OhSorryYo

I wouldn't recommend my studying style to others because it is just too... simplistic.... But basically I did the live review, and then studied the Hurst book for 2 weeks straight. Read 250~ pages, front to back, from fluid volume & electrolytes to management & delegation, then again the next day, but in reverse (management & delegation to fluid volume & electrolytes). Some days I would be too tired to read the entire thing so it would take me 2 days, but I still probably read it in its entirety about 10 times. I spent about a week studying the online documents. Went through all the documents and then took a Q-review once a day, studying all the rationales afterwards. The day before my test, I read the Hurst book its entirety one last time. I never re-watched any of the videos from the live review, and watched the specialty topic videos only once. The only "trick" I used was writing all the lab values on an index card and keeping it in my pocket so I could read them while I was away from my study materials. As for drugs, it was just pure memorization. Knowing that the NCLEX would only use the generic name rather than both like how it was in school, it was like I was a baby in pharmacology all over again. I didn't bother trying to learn why a certain drug caused a side effect that I didn't know about beforehand. While I never did them myself, I would highly recommend doing practice questions with rationales every day that you study (NCSBN, Saunders, Kaplan, etc.) It is pretty much the norm to do 100-200 a day in preparation. If had not passed my first time, my plan would have been to do practice questions for 45 days with maybe Hurst materials once a week.

I recently graduated from a BSN program in early December and made the horrible decision of not studying for the NCLEX immediately afterwards. I procrastinated for about a month, thinking I had plenty of time to study after I finish celebrating the graduated life. I almost had the idea of just winging it, thinking that I probably retained the majority of my 2 years of nursing school education, and that I could save money by not buying review books. It wasn't until mid-January that I realized the majority of my class had taken some sort of review course, with the majority of them taking the 3-day live Hurst Review. After about 5 minutes of regretting all the time I wasted, I signed up for the next available class. By the time the 3 days of review were over, some of my classmates had already began taking their exams. And here I was, still needing to study the material. I scheduled my NCLEX to be 2 and a half weeks from that day and spent the next 2 weeks cramming the entire book in my head. Reading all 250~ pages in a single day, going to sleep, and then waking up to do it all over again. About 2 days before my test, I was sure I knew my stuff, but I decided to take one of the 6 online practice tests that Hurst gives you. I made a 62%, and I freaked out. Turns out Hurst had some extra documents online that they didn't discuss in the live review, including DRUGS. I quickly rescheduled my NCLEX for the next week so I can cram the information from the extra documents in my head. I was also doing a practice test every day and getting 62-65% each time. Hurst's website stated that people who get 84/125 (67%) usually pass the NCLEX and I felt horrible that I wasn't able to exceed that score even once. When the test day finally arrived, I left my house 2 hours in advance to give me plenty of time to find the testing center and get comfortable, maybe even go over a few notes. Then something terrible happened, I got horribly lost because my GPS brought me to the wrong place. After about 30 minutes of driving around the area trying to find it. I was finally able to find the real location using my phone and it was 20 minutes away. Combined with downtown traffic of everyone trying to get to work, it was a 40 minute drive. I arrived at the testing center at 7:59 AM and my test was at 8:00. The first couple of questions were pretty basic, and I thought "this is going to be a breeze". This was my first experience with computerized adaptive testing, and about half an hour in, I was thinking "this is f@#%ing harddd". As I was nearing 75 questions, I remembered someone telling me "if your test stops at 75, it either means you did really good, or really bad". At that point, I was pretty unsure with my performance and was hoping it would give me more questions to let me know I was still in the game. It shut down at 75. The entire thing took about 1 hr. 50 min, I had around 15 SATAs, 10 "exhibit" questions, 1 ordered response, 1 visual, and no medication calculations. The drive back home was a mix of uneasiness and relief. I admit that I threw up a little, but that may have been due to a mix of post-test anxiety and the energy drink I chugged before the test. I spent about 3 hours on nursing forums to see if I could figure out what my chances of passing was at 75 questions. I told myself that the silver lining was getting a refund from Hurst since I didn't pass the first time, and I could use that money to pay for another test, and maybe buy other books like Saunders or Kaplan. The anxiety was controlled until I could check the quick results, and 2 days later... I PASSED! It was such a relief that I didn't have to go through that entire process again, and I just had to share this to give hope to those who recently took their test and didn't feel confident in how they did. On to bigger and better things!