Passed NCLEX in 60 using Kaplan ONLY!

ETA-RN, ADN, RN · Jun 25, 2020

I'm using Kaplan and it is good to see that it works. Very stressful times. Less than a month till NCLEX! Thanks for sharing your experiences.

CPres2018 · Jun 25, 2020

8 minutes ago, FlyinRN2B said:
I'm using Kaplan and it is good to see that it works. Very stressful times. Less than a month till NCLEX! Thanks for sharing your experiences.

Good I’m glad this post was useful and helpful for you! Yes it is very stressful. You made it through nursing school, the knowledge is there, trust your nursing intuition! You got this! Good luck ??

Krystal Brown, BSN, RN · Jul 4, 2020

On 6/19/2020 at 4:36 PM, CPres2018 said:
Hello Future Nurses!
If you have your NCLEX coming up, and you're anything like I was, you're FREAKING OUT. I wanted to make a post about my experience with NCLEX and what I used and how I benefitted from those resources, hopefully ease some nerves. My school included Kaplan in the package, and quite frankly, I couldn't afford UWorld, so Kaplan is what I used and stuck with. In addition to Kaplan, I used the Saunders book for content review, and Nurse Achieve for their Computerized Adaptive Test (CAT). Nurse Achieve is doing a deal where they offer a free 30 days to sign up and utilize their test bank and CAT btw!!

https://nurseachieve.com/register use code "free30" to utilize this! Highly recommend!! They don't ask for credit card information or anything, it is legit! I believe it's going on until mid-July.
I did the question trainers through Kaplan and had average of low 60s and high 50s for question trainers 1, 2, and 3.
Q Trainer 4: 60%
Q Trainer 5: 57%
Q Trainer 6: 58%
Q Trainer 7: 62%
If you have scores around these or even more than these, try not to worry, you are doing well!!
I then went on the other exams.
Who Do You See First: 80%
Alternate Format: 38% (which is normal, people usually score in the 20-30s)
NCLEX SAMPLE 1: 58%
NCLEX SAMPLE 2: 48% (YIKES)
This is where I got super discouraged. I knew under the 50% line was not ideal, and I needed to do some further review and strategy to do better.
After a bit more content review, and some QBANK in my weak areas, I went ahead and took the readiness test and scored a 67%. This was good! I knew > 65% was the goal and I started to gain a little bit of confidence.
At this point I was less than a week away from the NCLEX and this is where I started to take my CAT exams from NurseAchieve! This was essential! I was able to gauge the difficulty as I was taking the exam and could tell when I was getting some wrong and some right. This is how the NCLEX is designed and those adaptive tests taught me what difficulty level that questions were, and how to feel if I was doing well, or doing poorly.
After taking the CAT exams 5x and receiving Solid-Pass on 4 of them, and Pass on 1 of them, I felt ready. I was going to pass this test, I knew it. I kept telling myself, there is no reason for me to fail. I am prepared. I will do well. Speak positively to yourself because you will be there in no time!! Try not to focus on bad scores, but remediate the topics and TAKE NOTES to review later!!
The day of my exam, my husband drove me up to Sacramento and we had a nice lunch. He spoke positively to me and told me he believed in me. Support people are everything.
We prayed together, and I left my phone in the car, and started heading for the building. Talk about an ANXIOUS MESS! I felt my heart beating out of my chest.
Before I knew it, it was time to press start and do this test!
At question 60, my heart was beating quickly again, when I pressed next, the screen shut off.
I DID IT, IT'S OVER.
Now the waiting game.......
I received the email from Pearson Vue, that I had taken the test but still had questions, and didn't do the Pearson Due Trick right away, but when I got home that is the first thing I did!
Got the "GOOD" pop up! Worked for me, since I found out 2 days later that YES, I PASSED!
I didn't pay for the unofficial results, instead, I went to the Board of Registered Nursing and looked up my name. There it was. My license. Registered Nurse.
Praise GOD! He brought me this far and came through!
I hope these study tips and scores help some who may be testing soon.
Remember with Prioritization think:
Expected/Unexpected
Stable/Unstable
Acute/Chronic
& ALWAYS Airway, Breathing, and Circulation - Safety!
Keep your head up and remember you got this!! Every time I spoke about my test, my family and friends said they knew I would pass. I'm sure many of you relate. I didn't believe them fully, I kept saying "We will see." I should've taken their good energy and said YES, ABSOLUTELY, I WILL PASS!
You will pass! Have faith! Prepare, and get a good night of sleep the night before.
Good luck!!

I just want to say thank you for this post! I've been using Kaplan and my scores are sometimes discouraging.... I used the promo code you provided and did the mock exam and it stopped at 61 questions! I passed, now I feel much more confident to take my NCLEX in a couple of weeks!

Marz M, ADN, LVN, RN · Jul 27, 2020

I also passed my NCLEX with 60 questions! God was good to me! Thank you Jesus.

I am sharing my story because I personally searched out stories on allnurses.com to help me guide my decisions. So, I hope I can be a little hope and assistance to any future nurses ? I started at the bottom and worked my way to the top: CNA, LVN, and RN. Although, I would have preferred to just go straight to RN that was not the road laid out for me. I am currently working on my BSN, and I hope to obtain that by December.

With God all things are possible. I believe He chose this career for me, so even with COVID and many other obstacles I knew that I would pass the NCLEX. However, I did not take the NCLEX lightly by any means. I studied for 1 month before taking my test 4-10 hours a day. I did take a full day or 2 days off in between. I made sure I got to sleep at a decent hour on most nights. There were a couple of nights I got no sleep due to a funeral I was assisting with and then another time due to my stats homework. I do have 2 children a husband and I was taking a statistics Summer course. My husband was out of work for a while due to COVID, so that was actually a blessing because he was a huge help! This is my experience of preparing for the NCLEX:

ATI

My school used ATI. I utilized this resource. I did the live review, and exhausted all the tests. In my personal opinion, I feel that ATI alone is enough to prepare for NCLEX. I really enjoyed their pharmacology review. Take time and look through ATI and what they have. I did not know unitl I was out of nursing school they had such an intense pharmacology review. It is called pharmacology made easy. They have practice questions at the end of each category and a small case study. I did not care for the flash cards. Their skills review are also great, and I recommend reviewing the Nurse Logic videos. They really teach you how to answer questions. I also enjoyed the remediation on topics. Under the Improve tab after you take a test they will break down the questions on what you missed and take you to that place in the book to review and then give you a new quiz. Of course I did not discover this until I was out of nursing school. My ATI predictor test said I had 97% chance pass rate, but still I wanted to study. I personally felt weak in many areas.

Kaplan CAT

Before graduating I purchased the Kaplan with 3 CAT tests. Computerized Adaptive Test (CAT). I did not ever consider UWorld because my LVN school provided us with Kaplan for our LVN NCLEX and that is all I used and I passed, so I figured I would use it for my RN NCLEX. The CAT is very intimidating in my opinion! It was very discouraging for me! Actually, all the Kaplan tests were. Before I share my scores, I would like to share Kaplan has some good review videos. I did not like them at first. They are very dry and to the point, but when I attended the live reviews and followed along, I felt they were very helpful. I used them for my quick review of my weak areas. I also liked to read the rationales. As far as the CAT goes I took one CAT when I first started studying for NCLEX. I took the second 2 weeks before the NCLEX and I took the third 2 days before I took the NCLEX. Each time I was green, but when I calculated my scores I was never over 60%. As far as all the quizzes I took most were in the 40% range. It was terrible, so I would definitely NOT let this be my deciding factor if I was ready for NCLEX.

Sarah registerednursern.com

I used Sarah's Youtube videos throughout LVN and RN school, and extensively for my NCLEX studying on concepts I was weak on. In the step up program we did not cover maternity. I felt Sarah's videos and ATI were extremely helpful in this area.

Remar Review

I used remar for the discussions and some content review. When I first started studying she was doing a pharmacology review on Mondays for 2 hours. This was interactive, so I did enjoy it. I did not purchase.

Mike Linares, simplenursing.com

This is also another resource I used throughout LVN and RN school. I watched a lot of his videos for reinforcement. They are funny. I did not purchase.

Level up RN

These were super short videos that correlate with ATI. Short and simple. They were like live flash cards for me.

Saunders

One other resource I did utilize, but not that much. I did use it a lot throughout nursing school.

I tried not to really study the day before my exam. I settled down around 7 PM got my clothes ready and planned to leave the house at 0645, so I could grab a starbucks and have time to pray and clear my mind before my exam at 8. I was in the building at 0745. There were only 5 others testing that I saw. We each went in individually. As soon as my hand was scanned and I sat down at my desk. I laughed. My smile was ear to ear. I knew it was already finished. I knew I would walk out as an RN. I felt totally care free. It was amazing. When I got to question 59. I was like WOW! 1 more and I am done. I answered question 60 and the computer shut off! Yes! Thank you Jesus.

My friend said everyone was getting their results in 48 hours. I was not about to wait. No, I did not pay for early results, but I knew the pearson vue trick worked for me when I was an LVN and I heard it still worked. So 15 minutes later when I got home, I used an old credit card and yup! It worked. I could not schedule another exam. Yay! I was so excited.

I showed my husband and said okay lets get out of here. We went camping for the weekend no phone service, no distractions, just the river and my family. It was a great weekend. When I got home from my weekend getaway, CA- BRN confirmed I was officially a Registered Nurse

I agree with the previous post

****

Remember with Prioritization think:

Expected/Unexpected

Stable/Unstable

Acute/Chronic

& ALWAYS Airway, Breathing, and Circulation - Safety!

Happy testing and congratulations! I hope this helps someone.

ETA-RN, ADN, RN · Jul 27, 2020

First off, congratulations RN!

I can echo many things from the previous post. I used Kaplan and had very similar results and feelings regarding the process. I have a close study group total of five classmates. We all have done or are in the process of doing Kaplan. So far three of us have passed the NCLEX at 60 questions. Should know the results for #4, who also ended at 60, tomorrow. The process works if you go through all the steps.

I also supplemented with simple nursing videos for certain pathophysiology topics and ATI texts. Still doesn't feel real but I am a registered nurse. Been a long six years of prerequisites and the program.