2nd attempt at NCLEX using Kaplan

Hi all,

i promised myself that if I passed the NCLEX exam I would post what I did to pass NCLEX. First a brief history: I graduated in May 2014- I took care of my grandmother for a year till she passed. I attempted NCLEX in Sept 2015 without really studying and failed doing all 265 questions for the full 6 hrs. Brutal! January 2016 I decided to take Kaplan because my study habits were not consistent and I really didn't know how to study. I did 90% of the qbank and all trainers. My scores were 50%-70% (very few 70%). I reviewed all the right and wrong answers which helped because that was "content" I needed to understand and get other questions right. I took the NCLEX on April 27, 2016 and passed with 109 questions. I took my time!! What I did wrong the first time was I didn't study first off, secondly, I thought if I ran over time I would fail. Not true. Even if you only do 100 questions in 6 hrs it bases it on the last 60 questions. So take your time! I won't go on to say Kaplan is the end-all-be-all class to take, but, it provided questions and content that made me feel better equipped to take NCLEX. Kaplan is good at making a person understand how to answer the question. An example: "who do u see first"- a big percentage of NCLEX questions! The Kaplan questions are set up extremely similar to NCLEX as well. I also used flash cards for med classification, diseases I had a hard time understanding/remembering, infection control (airborne, droplet etc). I learned "M.T.V." (Measles, TB, Varicella) are all airborne. For stuff I just didn't "get" I used YouTube. Know patient positioning before,during, after procedures (ex cardiac catch, liver biopsy). If u type in "patient position nursing cheat sheet for NCLEX" look that over and know the positions. Also do the "NCLEX RN exam cram: practice exam and rationales" on Pearson IT Certification. I hope this helps. If I can do after almost graduating two years and taking the NCLEX twice, you can too. You just have to put in the effort and do questions. At least 50 a day:) I wish you all the best of luck.

ValentinaH,RN