You're probably worried about the NCLEX..dont...seriously. Here's what I did!

Nursing Students NCLEX

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So your about to take your exam in 1 week. You can't get any sleep. You wake up have a coffee and study from morning to night. This has been a ritual for you for a month. Question by question. Rationale to rationale. All skims your brain. All for that one day...where you are placed in a cubicle and forced to take the NCLEX, among many who are after that one goal...just to pass.

I just took it...and honestly...I STRESSED WAY TOO MUCH. I lost so many hours of sleep, time, and precious moments that I won't ever get back. All for what? That one day. So I promised myself after I passed I would write about it and help anyone who was going through the same thing I was. I know how you feel. Any time your stressed you hop on allnurses.com to read about how people experience the NCLEX, or read up on study tips...I did the very same thing...but what I really wanna emphasize is that..you really need to JUST RELAX.

I passed with 75 in 3 hours (HAHAH I took my time)..Here's what I did

I took Kaplan. And I'm sorry if you don't have Kaplan..but I think this is the MAIN reason I passed. I didn't review any content after I graduated. NOTHING...never read or even watch the videos on the Kaplan site. ALL I DID WAS QUESTIONS.

I did the entire Q bank, around 100-150 questions a day for 3-4 weeks. I finished all the trainers. I ONLY did the management and kaplan exams for the focused review section. Main thing is JUST DO THE QUESTIONS AND READ THE RATIONALES. That's it. SIMPLE. I talked to so many people that passed the exam...and that's ALL they did. You don't have to buy Saunders, Lipp., Hursh..or whatever they call it.. All you need is KAPLAN. KAPLAN teaches you in a way to answers questions not necessarily the content. It teaches you critical thinking skills. You don't have to read up and refresh on content...everything is in the rationales..believe me..that simple.

Oh I also used the study guide which can be found here https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3379554/-Nclex-Study-Guide.pdf

This guide is GOLD...take it to the gym..take it to work...mnemonics works..seriously..like SPIDERMAN (droplet precautions) how can you forget that.

The NCLEX is EXTREMELY similar to KAPLAN. I'm so happy I purchased it. It's a small price to pay to calm your nerves down. EVERYONE who took KAPLAN passed..its pretty much a guarantee. I walked in there scared...came out confident as hell. KAPLAN is hard...so it helps to prepare you for the worse. I don't care that I paid 200$ for KAPLAN..I rather pay that then self teach myself to answer questions the right way.

This is not a hate post to all the other studying methods out there. But I TRULY believe that KAPLAN works. I'm sure people have passed without the Kaplan. But if you really want to pass...and you want it badly...just take Kaplan you won't regret it.

Good Luck

Specializes in Hospice / Ambulatory Clinic.

The schools like to scare you about the NCLEX because you passing the NCLEX the first time is very important for THEM and they want you to spend all your time focusing on something that makes them look good.

When I came out of the NCLEX I was mad I had spent soo much time stressing.

I used Saunders and I would recommend that because is $30. I don't think you need to spend the amount they are charging for Kaplan.

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Hi

My name is kevin i was just reading about your nclex experience

did u just use the kaplan book with the cd?

or like a kaplan online course??

thx

Kevin

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Specializes in being a Credible Source.

I'm of the personal opinion that, for most people, the organized programs are huge wastes of money.

The material that you need is contained in your nursing books and, presuming you were a diligent student, you already have most of what you need. Use the chapter reviews out of your books and, if you must torture yourself with a million questions, get a bank of questions and go for it.

Personally, I did just a minimal bit of review and took the test at the earliest possible moment... 75 questions, 57 minutes.

Keep in mind, the 1st-time pass rate is about 85% so your chances are fairly good.

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Specializes in Hospice / Ambulatory Clinic.

I have to agree with the above. The NCLEX is a standardized test and the material its based on is fairly well known so no expensive program is going to have a secret that none of the other big ones have. I wouldn't have done a review class if my school hadn't paid for it. Ours was done by an actual test question writer for the NCLEX but even she didn't have any secrets that wasn't in saunders.

Just get a NCELX when you first start nursing school and work your way through it. It'll help on your school tests though. When you finish maybe buy another for new questions.

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Hi im taking my nclex pn for the 6th time. I purchased the saunders pn 5th edition and have been reading from front to back. Would you all suggest to do questions. The saunders questions seem to easy but content is excellent. I was thinking of purchasing the kaplan qbank since they have a payment plan or the ncsbn for questions. Any suggestions would be of help. Thanks!

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Hi im taking my nclex pn for the 6th time. I purchased the saunders pn 5th edition and have been reading from front to back. Would you all suggest to do questions. The saunders questions seem to easy but content is excellent. I was thinking of purchasing the kaplan qbank since they have a payment plan or the ncsbn for questions. Any suggestions would be of help. Thanks!

@iluvnursing I would recommend exam cram for questions and the kaplan strategies study and practice review for nclex pn. I found it very useful and i passed. The saunders question are to easy compared to exam cram which is just like the nclex questions.

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God bless on your nclex! The key is to keep taking questionnaires to practice. I think I did that for 2-3 weeks and I did 1 week of intensive study with prioritization and triaging all thru just questionnaires. Practice on the computer. I never used any books to study actual theory I was scared to death after my test that I called my then boyfriend-now-husband and cried on the phone. I passed it on 1 take, 75 questions all in 59 minutes. I was so stressed out I fell asleep on the exam! So get lots of sleep the night before and do not read anymore books the night before and the day of the exam, just try to relax but don't stress out or you'll wind up like me I was so stressed out I needed to get a 10 minute power nap during the exam, which was not at all smart.. God bless and pray pray pray! :)

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Congrats on passing but all these posts that say NCLEX is so easy. I passed with 75. Don't worry about it. They are starting to drive me insane. All of us on this board went to different schools and had different educations. Out of the people in my class that have taken it 1/2 have passed and 1/2 have failed. The ones that passed were our 4.0 students and the ones with a previous medical background. I finished school with a 3.87 GPA which means nothing. I got 45% on the Kaplan diagnostic exam and only knew for sure a few questions. I moved on to Hurst because Kaplan was not doing it for me.

You cannot give a blanket statement because we went to different schools and had different teachers. Some people had a much better education then others.

That being said I am open to suggestions on study tools. I am now listening to Hurst a second time but it is still not sticking. I want something to supplement Hurst.

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In the beginning of Kaplan...believe it or not I was scoring 40s-50s...then I slowly got up to higher 50's lower 60's so evidently as long as your hitting that 50-60 marker you should be totally fine. qt 1: 55 qt2: 57 qt3: 49 qt4: 60 qt5 62 qt6: 60 qt7: 63

Take it you WILL pass...trust me.

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In the beginning of Kaplan...believe it or not I was scoring 40s-50s...then I slowly got up to higher 50's lower 60's so evidently as long as your hitting that 50-60 marker you should be totally fine. qt 1: 55 qt2: 57 qt3: 49 qt4: 60 qt5 62 qt6: 60 qt7: 63

Take it you WILL pass...trust me.

What did you get for your diagnostic? Then did you start with the qbank. I feel like I should do some qbank before I jump into the Q trainers.

You scores look great. I have not seen the up trend so obvious as yours. What were you doing in between Q Trainers?

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I used the Kaplan online course..but get this..you don't even have to go to the online courses or live course..they are recorded and you can watch them on the Kaplan site they give you. Its awesome. My Kaplan was a brown course book (most recent) didn't come with any cd.

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my diagnostic was a 56% haha..and I did it before the qbank and question trainers. I HIGHLY suggest you do question trainers between your qbanks to improve your scores. So lets say u do qt3....after that do 150--250 qbank questions..then do the qt4...and so forth. I took notes on all the difficult questions on the Kaplan..type then out..and briefly reviewed them when I was done... When I did a new trainer I did the same..and before I went to sleep I'd review the trainer and the previous notes I took on the qbank.

Kaplan will work. I wasn't a smart student. Nclex is NOT soley about content I STRONGLY believe..its about answering the questions. If you know how to answer a question...you don't need to know jack about what they are talking about. You'll see when you take Kaplan :).

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