This post is for what helped ME pass the NCLEX. In NO WAY am I telling you "You must use these methods or else you will fail!" Do whatever makes you happy. This is for me to share with those who are lost or just interested in reading.
And also, if you're going to be a non-therapeutic nurse and put someone's studying skills down, stay off my wall.
:) I'm so happy that I passed and I understand how difficult it is to retain the information or to find the right stuff that will work. It has been such a tough journey doing this with two jobs and running a business.
I've tried everything (KAPLAN, Exam Cram, books, etc.) I feel like I had all the books out there and I was still overwhelmed.
In the end, I only used four study methods:
NCLEX-RN Questions and Answers Made Incredibly Easy
Lippincott's NCLEX-RN Alternate-Format Questions
NCLEX question apps on my phone/ipad when I'm out and about
I used NCLEX-RN Questions and Answers Made Incredibly Easy and I really really like this most of all, surprisingly. I completed the entire book and did not use KAPLAN at all the second time. For the record, the questions weren't easy. It is broken down into different categories (CARDIO, RESP, ETC.). The reason why I love this one the most is because it'll keep repetitively asking me the questions in a different way to help me retain that question.
I bought the Davismobile apps to use in my spare time. I loved using them! They were PRIORITY questions and ALTERNATE FORMAT questions. I felt that the NCLEX was based off on these two apps. I think if I didn't have to worry about understanding the contents, I'd be happy just using these two apps to practice for the exam & nothing else.
I used this person's guide (it is not mine so due to the respect of how hard she's worked to put this together, I will not post it up, distribute it, or sell it.) This guide is 97 pages long. It is the summary of all the rationales that the girl used from KAPLAN & other questions she's found. To me, it's amazing and worth the price because I did not have time to put a guide together myself.
Idk if that's worth it to you guys, but every single question I answered on the NCLEX, I remembered reading it off from her guide:
I know this is long! I just wanted to post this up for those who's struggling with sitting there and answering a million questions or reading hundreds of pages for review.
So key points:
I preferred the Easy Q&A since it kept asking you questions about the disease instead of just "moving" on assuming you know it or will remember it.
I love getting apps to go especially if I'm waiting on a long line. Worth the investment, especially the Priorizations & Delegations.
Bless that girl who made that study guide. I read it the weekend before the exam and that. saved. my. life.
GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE! I'M ALWAYS HERE IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS! FEEL FREE TO EMAIL ME!
Yea, it wasn't easy to read through cardio. You can just pretend "realize" is like a bullet I guess. You can save cardio for last bc that was the hardest read for me.
I've done Exam Cram before and I honestly didn't feel like it helped me at all. It did help me understand the content a little, but I felt like I was doing worse with the question reviews at the end of each chapter. PDA definitely is everyone's bible and I do recommend it! I just felt that the alternate questions is more of everyone's weakness than being able to prioritize which is why I didn't even mention PDA.
How do you like Lippincott Q&A? It can get tedious, but I felt that it's a lot better than reading an entire comprehensive review book. :) Again, good luck on your exam! When is it?
Yea, it wasn't easy to read through cardio. You can just pretend "realize" is like a bullet I guess. You can save cardio for last bc that was the hardest read for me.
I've done Exam Cram before and I honestly didn't feel like it helped me at all. It did help me understand the content a little, but I felt like I was doing worse with the question reviews at the end of each chapter. PDA definitely is everyone's bible and I do recommend it! I just felt that the alternate questions is more of everyone's weakness than being able to prioritize which is why I didn't even mention PDA.
How do you like Lippincott Q&A? It can get tedious, but I felt that it's a lot better than reading an entire comprehensive review book. :) Again, good luck on your exam! When is it?
I test in two weeks and plan to cover a lot of Lippincott Q&A - are questions similar to NCLEX?
I am also using NCSBN, ExamCram questions (these seem too simple) and NCLEX4000. Would you say that these are NCLEX style? What scores are/were you getting on Lippncott comprehensive tests in the back of the chapter if you don't mind sharing?
I felt the NCSBN was too dry and barely gave it the time of day. ExamCram was actually not easy for me. Haha. I sucked at it I guess, but I didn't do the two comprehensive exams in the back of it. I felt lazy to flip back and forth for the rationale.
For the L Q&A book, I actually calculated every single exam. I was consistently in the 50-60s. Rarely I got 70s. The comprehensive exams I got 60s and several 70s. The truth is, the comprehensive exams were the only exams I didn't read the rationales on, except comprehensive exam #4. Yes, the questions I've seen definitely showed on the NCLEX. Though if I had to recommend one book alone that's the closest to the NCLEX that people are least prepared for, it'd be the alternate questions book just because some people had 40/75 SATA (poor souls). I had about 15-20 SATAs and I felt like they were a lot easier in comparison to the book.
I felt the NCSBN was too dry and barely gave it the time of day. ExamCram was actually not easy for me. Haha. I sucked at it I guess, but I didn't do the two comprehensive exams in the back of it. I felt lazy to flip back and forth for the rationale.
For the L Q&A book, I actually calculated every single exam. I was consistently in the 50-60s. Rarely I got 70s. The comprehensive exams I got 60s and several 70s. The truth is, the comprehensive exams were the only exams I didn't read the rationales on, except comprehensive exam #4. Yes, the questions I've seen definitely showed on the NCLEX. Though if I had to recommend one book alone that's the closest to the NCLEX that people are least prepared for, it'd be the alternate questions book just because some people had 40/75 SATA (poor souls). I had about 15-20 SATAs and I felt like they were a lot easier in comparison to the book.
I hope that helps. Good luck
Congratulations and good luck!! I just bought PDA - going to practice all of the alternate style questions in that book and on NCLEX 4000 - thank you for ALL of your help!
Specializes in Education, FP, LNC, Forensics, ED, OB.
I think danceandnurse was just sharing her experience and what helped her pass. You gave advice - awesome congratulations.
I'm sure many nursing students have had teachers say everything you just said but you didn't give any reading materials to help out the situation.
Again, the topic here was just "what helped" her pass not "I need tips, help me" - this comment was not needed at all.
You can say that cramming is "neurologically unsound" but I don't actually agree with you here. It really depends on the person's studying style. I cram all the time and excel no matter what.
I studied until the last minute and passed my nclex in 75 questions. Whether it helped or not, I would not have appreciated someone telling me to "relax". If you wouldn't tell your patients to "relax", then why would you go and tell someone else nontherapeutically "to relax", right?
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[h=1]Back To School: Cramming Doesn't Work In The Long Term[/h]Sep. 3, 2007-When you look back on your school days, doesn't it seem like you studied all the time? However, most of us seem to have retained almost nothing from our early immersion in math, history, and foreign language.
Were we studying the wrong way during all those wee hours? Well, as it turns out we may have been. Psychologists have been assessing how well various study strategies produce long-term learning, and it appears that some strategies really do work much better than others.
Consider "overlearning." That's the term learning specialists use for studying material immediately after you've mastered it. Say you're studying new vocabulary words, flash-card style, and you finally run through the whole list error-free; any study beyond that point is overlearning. Is this just a waste of valuable time, or does this extra effort embed the new memory for the long haul?
University of South Florida psychologist Doug Rohrer decided to explore this question scientifically. Working with Hal Pashler of the University of California, San Diego, he had two groups of students study new vocabulary in different ways. One group ran through the list five times; these students got a perfect score no more than once. The others kept drilling, for a total of ten trials; with this extra effort, the students had at least three perfect run-throughs. Then the psychologists tested all the students, some one week later and others four weeks later.
The results were interesting. For students who took the test a week later, those who had done the extra drilling performed better. But this benefit of overlearning completely disappeared by four weeks. In other words, if students are interested in learning that lasts, that extra effort is really a waste. They should instead spend this time looking at material from last week or last month or even last year.
In other words, as reported in the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, "massing" all the study on a single topic into a single session reduces long-term retention. It's better to leave it alone for a while and then return to it. Rohrer and Pashler also wanted to see if the duration of study breaks might make a difference in learning. It did. When two study sessions were separated by breaks ranging from five minutes to six months, with a final test given six months later, students did much better if their break lasted at least a month. So, rather than distribute their study of some material across just a few days, as millions of school children do when given a different list of vocabulary or spelling words each week, students would be better off seeing the same words throughout the school year.
All these experiments involved rote learning, but Rohrer and Pashler have also found similar effects with more abstract learning, like math. This is particularly troubling, the psychologists say, because most mathematics textbooks today are organized to encourage both overlearning and massing. So students end up working 20 problems on the same concept (which they learned earlier that day) when they should be working 20 problems drawn from different lessons learned since the beginning of the school year. In brief, students are wasting a lot of precious learning time.
Those last-minute cramming sessions fueled by instant noodles and coffee might help you pass your exams. But they won't help your brain remember things in the long term.
Scientists have long known that learning with breaks in between helps your brain remember things longer than when you try to cram it all in one go. Called the "spacing effect," the phenomenon was first described by German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1885.
Researchers had previously shown that this type of spaced learning helps boost the lifetime of nerve cells in the hippocampus - the part of the brain where long-term memories are formed.
In their experiments, the researchers trained two groups of mice to track moving images and studied what is known as their horizontal optokinetic response - the reflex that helps you keep track of scenery when traveling in a train. One group was given breaks in between trials ("spaced" learning) while the others were given none ("massed" learning).
The mice were made to look at a quickly moving revolving image. A camera was used to track their eye movements to check for when they saw and responded to the image. After some initial difficulty, both groups of mice got used to the speed and were able to respond more quickly in subsequent trials.
However, mice that had ample rest in between trials were able to remember to adapt to the speed for a longer time, the researchers found. Giving them a break of just one hour between trials helped them remember what they had learned for more than four weeks.
The other group, which had been subjected to massed learning, was able to remember their training for only a week.
Memory retention in the hours following the training was linked to a drop in the number of nerve cell bridges and structural changes in a specific set of nerve cells called Purkinje cells. Purkinje cells play a vital role in controlling motor skills such as writing or walking. Defects in these cells can lead to poor learning or autism-like disabilities.
Changes in the Purkinje system happened very quickly for mice with spaced learning - within 4 hours after the training - while it took days for the other set of mice.
Spaced training also created repetitive peaks in specific signaling protein activity, while massed learning produced only one peak, after 20 minutes of training. As a result, recovery of information was faster, helping to form long-lasting memories in mice with spaced training, the researchers found.
I thought I would share my NCLEX story with you guys after taking it today. After crying frantically in the bathroom before the test, and getting one hour of sleep last night, CRAMMING, STUDYING, ANSWERING A MILLION QUESTIONS AND PRAYING TO THE LORD JESUS, I took the exam and after 75 questions my computer went blue. I freaked out and said to myself, "OH MY GOD I FAILED! THERE IS NO WAY I PASSED THAT IN 75QUESTIONS!! Well, after crying on the way home and feeling like crap, I logged in when I got home and saw this pop up on my screen, "Our records indicate that you have recently scheduled this exam. Please contact your Member Board for further assistance. Another registration cannot be made at this time."
So.. I can assume that means I Passed??? Im not sure yet though. But I will say this...
The NCLEX is not as hard as KAPLAN!! By hard, I mean not as detailed!! NCLEX IS VERY VERY STRAIGHT FORWARD.
I HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMEND USING THE NSCBN QUESTIONS***** THEY ARE MUCH MUCH MORE LIKE THE ACTUAL NCLEX QUESTIONS!!
I took the kaplan course and did all the Tests, and all the Qbank questions they had. It prepared me for one thing; being able to know delegation and prioritization. KAPLAN DOES NOT OFFER ANY EKG READINGS, POSITION CHANGES FOR CERTAIN PROBLEMS, OR SKIN RASHES OR SORES THAT YOU CAN SEE ON NCLEX. The NCLEX is more focused on basic care. I cant believe the questions I got that seemed so based on simply concepts that I just simply did not remember. Maybe they were from 1st semester nursing school? As my test progressed, I kept getting priority questions, delegation, and SATA. Which apparently are the higher level questions. I did get many SATA, (Which were not that bad) , Drag and Drops(which i always hated), and EKG's and one math calc. I was shaking the entire time and was running off one hour after CRAMMING. Which, in my case, worked for me and was a great strategy because I was able to stay fresh and confident minus my lack of sleep and courage.
My advice to you. The NCLEX is different for everyone. Dont kill yourself trying to remember a million meds, or crying when your KAPLAN scores arent great. Saunders was great for SATA and drag and drops, pictures, sounds you may hear, ekgs, etc. The KAPLAN does not offer all these resources.
Try to focus on basic care first. As in, What would you expect to see first? What are common early signs of a certain disease process? If you want to email me for my notes I used, or have any questions, feel free...
Thank you to danceandnurse (joanne) for sending me emails and tips and tricks to pass. She sent me countless emails and study guides that helped. I dont know how i would have gotten though without her. She is a godsend. Please email her or send her a message to, she can help you so much.....
One last thing, I dont think not cramming helps for everyone, it depends on how you learn. Additionally, I have extra material that will help you pass the NCLEX if you want it, and im also selling my SAUNDERS NCLEX 6TH EDITION book for cheap cheap if anyone wants it. Also, I will send you the notes and anything else I had that helped me to pass. I will tell you this, dont stress so much over it. If you know Priority, delegation, and can tell for signs of patient decline you would do fine. I am not someone who doesnt need to study. I have to study a lot in order to be successful. Please trust me when I tell you, dont study a million meds.. You dont even know what you will see on the test. Relax and breathe before you take it.. your nerves will prohibit you from thinking clearly. I had to put my head down several times to detach... The whole test was a blur and the questions go by so quick when every question is holding your license in its hands...
USE:
KAPLAN, SAUNDERS, NSCBN (which i signed up for the 3 week course) AND MY EXTRA NOTES THAT IM WILLING TO SEND YOU..
Keep your heart in it and read rationales and go back to basic nursing care!!!
Congrats Tiffanyc123, you did it! I am so proud of you. I could imagine, it feels like a heavy bag of nursing boos was lifted off your shoulders. You will make a great nurse. Enjoy your career and be the best nurse you can be. Happy New Year to you & Success in all your endeavors.
danceandnurse
21 Posts
Yea, it wasn't easy to read through cardio. You can just pretend "realize" is like a bullet I guess. You can save cardio for last bc that was the hardest read for me.
I've done Exam Cram before and I honestly didn't feel like it helped me at all. It did help me understand the content a little, but I felt like I was doing worse with the question reviews at the end of each chapter. PDA definitely is everyone's bible and I do recommend it! I just felt that the alternate questions is more of everyone's weakness than being able to prioritize which is why I didn't even mention PDA.
How do you like Lippincott Q&A? It can get tedious, but I felt that it's a lot better than reading an entire comprehensive review book. :) Again, good luck on your exam! When is it?