Tips for RN who cannot pass NCLEX

[jax777]

My wife got her RN degree in Asia in 2008; afterwards, she worked in nurse administration and medical research until 2013 which did not include hands-on patient care. Upon moving to the U.S. she is required to retake the NCLEX to practice as an RN here.

On her first attempt, she used the current Kaplan book & CD. On her second try, Kaplan Online and she scored "Near Passing" in all categories. This week, she had their third failure preparing strictly with UWorld Online and Mark Klimek 3-Day audio review. Her main complain was that the questions she had studied were totally different than what she encountered on the actual test.

I would imagine that the NCLEX would be much more difficult for someone who graduated from nursing school eight years ago and from a different country. Anyone have tips on how she can better prepare (methods & materials), how many hours she should be studying daily, and how many months she should wait before retaking NCLEX?

[RNyelper]

I think based off of her main complaint, she was expecting for the uworld and Kaplan questions to come out on the NCLEX. This is never the issue, I studied uworld for 2 months every single day and practically memorized all the questions, yet not one single question came out on the NCLEX. BUT, the rationales of knowing why I got a question wrong or correct are far more valuable than the question itself, which made the NCLEX very easy. If you try to memorize questions without really knowing the concept in depth, then theres no real chance in getting a similar question correct.

[pekto.RN]

I got my nursing degree in the Philippines, graduated 1994. Moved here in the states and worked in an office for a sustained number of years. After a little over 10 years of office work with no bedside nursing care experience, I decided to review for NCLEX-RN. Used UWorld for one month and challenged the boards after. I passed.

UWorld questions are very similar to the nclex question. I have no doubt your wife can pass this time.