Senior Nursing Student NCLEX Problems

[laurster1991]

Hey Guys~

I'm having a bit of an issue...I go to a pretty subpar soon-to-lose-it's-accreditation nursing school and I'm in my last semester there and I graduate in May. Right now, I'm taking a review class (Hurst- it focuses mainly on content review versus question based strategies) that has become a part of the core-classes because our pass-rates have been so bad. I'm in week three of the class and so far it's barely covered or touched on the material needed to learn for the boards.

On top of that, I feel like I did not learn 1/4 of the material covered in the review sessions when I took Med-Surge or Pediatrics or Maternity so i feel like I'm drowning. I know I will have to wait to learn and teach myself everything once I get out of school, but right now I study with 3 text book (Med-Surge Made Incredibly Easy!, The Hogan Med-Surge Review book, and the Hurst review book) and take a bunch of notes for each disease from each book and put it down in a notebook on paper and study the diseases that way.

After I feel like I've gotten a handle on the disease process, nursing interventions/assessment, etc I start doing practice questions. The problem is...I get over 3/4 of the practice questions wrong and I'll do 100-200 per subject for the "practice quizzes" we do every week. (Example: This week I'm doing GI and Ortho, so I have studied the GI diseases in the Hurst Review book that I'll be tested on and have done over 100 practice questions).

I start NCLEX tutoring next week but, for the last 3 years, I've barely passed nursing school (never failed any classes) but I feel like I'd put in 30 hours for one test, do a lot of practice questions per topic, and still end up close to failing. I take my time reading the stems of the questions, highlight them and figure out what the question is asking on paper, and take my time, but I feel like I just don't know how to answer a question and I don't know the material. To be honest...It's been really self defeating since I'm in my last semester of nursing school and it's expected that I should be doing better at this point, know my material, and actually be ready or feel ready for my boards.

I just cry all the time because I don't have the confidence to pass my boards nor do I feel like I will pass my boards and I'm at my breaking point and I just don't know what to do! My teachers keep telling me to practice more questions, but as you can see that has been doing me a whole lot of nothing! We don't have tutors available at my school either for NCLEX tutoring or Med-Surge tutoring. Don't worry I've already explored that option. I just don't know what more I could do. I know I am going to make the best nurse ever and it's been my dream since I was 13 but yes, if anyone has advice or some way to change my perspective on this or give me some thread of hope I'd appreciate it. I'm willing to do anything for my dream but I feel like I'm so limited right now.

Thanks~

~Laurian

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

HI! ((HUGS))

Breathe....I moved your thread to the NCLEX forum. Someone will be along to help!

[meeky71]

Hi Laurian

Firstly very well done for getting this far to never have failed any classes. I don't know if I can be any help ... but I will try even if it is just to provide some morale support. I am a UK nurse and I successfully passed NCLEXRN in April of last year. We don't have any access here in the UK to NCLEX review classes other than those you do online and those I found were ridiculously priced, money I did not have to spare so, my only option was to self review.

The book I used was Saunders Comprehensive review NCLEX RN and I went through each and every chapter making notes, some chapters I found easier than others, the pharmacology sections I think I found the worst given the different names of drugs to those I am used to dealing with here in the UK. And like yourself I found myself struggling with the questions that the CD that came along with the book. I found that if I used Maslows hierarchy of needs and in conjunction with Kaplan's decision making tree I found that I was more able to answer the questions correctly. But I carried on through the book bit by bit, I found that some chapters made sence right away some I needed to go over a few times. I also used Youtube there are a good amount of NCLEX RN titbits on there that I found helpful.

Another website page I found was on facebook page below

https://www.facebook.com/pages/NCLEX-RN-notes-and-QA/409550572405093?fref=ts

This page has lots of pictorial breakdowns of diseases and I found these useful (for me it had been a long time since nursing school) and coming from a different country it meant in some aspects having to change the way my thought processes were and my role as an RN, as there are things here US RN's don't do and vice versa.

Don't give up keep going at it, I had days where I never thought I would pass my NCLEX especially as all the stuff I had been reading was since they had raised the bar on the passing standard more people were failing, But I did and you will too.

Hope this helps, even if just a little

xx

[XNavyCorpsman]

Take a deep breath, nursing school is difficult. The NCLEX is not a difficult test. Go in with a positive attitude and you will pass. Read each question carefully and eliminate two of the answers. Reread the question and than eliminate one of the remaining answers. You are NOT done yet. Reread the question one more time and ask yourself if the answer makes sense. The last step is very important. Do not rush through the test, take your time. You would rather take your time and pass at 75-100 questions than do 265 and maybe fail.