Hi everyone, this is my first post on all nurses but I have probably read every thread related to the NCLEX and the Pearson vue trick. I wanted to share my experience with the NCLEX. I am a Canadian trained RN And I was one of the 1st class to write the exam. Our school did little to nothing to help prepare us for this exam. On my first attempt I relied solely on hurst review. I found it helpful but it does not come with very many questions.
1st attempt March 28th 2015 I get all 265 questions and felt like the exam was way out of my league. I felt so unprepared and defeated. I read about the Pvt and I tried with with a valid visa gift card with $0 on it. Sure enough I got the message "your card has been declined". I knew I failed. The letter came 5 days later and there it was big fat FAIL. I ended up losing my new grad position and was extremely upset.
2nd attempt September 4th 2015. This time around I used the remedial program from hurst and answered questions from the Kaplan book "NCLEX premier 2014-2015" and the cd that came with the book. I was doing okay on the practice questions and I felt like I knew the content fairly well and I decided to give it another go. I got 265 AGAIN. I tried the Pvt again and got the message "your card has been declined".
3rd and final time March 11th 2016. In Canada you're only allowed three attempts at the NCLEX and if you fail you have to repeat your entire BScN (4 years). I knew I needed to do something different if I wanted to pass this exam. I admit the first 2 times I didn't really give studying my all. This time around I hired a tutor who was very expensive ( over $2500) when it was all said and done. We covered content and I would answer hundreds of questions on my own from Saunders and from the lipincott Q&A. I wrote the exam and it went to 265 AGAIN. I was shocked!! I thought for sure I failed. I tried the Pvt and I got the message "you have recently scheduled this exam another one can not be made at this time". Now I was sceptical but it was my final try so I was thinking of course I can't schedule another exam I'm out of tries. 4 days later the letter comes and I find out I passed!!
Moral of the story if you need help with content and have failed the exam hire an experienced tutor to help you it makes such a difference!!
