Passed in 75 questions and 45 minutes

[mmm_016RN]

I've been a long time lurker on the site and thought I would pass on my strategies when I passed...

I graduated in April in Canada and basically started studying the day after. At first my studying was really unfocused and I didn't know how to start. I did the NCLEX Mastery app which I liked as well as the Lippincott app, and just random reading. I probably wouldn't call that month intense "studying".

In May I made myself a study plan divided into topics (i.e. peds, maternity, cardiac, etc.). 1-2 week per topic. Then for those weeks I accessed any resource I could find about that topic...I used Khan academy, the apps I mentioned, Saunder's textbook, youtube videos, and NCSBN, and anything else I could find. I did basically an overall content review.

For the month before the exam, I primarily reviewed meds (my weak point), and used the Kaplan Q Bank, for which I got a 1 month membership. I also have the LaCharity book which I found VERY helpful. I did about 75 questions a day, sometimes more.

Out of all the resources I sampled, what worked best for me was the Kaplan Q bank and the LaCharity book. That being said, I think you need to understand the basics of content before the questions can do anything for you. If I didn't do the content review, I wouldn't have gotten as much out of the questions.

To those studying, my suggestion is based on my own experience...do a content review (especially if you haven't taken some of those core classes for a while), then focus on questions and understand why you got a questions wrong AND why you got a question right. I like Kaplan questions better than Saunders text or the apps that I used. If you are debating what resources to get, I recommend Kaplan and LaCharity.

I wrote the exam yesterday and passed in 75 questions which took me 45 minutes (I've always been a fast test taker). When I left I wasn't sure how I felt but the questions were very similar to Kaplan.