Nervous about NCLEX

[jtbhamboy]

Hello. I am about to begin my last semester in nursing school. I have been a straight A student so far, but I am beginning to get extremely nervous about the NCLEX. I have taken a few "sample" tests from online sources and I have scored horribly. I mean I have made in the 50's and 60's!! I have done no kind of reviewing for the NCLEX so far, but it still seems like since my grades have been so good throughout school I should be doing better on these practice tests. Has anyone had a similar experience? I know that once I review and study for the NCLEX I will do a little bit better, but it seems like so much to try and study for. Should I pay to take a review course? Are the courses really that helpful? I do not graduate until May but I would like to begin studying now. Any suggestions on what I should do? At this point I feel like there is no way for me to remember everything and feel prepared for this test. I'm afraid that my "A" average is not doing me much good when it comes to the NCLEX. I don't feel like I have retained all the information that I have been tested on. I know I remember some of it, but should I know more at this point. I hope I will feel better once I start reviewing and studying because right now I feel like I am screwed! Please give me some input.

[bamagt]

Review courses are helpful but not always necessary. 50-60% on NCLEX practice tests is actually decent. At first I was scoring around there on Kaplan's NCLEX questions but then I was getting in the 70's and 80's. You are not going to make an "A" on the NCLEX, your goal is to get more than 50% right.

What I did to study was take the Kaplan NCLEX course, the course wasn't really necessary but when you sign up for the course you get a question bank with over 1000 questions. Kaplan also uses old NCLEX questions so nothing is better. I would buy the question bank from Kaplan (i forget how much it is) and just do questions. I did the entire question bank and NCLEX was easy for me. I finished with 75 questions in 45 minutes.

Study hard and don't freak out and you will do fine.

[jtbhamboy]

Thank you. I have looked into Kaplans week long course. Is this what you are talking about? There are so many different review books and I've heard so many negative comments about so many that I don't know which ones to use. I've only heard good things from Kaplan so I'm pretty sure that's what I will go with. A lot of people say that Saunders is to easy, although I had a relative who only studied Saunders and she passed her first time. I'm just hearing so many different opinions that I am to the point I don't know who to believe. Thank you again for responding.