Hey all, I've been browsing these boards for awhile prior to my NCLEX for good tips and advice, I took my NCLEX yesterday morning (scheduled it for 2 weeks after I received my ATT but I've been studying since I graduated) and stopped at 75 questions which took a little under an hour. I felt confident the whole way through and left the test center smiling. My feelings were confirmed after I got the good pop-up
I just wanted to give my advice for studying for those who have yet to take it.
1. First, unless you didn't pay attention in nursing school or have no clue what something is, DON'T waste time reviewing content. Your studying should consist of doing a minimum of 150-200 questions per day separated into sets of 50 questions each. Most importantly, you need to read each and every rationale thoroughly whether you got the answer right or wrong. The meat of the studying comes from reading the rationales for every single question that you do. Keep track of your daily score, mine averaged anywhere between 60-80% usually, but I wasn't too worried about a low score as long as I read the rationales and understood why I got it wrong.
2. Whatever study source you use, try to use no more than three or four so that you're not all over the place. First, I used LaCharity's priority and delegation book, this book is a MUST. Most of the NCLEX for me were priority questions and the level of difficulty in this book is similar to the real test.
The second source I used was Lippincott's Q&A Review for the NCLEX, it is basically just a huge Q&A book with over 5,800 questions and 6 full comprehensive tests at the end. I've been using this book since nursing school and I finished all the comprehensive tests while studying for the NCLEX; it definitely helped because I feel that the questions in Lippincott were of a higher difficulty than the NCLEX. The rationales are also unbelievably thorough also.
Lastly, I bought the NCLEX-RN review from learningext.com. You can choose to purchase a 3 week, 5 week, or 7 week course. The main point of using an online-review and Q&A is to become familiar of doing computerized questions. Learningext provides a review in addition to questions, but again I did not waste time reviewing. I did the pre-test, post-test, and all the comprehensive practice tests. Have an online question bank is very important because when I finally sat down for my NCLEX, the whole time it felt like I was simply doing online questions at home instead of a test center. Like Lippincott, the learningext questions were definitely harder than the real test so I felt very comfortable during my NCLEX.
3. Read over the review from SenseiRN's thread, it gives good tips and mnemonics especially with remembering infection control; I had a lot of those questions on mine.
Good luck everyone! Remember, it might help to pray, meditate, or perform whatever relaxing ritual you want; but unless you put in the work you might struggle. Just like in sports, repetition is key. If you put in the practice time, you will perform well on game day
