NCLEX Test Guide- Advise from newly passers pls... :)

Testa Rosa, RN · Sep 27, 2011

The goal is to do 60 nclex questions a day for a couple months prior to testing. Go to the local hospital libraries to see if you can check out a Kaplan book for strategy. As well as for good NCLEX question book with rationals. Talk to your upper classmates to see if they are ready to purge their library of their old NCLEX study materials. I passed two years ago and I had a hard time finding a reliable source of questions for free so I broke down and purchased a question bank.

mischa084, BSN, RN · Sep 27, 2011

thank you for your feedback Testa Rosa RN !! so kind of you

Tinkerbell04 · Oct 2, 2011

Look in the NCLEX thread on this site. I passed the NCLEX this past August; it was my second time taking it. You can look under my handle and see waht worked for me. I thought Davis, Hurst, and La Charity were very helpful. Know infection control and priority really well. Good luck!

Cuddleswithpuddles · Oct 4, 2011

Hello mischa084,

Congratulations for coming this far in your path to becoming a nurse!

On top of what everyone else has said about consistent studying, I suggest using some sort of system to weed out wrong answers and make an educated guess when you truly have no clue. This does not mean you should not know your material but, inevitably, there will be questions that involve diseases, medications and interventions you have not read about. In these cases, you have to have some sort of system to give yourself a fighting chance at answering the question correctly.

An example of such a system is Kaplan's Decision Tree. Other NCLEX review books will have similar systems.

For example, Kaplan's Decision Tree uses Maslow's hierarchy of needs to kick out wrong answers. I know... YAWN... Maslow. But, seriously, it is an amazing tool! If you have a choice of 3 interventions that deal with psychosocial issues and 1 dealing with physical needs, you can bet that the latter most likely takes precedence over the former.

I hope this helps, and I hope you pass! Good luck!

mischa084, BSN, RN · Oct 19, 2011

thank you so much for that well informed advise cuddleswithpuddles.. i appreciate it, and well keep that in mind.. God bless in your undertaking too..

@tinkerbell04.. congratulations for passing, thanks for the advise as well..

favthing, APRN · Oct 19, 2011

I passed NCLEX-RN first try with 75 questions :nurse:

I highly recommend Saunders review book and the separate questions book. I studied a system at a time, like musculoskeletal for ex., I'd study musculoskeletal med-surg, pharm, fundamentals, and peds, then practice musculoskeletal-specific questions from the Saunders CD of questions (the CD offers subject-specific topics). Understand the rationale behind what you memorize, just like nursing school promoted. Anyway, I'd do on average a system every couple of days, or however long it took to get through. After each, including fluids electrolytes, immune, and blood/vascular as topics of focus, I did maternity, psych, community, leadership, and the missed fundamentals each just the same way as I'd done system topics.

Do alternate-type questions. Like crazy.

Good luck!