RhythmicCandy

I'm a little less than 1 year as a nurse working on a telemetry unit in relatively small suburban hospital. I dislike dealing with patient care for 12 hour shifts. I don't like the maintenance feel about it in terms of patient care. You're too focused on bowel movements, urinary continence and skin checks. On top of that you have 5-6 patients, more often than not 6, and you need to coordinate and complete all the assessments/charting and medications and performing in between any necessary interventions like placing Foley catheters, NG tubes, IVs, etc. I'm frustrated that you are depended upon to be a patient advocate yet you're assigned too many patients on an understaffed floor and have too many tasks to complete and perform, including trivial tasks like labeling IV tubing date change times. Looking up lab values and other results is put on hold sometimes and I'm not able to critically think about my patient's care. The biggest thing of all for me is dealing with the personalities of patients. Too many patients have nasty attitudes, demanding, anxious. And when you're with someone 12 hrs out of the day you need to constantly help perform activities of daily living for them. I get drained and exhausted after doing this nor do I have the patience to deal with everyone's individual personalities. I understand patients are needy and are sick and not able to care for themselves in some circumstances but I also recognize that this is not necessarily the type of work I want to perform for 12 hrs, three days a week. I'm interested in NP, CRNA, and even Flight Nursing. I think I would enjoy taking care of acutely ill patients stabilizing them and then transferring them to the next stage of care. I'm currently and EMT part time which I enjoy very much because you don't know what type of situation you're going to get yourself into. I also like that you can help address the pertinent problem and then pass off the maintenance side of the patient care to the bedside, or medsurg nursing. I have actually moved my work schedule at the hospital to only weekends so I can pursue a certification as a Paramedic because I enjoy the pre-hospital side so much. I do want to stay in nursing and continue my nursing education in ways where I can have a more influential role in treating or helping the patient as opposed to more maintenance like care. But I do want to have an exciting day each time I got into work. And I do want to earn more money. The payscale for RNs does not compensate for the amount of work they do. This is why I have expressed interest in NP, CRNA, and Flight Nursing. If anyone can lend me some advice I would be open to your thoughts. Thank you

@RNsRWe Awesome, yeah everyone should definitely check out NCSBN to have all questions answered and should of course review the information provided on the website prior to sitting for the NCLEX. Both this forum and NCSBN provide valuable information and support for students. The NCLEX truly is a unique exam in it's own right.

@RNsRWe I don't mean to say that having a higher percentage of SATA (select all that apply) in the first 75 is an ultimate sign of success. It's the first time that it has been brought to my attention to hear of students having passed in 75 questions with only one or two SATA. I could frame the discussion for the purpose of merely questions our own understanding of how the exam is governed from another perspective and ask have you ever heard of anyone failing in 75 questions with all 75 alternate format questions. I'm pulling my from own experiences and the experiences of those I know who took the exam to draw up some sort of construct of how I think the exam operates. Of course doing so is inherently flawed because of my limited extent of knowledge and understanding of the operations and function of the exam. With that being said I think you (RNsRWe) and me are both trying to speculate and we can do only that, speculate. We don't have any definitive concert proof to back up our thoughts, we are merely going off our own experiences in addition to those of students we know who sat for the exam. So unless one of us is the inside man or woman who gets to write this "monster" of a test we can only share our exhausting, strenuous recollections with other passionate, dedicated individuals here on allnurses.com. I'm glad we could come to this forum to discuss such things and share with others our thoughts.

@suzw Sounds like you'll do fine based on what your scores indicate. You should feel confident for your exam. @RNsRWe You're right that just because a question is an alternate format doesn't necessarily mean it is a higher level question perhaps I didn't clearly distinguish that in my original post. The last question on my exam was a multiple choice question to further prove the point. And just like you said I was that far into the test because I still needed to prove competency, that's why it's important to aim for Kaplan scores upwards of 60% so you're not hovering on that passing line. It's a general educated assumption that the higher percentage of alternate format questions would be a higher level question because if you break down the question it's really six true or false questions combined in one. The question format makes it more difficult to answer the question correct in it's entirety. I took the Kaplan question set that was only alternate format and scored a 30% compared to my average scores of around 55%. Again, another generality but those who usually pass in 75 questions have a greater percentage of alternate format questions in some cases around 40 and even all 75 questions. This observation is not to dissuade from that fact that you stated that alternate format questions can be at any level. I hope I was able to clarify myself and my train of thought. I hope when you were reading my comments didn't come across as close minded or ignorant to an obvious well known function of the exam. I know my original post, much like this post was long, and I hope it was read with attentiveness towards my attempt to express my experiences thoroughly in writing. Thank you both for adding to the discussion.

buttercupp85, I wholeheartedly agree. It's essential to stay poised during the exam and stay positive. It's very important to review the Kaplan answers; however, many students think the rationales of the answers can be vague and incomplete. I've watched an episode of the TV show Brain Games on National Geographic Channel which relates to the importance of positive thinking. The examiners blind folded a woman while she took free throw shots with a basketball. All of the 10 shots she took blindfolded she missed but a crowd of people made her believe she made every shot. After the blindfold was removed she took an additional 10 shots and improved her shooting percentage from her baseline of 10 shots in which she previously didn't have a blindfold or the support of the crowd. I think this concept of positive visualization can be applied other aspects of everyday life. Thanks for commenting.

Hello Everyone, I decided to join this forum today for the purpose of giving encouragement and hope to students with Kaplan scores in the 50s. I also wanted to discuss my experiences leading up to the exam and taking the exam. Some background, I graduated from an accelerated program with a BSN degree and performed well in school. Let me just say that because you were a good student in school doesn't necessarily translate to success on the Kaplan scores and the NCLEX results. I recently took the NCLEX for the first time this week and observed the "good pop up" from the Pearson Vue Trick (PVT) and paid for the 'Quick Results' and found out I passed after 225 questions in 4 hours. So I guess you could say the PVT still works and that the same was true for my friends who also tried the trick and passed. My Kaplan scores: Question Trainer # 1: 57.3% 2: 41.3% 3: 47% 4: 52% 5: 54.7% 6: 55% 7: 55.5% Completed all of the qbank questions and scored 52%. I continued to do the qbank questions for practice again even after completing them all. Pre Exam Studying: I was struggling to improve my scores for the entire month and a half I spent before my exam. I usually spent about 3 hours a day studying doing about 75 qbank questions and going over content in the Kaplan review book. I went through the book cover to cover twice (I wouldn't necessarily recommend it but it's how I always prepared for exams). The last week and a half I was putting in 6-8 hours a day of studying content and review questions and completing the Question Trainers. I completed Question Trainer 7 four days before my exam. My Kaplan instructor recommend at least a 60% on the Question Trainer 7 before you sit for the exam, obviously I ignored that. I was confident because my friends were scoring in the same range on their Kaplan questions, maybe they were in the upper 50s or low 60s. I also knew the pass rate for first time NCLEX test takers with a BSN is about 85% pass rate. In other words I knew the exam was hard to fail, and thought to myself is there some much of a difference between 60% from low 50% on Kaplan questions. Exam: So I sat for the exam but I anticipated I would go beyond 75 questions because I didn't have overwhelmingly impressive Kaplan results. After 150 questions I started getting nervous and frustrated. As I approached 200 questions I concluded that I was probably around the passing line. I drew this conclusion because I hadn't failed yet and I figured the more alternate format questions (higher level passing questions) a test taker received the better they were doing. Well my last three questions before the exam shut off were two alternate format questions and a multiple choice question which I felt very confident I had answered correctly. When I left the exam after 4 hours I was pretty confident I had passed and the "good pop up" from the PVT reinforced my confidence. Advice: -Take your time on the exam, try to settle in when taking the exam and take frequent breaks. -Aim for Kaplan scores in the 60s -Focus on the decision tree and answering questions rather than content -Take Question Trainer 7 it prepares you mentally for sitting for 265 questions If you have any questions or comments I would love to respond. Best of luck to everyone