Scores higher on UWorld than Kaplan. Should I drop one?

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Specializes in Cardiac.

I have 13 days until I test. I have Kaplan, NCSBN, and UWorld in my orificenal of testing resources (as well as other books that I use as resources/strategy).

Today I took the Kaplan Readiness test (I haven't taken the 2 UWorld Self Assessments yet) and I scored in the 50s. I found that I'm scoring higher in my UWorld QBank than in Kaplan. With 13 days left, how should I move forward to ensure that I'm preparing the best for this exam? Would dropping Kaplan or focusing solely on Kaplan be good?

I've seen people on here say that UWorld is just like the NCLEX and the same with Kaplan, but I find the two question styles to be very different.

FYI: I study daily, aiming for 60-120 questions a day (splitting equally between UWorld and Kaplan) and I remediate. So, remediation isn't the issue.

Any relevant advice as I near towards the test date would be helpful!

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I'm in the same boat! To me, UWorld's questions are much more clearly written, even though they require the same level of knowledge and critical thinking. My UWorld scores are pretty good, my Kaplan scores are making me feel discouraged. :-/ I'll be following.

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Specializes in CVICU, CCRN.

Personally, out of the two I believe Kaplan is by far the more superior of the two. Because of Kaplan, I was able to pass flying colors - 75 questions within an hour. Kaplan is great for the critical thinking questions, uworld has a lot of knowledge questions? Which to be honest, is useless in nclex. Kaplan is harder yes, especially their practice questions, but because of it I sailed through the nclex. I felt the nclex was one of the easiest tests of my life all because of Kaplan.

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Congratulations- may I ask what your Kaplan scores were like (including the QBank)?

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Flourish, it sounds like your test date is a couple weeks before mine- I hope you will update us!

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Specializes in CVICU, CCRN.
Congratulations- may I ask what your Kaplan scores were like (including the QBank)?

Mostly mid 60s to high 60s! Almost never got 70s, and I believe I did get high 50s on one qbank! :) good luck!

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Specializes in Cardiac.

Hey! Quick update -- so I think I found out what *my* problem was. I took UWorld's Self Assessment 1 today and got a really low score. It got me down especially since my test date is sooner than soon! After remediating I noticed that 9 of the questions I got wrong, I changed my answer. With my Kaplan Readiness test, I changed 11 from right to wrong. That's a huge jump in score.

For now, I'm moving forward with using both and trying to focus on being sure of each answer (any tips on this are more than welcomed). I'm still doing 60 of each QBank, but honestly I feel like UWorld saves me remediation time because their explanations are thorough.

When do you test @malaz?

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Good for you! I wish I could nail down a strategy change that would improve my scores, but according to Kaplan I'm more likely to change answers from incorrect to correct so I know that's not my issue.

I am just *so* frustrated with these Kaplan questions, I think they are really badly written and I don't get much from the rationales ... but I do plan to finish their Qbank and trainers (have completed all but one) since I already finished the UWorld Qbank. I'm also going to do LaCharity and go back over my flagged UWorld questions as time allows.

I test in late August, I hesitate to say the date because I'm actually hoping to change it- it took FOREVER to get my ATT and there were no available test dates in my city that worked for me.

Best of luck!!!

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