I firmly believe the sources below are ALL YOU NEED to pass the NCLEX! If you have the attention span of an ant like me, Saunders DOES NOT work for you. I panicked after trying to read that big yellow book. I was worried I wouldn't have enough time to prepare...and my sheer anxiety led me to buy copious amounts of resources...you name it....and I probably wasted money on it.
The ultimate dilemma...content or questions...my answer to that is BOTH. I was trying to relearn nursing the painstaking way by reading that tortourous Saunders book and I am telling you....you don't need to do that.
I know some people swear by Saunders. I am open minded to other techniques people have used and how they worked for you. With various mediums to choose from, the NCLEX can seem very daunting. I believe a lot of factors come into play when trying to study for this exam: personal/family obligations, the way you learned the material in nursing school, work experience, test anxiety, mental preparation...all of these play a role in PREPARING and PASSING the nclex. For me, I am a slow learner, had a B average in school, and I dx myself with ADHD haha. I find myself moving to 5 different places in the library when trying to study and impulsively answering questions and reading them too fast. I have major test anxiety esp when it comes to standardized testing...I couldn't inflict it upon myself to sit thru saunders....I needed to hear and see the material.
After about a month's worth of scatterbrained studying with Saunders (more worrying than studying), I needed to develop a plan to tackle the exam. I refused to schedule the exam UNTIL I felt ready. In fact, I received my ATT a week before my test date.
For about a month, I studied using the following sources:
1) Hurst - Listened To All Lectures
I am an auditory learner so this is a no brainer. I bought this program in my last semester of school. I recorded the lectures on my recorder and listened to each lecture multiple times (in the car running errands etc). Helped me with some questions on the nclex.
2) Study Guide
I could not sit and retain any of this info. Fortunately, someone transcribed this guide onto QUIZLET which was very helpful! Go thru the deck multiple times.
3) Questions From NCSBN
I only did questions (skipped the content) and felt it was beneficial. After all, its the same people that wrote the NCLEX.
4) Questions From PDA
Another frugal source that helped me pass. Definitely a must have!
5) Kaplan Test Strategy Book
I got mine at Barnes and Nobles. With this book I only studied the strategies and did not do any questions.
6) Online Videos
I watched Annelise Garrison's video on Youtube about management/priority and foundation/assessment videos on youtube...e.g. how to do trach care,
I PASSED IN 75 questions! It took me 3 hours. IT IS BASIC NURSING. You don't need to know everything in that SAUNDERS book. TRUST ME.
Well that's my story. Sorry if I offended anyone (Saunders aficionados). I just wanted to share in case someone was going thru the same thing I was. Thanks for reading. GOOD LUCK STUDYING.
