Passed in 75 questions

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Hello everyone! I found out about ten minutes ago that I passed NCLEX-RN in 75 questions, and I told myself that I would share with everyone how I studied so you all can pass too!

So I graduated on May 15th 2015. I took the weekend to celebrate and then hit the books hard the following Monday, the 18th. I started with core content, from the Hurst Review Videos. These took longer than I had thought, but they were great. I did this for about 1.5-2 weeks. During this 1.5 weeks I would take 75 Questions from the Kaplan Question Bank.

After the Hurst Reviews, I strictly did Kaplan. About 150 Q's a day, because any more than that and I would forget how to read. I would then immediately re-mediate the questions I got wrong. After I finished all the Kaplan Study Banks, and Trainers, I would create exams with the questions I got "incorrect" in Kaplan. This helped review old content that I hadn't seen in weeks.

I took my NCLEX on Monday, June 22nd and passed with 75 Questions. I know that people say SATA questions have no indication on how well your're doing. But I got 29 SATA and 4 drag and drop.

I found out that I passed through the Arizona Board of Nursing the next day at 1030 am.

Kaplan prepared me the most, it was great and amazing. Doing as many questions as possible is what is super important for preparation. On my trainer 7 I got a 65%, and on y trainer 6 I got a 54%. On the rest of my study bank exams I would range from 54%-69%.

You got this everyone! Questions Questions Questions!

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Congratulations and WELCOME to the new RN club!!

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Congrats! Hoping in two days I will see a pass with my quick results :)

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.

Wow

Compared to "back in the day" when we used pencils and paper and had to answer all of the questions.

It is difficult for me to wrap my head around the notion that 75 questions can evaluate the global nursing knowledge of a new graduate.

Congratulations on your pass.

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It's not really about global nursing, it's about seeing if you have the MINIMAL skills needed to be a competent new nurse. They're not expecting us to be expert nurses right away.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
It's not really about global nursing, it's about seeing if you have the MINIMAL skills needed to be a competent new nurse. They're not expecting us to be expert nurses right away.

I understand that new grad nurses are not expected to be expert, yet, they are supposed to have a comprehensive understanding of the professional practice of a nurse and I find it hard to imagine that 75 questions adequately demonstrates that.

On the other hand, I am old, and you should understand that I had to get out of my chair to change tv channels and walked up hill both ways to school...and had to sit for my state boards with pencil and paper.

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Specializes in Hospice.
I understand that new grad nurses are not expected to be expert, yet, they are supposed to have a comprehensive understanding of the professional practice of a nurse and I find it hard to imagine that 75 questions adequately demonstrates that.

On the other hand, I am old, and you should understand that I had to get out of my chair to change tv channels and walked up hill both ways to school...and had to sit for my state boards with pencil and paper.

Thank you, I've been wondering the same thing myself. We weren't expected to be experts right out of the gate, either, but we WERE expected to have a basic knowledge of a wide range of material.

I keep asking myself, "Do I really want to be given Nursing care by someone who earned their license based on the 'minimum amount necessary?'." What if what I have isn't part of that minimum information set, and the nurse has no clue?

But maybe I'm just being a worrywart. When I sat Boards in Chicago, it was in the parking garage of McCormack Place, with 250 other applicants and these huge industrial fans set into the walls. Took 2 days, using pencil and paper. Five books, Medical, Surgical, Pediatrics, OB and Psych. Had to finish each book. Had to pass all 5 to get your license. Had to wait 6 weeks to get the results via snail mail.

I don't know about you, but that experience REALLY made me feel like I had truly earned by RN license.

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On the other hand though, the information we are learning in school now is the most current, updated information there is on the profession of nursing. I'm not saying we're as competent as those who have been nursing for dozens of years, but I do think it's unfair to call us minimal nurses who you all would be afraid to have us be your nurses.

They say the nclex is the hardest it's ever been, and it continues to get harder. Just because some pass in only 75 questions, it doesn't mean those who took a 200+ questions back in the day were more knowledgable then us as new graduates. The test has evolved to allow us to receive harder questions to measure our competency, in a shorter amount of time.

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Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.

Yes, you guys are being worry warts (as well as sounding so crusty someone needs to take a wire brush to your bat wings).

NCLEX has been doing it this way for at least the past 15 years. And yet, they've still managed to produce very competent, safe nurses.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
On the other hand though, the information we are learning in school now is the most current, updated information there is on the profession of nursing. I'm not saying we're as competent as those who have been nursing for dozens of years, but I do think it's unfair to call us minimal nurses who you all would be afraid to have us be your nurses.

They say the nclex is the hardest it's ever been, and it continues to get harder. Just because some pass in only 75 questions, it doesn't mean those who took a 200+ questions back in the day were more knowledgable then us as new graduates. The test has evolved to allow us to receive harder questions to measure our competency, in a shorter amount of time.

I don't want to turn this into some sort of a "contest", but, we all were trained with the most up to date information there was on the profession of nursing. How do you know that your questions are "harder" than the questions I answered?

The bottom line is that what is minimally required in order to be licensed today is quite a bit different from my day. It is difficult to imagine that 2 days of testing with hundreds of questions is an equivalent measure of knowledge to 75 questions total.

I'm not "worried", I just don't leave my loved ones alone in hospitals or other inpatient settings.

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