melj0505

you're never going to feel like you're 100% ready to take the test. i didn't use kaplan to study for my nclex at all. i didn't have $$ to pay for an expensive review course. i bought a couple of reviews books on amazon for cheap :) i used the saunders compr. review for nclex, the lacharity book you mentioned, and a lippincott review book. as soon as i received my ATT, i went online and signed up for the first available date to test. personally, i just wanted to get it over. no point in driving myself nuts! oh and i passed on the first try :) good luck!

from my experience, yes, you will still be doing baths, linen changes, etc. as an RN. as others posted ahead of me, you may not always have a CNA working on the floor. so guess who has to do the bedpans for your patients? you! i think it's important you to realize that tasks such as bed baths, etc. are taught in nursing fundamentals 101 (or whatever your school calls it) because they are the foundation of your nursing practice! think about it..giving a pt a bath helps you perform a thorough skin assessment (any pressure sores? breakdown? bruising? how does that wound dressing look?). turning a pt. in bed can give you a chance to listen to their lungs (are they clear? is he taking full breaths?). assisting w/ toileting can give you an understanding of the pt's elimination patterns (is he constipated? when was his last BM? does he need some colace? what do his stools look like?). sometimes we only have 1 CNA on our floor. our floor holds 30 pts. so if we have a full house, i try to help out our CNA w/ doing any of the cares for my patients myself. the other day, i had 5 patients on my load, 1 was total and 1 was partial assist. the other 3 were self care. of course i did those 2 cares myself bc i knew my CNA was busy with 25 other pts! i think it's important to take care of your CNAs and help them out whenever you can..b/c one day you'll need them to return the favor :) don't become that nurse who think she's above helping a pt off the bedpan! you don't want to give yourself that kind of rep!

i couldn't afford kaplan (or any other review course that costs hundreds of dollars) either. i studied on my own and passed the first try. trust yourself!! i bought a couple of review books on half.com and amazon.com. all of them looked brand new when i got them in the mail but cost much less than buying them at places like barnes&nobles. not saying there's anything wrong w/ buying from bookstores like that but when you're tight on money like me you have to go the cheaper route :) anywho..try saunders comprehensive nclex review book. it's big and blue and that thing is godsent. seriously. i also used the prioritization book by lacharity and a lippincott review book. and look through the thread "random fact throwing." i tried to read a few posts on that thread every day before taking nclex. i really think that helped me pass bc the posts(most of them) are simple sentences that stick in your head on various topics. good luck.

I was distraught over whether to take an NCLEX review course or not after I graduated. Two weeks before my graduation, my school gave us a 3 day review course by a company called ERI. Most people haven't heard of them. The review was okay..I didn't feel it helped much but they did give us a useful book that help guide my studying this summer. Anywho..I decided to NOT take Kaplan or Hurst or any review courses. I didn't have hundreds of dollars to spend and one of my professors who knew me well told me that I would be fine without it. She told me I always did well on tests so I would be fine (even though in the back on my head I knew that plenty of people do well in school like me but thenhave trouble passing NCLEX so it was hard to trust her words!!) I made up my own study plan that worked for me and used a couple of review books and passed NCLEX on the first try :) So basically in my rambling you may do just fine without a review course..don't take one just bc you feel like everyone else is.

i got 7-8 SATA. maybe a couple more. i hate them..85% of the time i'd get them wrong when i was doing practice questions. i think everyone hates them because if you don't check one of the answers then the whole answer is wrong! grrr.

you are awesome!! congrats!!:nmbrn:

just found out with my unofficial results that i passed!!! i am no more worrying!! at like my earlier posts said the trick worked for me and wouldn't let me pay to reregister :)

I took my nclex this AM at 8 o'clock and the trick worked for me around 1 in the afternoon. I know how you feel with feeling like you got the easy questions wrong. When I got home I looked up everything I could remember and it seemed like I got the harder questions right and the easier ones wrong. Weird. I got 7-8 SATA, NO MATH (grr my strong point), one drag and drop 'put procedure in order' question, and quick a few peds and pysch questions!! I was surprised because everyone I talked to told me they got hardly any peds. Computer shut off at 75 questions. Good luck everyone I know how stressed everyone is! :heartbeat

seems like we both have gotten good news today. i don't think i've ever been more stressed in my life before today. i have tried the trick a few times today and kept getting the popup to contact the state board. i'm still anxious to get my quick results on wednesday. but at least the trick helped take the edge off! hope you're holding tight down there in georgia (even though the trick worked for you so you're probably a little more relaxed compared to how we were this AM). do you guys get quick results in your state?

finally says 'delivery successful' on my pearsonvue account. i tried to reregister and the gray box came up saying to contact my state board or whatever & wouldn't let me go to the payment page. i hope this trick is right for me!

I took them in Pennsylvania ay 8am. I was out by 9am. I keep checking pearsonvue every 5 minutes waiting to see "delivery successful" i think i'm more nervous now with the waiting than i was before i took the stupid test!!:uhoh21:

thanks for the reply. i took mine at 8am and it still says 'ready for delivery.' seems like everyone else's said 'delivery successful' immediately after they took the exam..except mine!

Alright so I'm freaking out here. I just took the Boards this AM for my RN license. I got 75 questions..walked out of there feeling like crap..now I feel like I'm going to throw up because I don't know what to think! When I log in, my recent appointment history states the time and place I took the exam and my status is "ready for delivery"(I don't really know what that means?!). I tried the trick and it didn't let me go to the credit card page. I was on the page that has you fill out your school information, what city your school is in, etc. and when I clicked 'next' this is what came up in a gray box "The candidate currently has an open registration for this exam. A new registration can not be created at this time." Like I said, it wouldn't let me go further to the payment page. However, it didn't say anything about "contacting my state board" like most other users on here have said. Can someone please help me out. My stomach won't stop turning!!

hehhehe:lol2:

I just graduated in May '09 with my BSN. Here's some tidbits that helped me survive nursing school.. Invest in a medical dictionary and a drug guide book. I probably wouldn't have survived school without those two resources! I have Taber's medical dictionary and Mosby's drug guide for nurses. Get about 30-40 index cards and write important lab values. WBC, RBC, Platelet count, BUN, H&H, INR, PT, PTT, ABG values, etc. You will always need to know these values so it's good to MEMORIZE them now! Take care of yourself. Drink lots of water. Get plenty of sleep (don't be a night owl like me!). Exercise..I do power yoga a few times a week. It helped/still helps me destress, stay fit, and clear my mind. It's addicting! I go running a lot too, which helped me in particularly in nursing school to burn off steam when I was annoyed at clinical instructors :angryfire Oh and it's never too early to start doing nclex review questions! Invest(if you have the $) in a couple of nclex review books so you can do lots of review questions! Good luck and enjoy the ride:smilecoffeecup: