3rd Time's a Charm!

Published Jan 26, 2015

3 Posts

So I am officially a licensed RN! It took me 3 times, but I persevered. God's timing is everything. If you have failed the NCLEX, do not despair. I failed twice! Pick yourself back up and get back in the mix. If you didn't pass, I recommend not waiting months before re-taking it again. If you've failed, pay the fee to test again as soon as possible. Lay off the books for a week or two, but don't waste no time. You just don't want to get stale. It took me 3 1/2 months before taking my 2nd test. On my 2nd test, I spent 5 hours and 265 questions only to find out I failed days later. I paid the fee immediately. I literally received my ATT 45 days after sending payment. My focus coming off that 2nd test was high. I knew I was close so I didn't wait long to start reviewing. My third time taking the test was the charm!

I will share with you what worked for me and what didn't work for me. I purchased all different reviews such as Hurst, NCSBN, and Kaplan. I bought tons of books. Talk about information overload. If you can afford the Hurst Review, I definitely recommend the Hurst Videos for content review. Kaplan sucks! Tons of questions if you want to spend over $300. You're better off getting Lippincott's Q&A NCLEX Review. NCSBN has good questions for review. I only ran through the questions portion. Reading the content was just so dry.

Here are the resources I used to help me pass.

Watch Hurst videos for content review.

Awesome websites for questions and content:

http://www.dentalarticles.com/nclex/ - Good quality questions. FREE!

Exams For Nursing - NCLEX Nursing Exams - Home - This website is Bomb.com! and it's FREE to access!

Utilize NCLEX Phone App RN Mastery when on the go. Best NCLEX review app by far!

Utilize ATI Skills Modules to review skills. Login to ATI and run through at least 1 or 2 skills/day!!

ATI books: Nursing Leadership and Management, Community Health Nursing, and Nutrition for Nursing. I got these books with my bundle pack. These books are super short, but are worth reading. Trust me!

Prioritization, Delegation, and Assignment by LaCharity - Must have book to review before exam!!!

Lippincott's Q&A Review is good. I would use it if you feel the need for more questions or you can't afford the Hurst Review.

50-75 questions a day with rationale review is sufficient. Don't overdue it with trying to complete as many questions as you can without understanding the rationale of each question.

Also, I had a dry erase board in front of me with all normal lab values while I studied. Great way to memorize lab values. Got some good mnemonics from this website. Learned a great way to memorize immunization schedule from here as well. Some of the things I memorized and reviewed: Cranial nerves, Apgar, Glasgow, Burn %, transmission precautions, med math/conversions, medication classes (at least memorized suffixes and class), reviewed cardiac strips and what meds to use with each arrhythmia, VEAL CHOP, Erikson's stages, Kubler Ross stages, child development, etc. Practice writing stuff you remembered down on some scratch paper. Good way to gauge what you truly memorized. Remember, you will get a dry erase board/marker during the test. Utilize it!

Focus is key! Getting a good nights rest, waking up energized, staying away from social media i.e.. FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, etc.. Sometimes going to the library to study away from the COMFORTS of your home is a good idea. Mix it up.

One last thing, prayers always help! Claim your victory and know that God is Good!