there is no "75% on NCLEX" its just "pass" or "fail" Your employer will never see your score because it doesn't matter.

Double-Helix, BSN, RN · Aug 16, 2011

Actually, there is no NCLEX score. You do not have to get 75% to pass.

The NCLEX is an adaptive test. Meaning that it is different for every person. The NCLEX chooses questions for you based on how you answer the previous question. Each NCLEX question is assigned a difficulty level. As you answer questions correctly, you get progressively more difficult questions. If you answer a question wrong, you get an easier question. This continues until you reach a plateau- meaning that you reach an average difficulty level that you can answer correctly. When you reach this plateau, you will essentially be answering every other or every third question wrong. So the number of questions that you answer correctly is not reflective of whether you pass or not. In order to pass you have to correctly answer questions of a certain difficulty level. Since you keep getting harder questions until you start answering them wrong, it's impossible to get 100 on the NCLEX. Unless you literally know everything.

I can answer 75% of my questions and fail, because I can only answer easy questions correctly. The NCLEX won't give me harder questions if I am getting the easy ones wrong. So I will fail because the questions that I got right were below the needed difficulty level.

You can answer 60% of your questions correctly and pass because you can answer hard questions that are above the needed difficulty level.

Does the make sense?

The computer uses statistics to calculate with 95% confidence that you are above or below the passing mark. You will continue to get questions until the computer can determine that. If you are way above or way below the passing line, the test will end at the minimum number of questions (75 for RN, 85 for PN). If you are boarderline pass/fail, you keep getting questions until the computer can make a decision. The maximum is 265 questions, and the test can end at any time in between 75 and 265 questions.

So there isn't really an NCLEX score. During the test, you will get questions from several different categories. (Medication, psycho/social, physiologic, infection control, safety, etc.) In order to pass, you have to score above the passing mark in each category. (The passing mark is determined by the question difficulty I described above.) If you pass the NCLEX, "all" you get is the license. You don't get anything describing how well you did in each category or any overall score. If you fail, you will get a performance report that will tell you if you were above/below or near passing in each category. But you don't get an overall score.

**There is a lot of helpful information about NCLEX in the NCLEX Discussion Forum under the Students tab. I suggest reading through the threads there so that you can learn more about the test.

https://allnurses.com/nclex-discussion-forum/

rightintwo · Aug 16, 2011

Oh I see! Thank you all kindly :)

wazeout · Aug 16, 2011

Actually, there is no NCLEX score. You do not have to get 75% to pass.
The NCLEX is an adaptive test. Meaning that it is different for every person. The NCLEX chooses questions for you based on how you answer the previous question. Each NCLEX question is assigned a difficulty level. As you answer questions correctly, you get progressively more difficult questions. If you answer a question wrong, you get an easier question. This continues until you reach a plateau- meaning that you reach an average difficulty level that you can answer correctly. When you reach this plateau, you will essentially be answering every other or every third question wrong. So the number of questions that you answer correctly is not reflective of whether you pass or not. In order to pass you have to correctly answer questions of a certain difficulty level. Since you keep getting harder questions until you start answering them wrong, it's impossible to get 100 on the NCLEX. Unless you literally know everything.
I can answer 75% of my questions and fail, because I can only answer easy questions correctly. The NCLEX won't give me harder questions if I am getting the easy ones wrong. So I will fail because the questions that I got right were below the needed difficulty level.
You can answer 60% of your questions correctly and pass because you can answer hard questions that are above the needed difficulty level.
Does the make sense?
The computer uses statistics to calculate with 95% confidence that you are above or below the passing mark. You will continue to get questions until the computer can determine that. If you are way above or way below the passing line, the test will end at the minimum number of questions (75 for RN, 85 for PN). If you are boarderline pass/fail, you keep getting questions until the computer can make a decision. The maximum is 265 questions, and the test can end at any time in between 75 and 265 questions.
So there isn't really an NCLEX score. During the test, you will get questions from several different categories. (Medication, psycho/social, physiologic, infection control, safety, etc.) In order to pass, you have to score above the passing mark in each category. (The passing mark is determined by the question difficulty I described above.) If you pass the NCLEX, "all" you get is the license. You don't get anything describing how well you did in each category or any overall score. If you fail, you will get a performance report that will tell you if you were above/below or near passing in each category. But you don't get an overall score.
**There is a lot of helpful information about NCLEX in the NCLEX Discussion Forum under the Students tab. I suggest reading through the threads there so that you can learn more about the test.
https://allnurses.com/nclex-discussion-forum/

That was a really good explanation. Thank you for that.