Newbie-sorta, just took NCLEX, here's my take...long

[ProudMomof2,now RN!]

I took the NCLEX on 8/4/10. I am a long time stalker of this board but did not want to join while I was in nursing school and studying to take the NCLEX. I tend to get distracted easily. I was so nervous about scheduling my appointment that I debating rescheduling at least twice every day. I set up a study plan for myself. I used Kaplan Strategies (the book from the bookstore, not the course you pay for), Saunders for a comprehensive review, Exam Cram for some review but mostly questions when I needed a quick test on the go, NCLEX 3500 on the puter, and Kaplan question trainer on the puter as well. I attempted to review 3 chapters in Saunders every day (mostly to meet a personal goal so that I could get the content then move to just questions). I felt that Saunders questions were too easy so I didn't do them at the end of the chapter. Exam Cram didn't really resemble the NCELX questions to me but again, it made for a good quick review/questions on the go. I did do the questions in the Kaplan Strategies book. They were somewhat hard. I saved the Kaplan qtrainer questions for the last week before my exam. These questions were difficult but they TRULY made me think!!!!! I also did questions on the NCLEX 3500 throughout my study plan. I also used the infection control mnemonic. That is an absolute MUST HAVE! I felt prepared with these resources. I was getting 60's on the Kaplan qtrainers so I did not reschedule my exam.

When I took the exam, I felt very well prepared. I decided I was going to take my time with the first 75 questions and read them carefully, rewording them, thinking about what the answer could be before looking at the options, then looking at each option one at a time and eliminating if I could. I was absolutely determined to only do 75 questions. I had convinced myself of this the whole time I studied and actually began to believe there only existed 75 questions when I began the test. I sat down, took a deep breath, went through the tutorial and just before starting, I said a prayer, calmed myself until my heartbeat slowed just below level III anxiety, and then began.

I got a ton of priority questions, some infection control, no OB, 1 med calc, about 3 psych, prob 5 peds, 15 meds, 11 SATA, and after 75 questions, I was done. I walked out feeling like I had passed. I came home and did the Pearsonvue trick and got the good pop-up. 2 days later, I got my quick results = pass. I was very happy.

Good luck to everyone else!

[suns]

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!

[caliotter3]

:ancong!:

[sully75]

That's helpful, thanks! Congrats! What's the infection control menomic?

I don't know any good menomics. If you have any to share, I'd love to hear them.

[babinski123]

thank you for sharing. what is the infection control mnemonic?

[ProudMomof2,now RN!]

You're welcome. I hope I can do this right....here's the link to the mnemonic that I got from this board. Credit goes to someone else. I found it very helpful. https://allnurses.com/nclex-discussion-forum/infection-control-mnemonics-299890.html

[msshawn]

Congratulations!!!!

[watchasay10]

congratulations!

[jazz404]

15 med questions - Yikes! Did you recognize the meds? I'm hearing that a lot of people get meds they had never seen before. I think I'm weak on the meds, so this worries me. Any advice on how you studied them? Thanks

[watchasay10]

yeah, what meds did appear? gosh, i would puke if i have it in 15! LOL:uhoh3:

[O'SheaRN]

Congratulations!

[kgh31386, BSN, MSN, RN]

Meds are crap shoot. You may have never heard of a certain medication, and I might know it by heart. And vice versa, I might not have heard of one that you know. So you can't really judge it when people post that they "never heard of any of their drugs". If someone got 15 they had never heard of...you might know all 15 with no problem. I only had 5-10 on mine and they were ones I had heard of..or could tell what it was by looking at the answers given. Nclex will always help you out with something in the question or answers.