jinki

People have shared stories of passing the NCLEX with very few SATAs as well as failing with lots of SATAs. Some of my SATAs kept asking about pretty basic infection control stuff. It did worry me that maybe I kept flubbing them, but fortunately, I was in a state of mind where that didn't really shake me too much during the test. (I used UWorld as a resource, and because UWorld is very similar to the NCLEX, there were times I'd forget I was taking the real thing so there were moments when I was inappropriately bored with the exam and just wanted to hurry it along lol) I know it's a LOT harder to do than to just say it, but I do agree with you that you should try your best to not stress out too much. (I wasn't very successful at that. I tried to play it cool, but I had more than the occasional urge to puke throughout the wait and random bursts of "WHY CAN'T THEY JUST LET ME KNOW RIGHT NOW." I would've preferred to be put on propofol until the results were out, really.) Silver lining! At least, it seems you're in a state where you get results in 48 hours! Some CA nurses have the pleasure of waiting WEEKS-- and the REALLY lucky ones even get to wait MONTHS-- to get their results! Imagine the thrill! lol

In nursing school, we were required to use an MDF MD One (~$60). During my last semester, I was able to detect an S3 heart sound that has never been documented on a patient. Much earlier in my schooling, I was able to take multiple manual BP readings in the middle of a VERY noisy fair using that same steth. I still hated it though. I wanted a Littmann! Alas, currently, I have an MDF Sprague X (~$60, but the specific color I like is on Amazon for $29.99 for some reason). I know of cardiologists who prefer the MDF Sprague X even over their Littmann Cardiology III (~$150) or Littmann Master Cardiology (~$180). My BF has a Littman Classic III (~$90), and it sucks compared to mine. Using my steth, heart and breath sounds are clear as day even over a shirt and a hoodie, and I don't have to hunt around for them. Bonus, MDF has a lifetime warranty. There's even a fairly old objective analysis of stethoscopes (google "The Ultimate Acoustic Stethoscope Review") where a $19 Omron Sprague beat all the other competitors (lots of Littmanns and other "elite brands" with some costing $130) except for the $160 Littmann Cardiology III, which took first place. If you do get an expensive stethoscope, make sure it's with you at all times. Stethoscopes-- especially expensive ones-- have a tendency to disappear in hospital units. I chose a stethoscope that performs well and won't make me cry when-- not if-- it disappears.

I passed at 75 questions. I had 0 answers I was 100% sure about. My last question was ridiculously easy (yet, I was just about....80% sure about it), and that kept haunting me-- did the CAT really think I was THAT dumb? Still, my immediate gut feeling was that I passed (I even knew it was going to shut off at 75 because heck, either I rocked the ~35 SATAs it kept giving me or bombed them so hard), then I realized that was a terrible feeling to have because I've been told that if you feel like you passed, then it means that you failed and vice versa. It was scary because I didn't even know what the heck else I'd do if I didn't pass, but I'd bet if things went that way, I'd figure something out...eventually. Fortunately, your opinion of your performance has no bearing on your actual performance-- even your board might not even know whether you passed or failed at this point. It's not over until you fail AND give up trying. Best of luck!

If you really want a 4.0, make sure you go to a school and choose instructors that make a 4.0 even feasible. I got a high B for my intermediate med-surg class. According to my instructor, percentage-wise, it was the highest grade anyone has received without repeating the course in the 7 years she has taught the class. Students have gotten A's in intermediate MS, but they had to fail it first. The problem is, in our program, you really want to save that one chance at failing for OB-- an entire class a couple semesters prior to mine all failed OB except for one student-- because your second F means getting expelled from the program and barred from all the nursing programs in the district. Even if you go outside the district, since intermediate MS and OB are in 3rd semester, good luck finding a program that won't make you do everything from scratch instead of just transferring your units in. OB is the first and only C I have ever received, and at no point did I care. I'm just glad I got through that minefield. Our school takes in 40 enrollees for first semester. I graduated with 18 other people-- the biggest batch of graduates in a long time. The prior batch had 9. I'm pretty sure no one ever gets out of our program with a 4.0. Oh, fun story, I know of a student who failed 4th semester student preceptorship. Since that was her second failing grade, she got expelled from the program less than two months before her expected graduation date. I and my friends literally tell prospective students who stop to ask us questions re: the program to go elsewhere, and go running. "It's too late for us, but you can still save yourself!" lol

Thanks to OP and the other nurses chiming on this thread! Other than attitude and personality issues, are there common mistakes or annoyances newbies make? It doesn't necessarily have to be strictly clinical. It could be something like, "they don't know how to use the phone." I know that was me during my first day as a student preceptee in my last nursing school semester. Nurse: (From across the unit) Are you talking to Dr X? I need to talk to him, too. Transfer him to me when you're done. Me: (Mouthing) I...I don't know how to do that. I'm sorry! ((( Nurse: Oh, Just press the button on top and press 2. *demonstrates it from a distance from which I have no hope of clearly discerning which button she's pushing* Me: *trying not to sound stupid to a doctor while deciding whether to play russian roulette with the 5 buttons on top or maybe she just means the topmost top button but maybe not because she could have said that or maybe it was implied but really there should be labels on this phone and it's really not that far of a walk for her is it?* Me: Doctor, Nurse Y needs to talk to you, too. Could you hold on while I pass the phone to her? *extends the phone, signalling Nurse Y to just walk over to me and use my phone please and sorry* Fortunately, I was WAY more annoyed by myself than she was. I just got a job offer as a new grad new hire in the DOU night shift (with 2 weeks of preceptorship during the day and another 2 during the night), and I'd like to make a good impression. Doubly so because I most likely got in because of a recommendation by a personal connection who works in the hospital where I'll be working, and I'd really hate to turn out to be a dud. Fortunately, none of the advice thus far has totally surprised me, so at least I have that going for me. I have to be actively encouraged to slack just the tiniest bit at work (though at home, I could as easily turn into a hobo sasquatch if left to my own devices), and un/fortunately, I've never had enough of a personality to stir drama. (Luckily, even the most cuckoo militant of instructors and nurses seem to take kindlyIto that!) I'll definitely ask how to use their phones.

New grad. Just realized I've been saying clo-pid-ro-gel instead clo-pi-dog-rel. My BF, also a new grad RN, jokingly calls me a know-it-all when I correct his pronunciation, but I would have REALLY loved it if someone corrected my pronunciation a long time ago. (Which is why I do the same for others-- it's seriously not out of malice!) Back in school, a lot of my classmates kept saying tachy-pee-nea. Oddly enough, some of them pronounce bradypnea just fine, though. At least be consistent and say brady-pee-nea! lol Oh, and when people spell Filipino as Phillipino (a post somewhere in this thread reminded me of it). For some reason, the word "Phillipino" looks like "hippo" to me! Then why don't you spell your country "Filipines" then? We kinda sorta did! We used to be called Las Islas Filipinas after King Felipe/Phillip II of Spain, then it got translated to English as the Philippine islands. And then more stuff happened and now spellings are weird.

I graduated last June (in case anyone thinks I went to a nursing school in the 60's), but we weren't even allowed to attend lecture (or enter the nursing building) if we weren't wearing our specific shade of royal blue scrubs, id badge, and solid black or white nursing shoes (with matching solid white or black socks, of course, ankle-length minimum, mid-calf length preferred, which some instructors actually do make you pull up your pants to check at random). That, even if you're just popping in for a minute to give the nursing office secretary paperwork or whatever. Oh, and our hoodies/cardigans should only be solid black, white or blue. If you plan to use it during clinicals, it has to have the school's badge on the left deltoid area. The girls were allowed to wear their hair down during lecture, but some instructors still gave sass to girls who do. One girl got chewed out when she bent down to pick something off the school hallway floor, and an instructor saw she was wearing a thong. lol In hindsight, it was actually convenient to not have to think of what to wear to class. I'd assume it's normal (but then again, I thought it was normal to wear scrubs to lecture), but a couple instructors would also lock students out of lecture if they're 15 minutes late-- some would fail you if you do that three times, or once, if you do it in clinicals. And you can never be absent. I mean, unless it's okay for you to fail, which you can only do twice (or just the one time during the first semester) until you're kicked off the program and barred entry from any nursing program in our district. Oh, and for clinicals, some instructors explicitly state that students should never ever sit down or else. Also, I had someone in my clinical group get kicked off the program for using a blue pen to fill out his NPW. To be fair, it was the second or third time he did it, and I was just like, "dude. what are you doing." Before I graduated, I heard that the department was planning an alumni dinner/fundraiser. I don't know how well that turned out. I appreciate the education-- and I ADORE some of the faculty, but I'm not in a hurry to be back there myself. The PTSD is still real. lol

Once you log in to your BreEZE account, the left column should have at least these two headers: License Activities, Applications. Under or after Applications, there should be a header labeled "View your application status". If your status is pending, it will label it as such. There will be a clickable button to view more details about your application. There's a chance that your application wasn't linked to your BreEZe account. To make sure that it is, click "Update Profile" on the upper right part of the page, then "Add licenses" on the lower right. If the application was correctly linked, and the status of your application has been closed (your application status can't be viewed), you should have already been issued a license. (The moment my app status disappeared, I had my license info on the upper right corner of my BreEZe account) Again, if the application was correctly linked, and the status of your application has been closed, AND you do not have a license issued to your name, it's not the most reassuring sign. For reference, I took the NCLEX-RN on 2/22 as you did (I ended it at 1300), and I was able to view my results on BreEZe at 0005 on 2/24, which amounts to about a 36 hour turnaround. Of course, people can and have had to wait longer.

The good pop up will say "Our records indicate that you have recently scheduled this exam. Another registration cannot be made at this time." If you see "The candidate currently has an open registration for this exam. A new registration cannot be created at this time" you might have done it too early. Did you wait at least 24 hours before doing the PVT? Allegedly, the 24 hours is crucial to account for the second scoring of the exam because a first scoring fail can become a second (and final) scoring pass.

That he got the bad pop-up isn't very reassuring. but people have reported passing despite getting the bad pop-up (given, some people have the wrong idea of a bad pop-up is). If he logs in to his BreEZe account, and he can still see his application status (pending/open), there's still hope he passed. Based on my experience, once the application status disappears, one should have a license if one passed. If he gets an ATT, that is definitely a bad sign.

I didn't take the NCLEX-RN until 8 months after graduation. I studied using UWorld for 2.5 weeks, and I passed with 75Q. It took a half a week of warming up to shake the cobwebs off my brain, but passing the NCLEX after being out of school and not studying for a long period of time is doable. Glad you managed to secure a space where you can study. Best of luck!

About the same. I found that UWorld's prioritization questions are bit more obvious than NCLEX prioritization questions, though. Adding another data point to devhrt12's post, I had UWorld average of 66% and passed in 75Q too. The NCLEX felt like just another UWorld practice test to me, and I had to remind myself to take it a bit more seriously a couple times throughout the test. lol

If your ATT does arrive on March 7th, you might be able to schedule an exam for as early as March 8th (when my s/o and I registered for the NCLEX months apart from each other, the next day was always available, likely due to people rescheduling their exams), and you might get a quick result by March 10th (based on my experience, even California now manages to issue licenses within 36 hours). If that timeline is a bit too tight for you, you can talk to your manager/supervisor and let them know about your situation. If they like you enough, they could just put you on leave until your results come in, as long as you take the exam before your GN permit expires.

You should have received two copies of your Candidate Performance Report, one for each time you missed the passing mark. Those reports will tell you specifically which areas you are below or near the passing standard. I would recommend you focus initially on areas where you consistently score below the passing standard then move on to areas where you consistently score near the passing standard. I agree with Kuriin that it sounds as if Saunders isn't working for you, and it's time to use alternative review material/s. I would suggest focusing more on practice questions over trying to re-learn everything that you learned in nursing school. You don't have to know everything to pass the NCLEX; you just have to know the important things. A good program will point you towards concepts that are more important to know over concepts that are less important to know, focusing your study. Additionally, a good program will have questions that are about as difficult as the NCLEX, which will make you feel accustomed to the challenge and help you remain composed throughout the test. I passed the NCLEX in 75Q in under an hour, and I primarily relied on UWorld, supplementing my study with LaCharity's Prioritization, Delegation and Assignment. I highly recommend UWorld. The questions are challenging and the rationales are concise and comprehensive. It's a good compromise between content review and practice test-taking.

I wouldn't put too much stock on the % correct rate for each individual item. I got "easy" questions wrong about as often as I'd get the "hard" ones right, and usually, how hard or easy a question is to me largely depends upon whether the information was presented to me in nursing school (e.g., our Peds was a joke, we were never taught traction, and we didn't talk about uterine rupture in OB, but our MedSurg and Critical Care academic and clinical exposure was strong) and/or whether I cared to retain the info (e.g., what a 6 month old is supposed to be able to do, stages of labor and what to expect). Oh, and re: "I would never be able to answer these types of questions...". I was VERY rarely even 70% sure of my answers throughout the NCLEX. 30 of the first 40 Qs were SATA, so good luck feeling confident about those. But, as I've said before-- maybe it's because of UWorld's interface looking very similar to the NCLEX or because of the level of difficulty I've become accustomed to-- I just went through the test thinking, "Welp. Heck if I know. I think you and you sound good so whatever next question. Oh, of course, another SATA; why not. WHATEVER." My attitude ever since nursing school has been if I still don't know the answer after a minute or two of looking over a question, I just pick whatever feels good because I'll never get more sure even if I stare at the question for a thousand years. I always tested in tutor mode because I wanted to know the correct concepts and commit them to mind while my train of thought is still on that subject. It works especially well if I flub on something easy or something totally off the wall because the frustration somehow helps the concepts stick in my head better!