Category Archives: NCLEX Success
NCLEX Success: Test Day Advice Busters!
Ok so lets talk a little bit about that dreaded day. Most people are really nervous, they have itchy pants or just feel nauseous. Well that’s to be expected. When the day finally arrives you better be ready for it, although guaranteed you won’t feel ready! So now I’m going to tackle some of those test day cliches!
Things you’ve probably been told to do:
- Get a good nights sleep – well that is easier said than done. The likelihood is that you will toss and turn all night. The alternative is to take some melatonin or NyQuil the night before and have a family member or a friend AND an alarm clock set to wake you up. It’s true that a good nights sleep will help you, but don’t beat yourself up if you struggle to get some zzzz’s the night before.
- Eat a healthy meal the night before and a good breakfast the day of – This is dependent on what kind of eater you are. Do you binge eat under stress? Or do you lose your appetite? The fact is your mind is focused on the test, just eat whatever you want! One healthy meal isn’t going to help you the night before. The day of, it is important to have something in your stomach, but if you are too nauseous then just stick to water.
- Don’t study the day of the test – Yeah, I was told that too; what a load of crap! My exam was at 2pm in the afternoon, and you’re damn right I studied before it. I didn’t go hardcore and freak out over the things I didn’t know. I simply went over the rationales of the mock test I took the day before. I felt like it got me in the groove without freaking me out. At the end of the day there will be questions that you just don’t know, but NCLEX know that, which is why they keep evaluating you with each question and will shut off when you have proved yourself.
- Aim to pass in 75 questions – This is a stupid notion; you should not expect or hope to be done in 75Q. Mentally prepare yourself to go the whole way. If you get to question 75 and it doesn’t shut off it doesn’t mean you failed – it means you still have to prove yourself, so take the challenge!!! Don’t freak out when questions 76 pops up, I had a friend that passed and it shut off after Q76. It is important to just take each question at a time, if you are clueless, then go with your gut and just pick one, you have to keep pace.
- You can always take it again – This isn’t a bad thing to keep in mind. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves; we don’t want to be the ones who fail, BUT, life is full of set backs and the fact that you can take it again if necessary should relieve some of that pressure. If you fail it doesn’t make you stupid, there are so many factors involved in taking the test, you just have to draw up a new study plan and start over.
You can do it, NCLEX isn’t a monster, just a bridge to cross! Best of luck to you!
NCLEX Success: Remember your A-B-Cs!
Say it with me: AIRWAY, BREATHING, CIRCULATION!
If you have renewed CPR with AHA recently you’ll know that they have changed that to CAB from ABC, but for NCLEX you need to stick with the ABC.
So here comes that irritating priority question. You try to apply Maslow but all options are physiological, so there is nothing to eliminate. What do you do? You apply the ABCs.
Airway will always be the most important factor to take priority: anaphylaxis? Choking? So look for it, if it isn’t there, look for breathing, it could be simple like raising HOB to decrease dyspnea in a CHF pt – keep focused on the “B” until you can rule it out. If no luck at that point, move to circulation. Hemmorhage? Potential for bleed? Change in vitals (↑HR, ↓BP)?
Look at the big picture and apply all the ABCs and use them to lead you to the right answer! Priorities will always contain ABC/Maslow or combination! Use your question answering skills! 🙂
Student Tales: My Experience with ATI
First semester of nursing school my school decided to scrap HESI and go with ATI. It caused a lot of confusion because it wasn’t incorporated into the curriculum and none of my teachers understood what it was all about. The rep came and did a presentation in one of my classes. I didn’t feel like I learned about how to operate ATI, I felt like she was just sales pitching it to us – pointless. So my love-hate relationship with ATI began. Every semester we would have an in-class final and an ATI final which was irritating to say the least. I would take the practice tests at home; I always did bad in the practice tests. I would spend double the time going back and reading the rationale for every single question. Needless to say the rationales often left a lot to be desired. I believed that the questions were NCLEX style so I figured I was behind on my game because my practice scores were abysmal. The final exams would roll around and somehow I would score super high! I think I only got a Level 1 twice.
So what is ATI all about? I still don’t quite know. The point of the program is to highlight your weaknesses and create focused reviews. The books and focus reviews I found useless, I chose to just pound out the practice tests. Ours didn’t come with the NCLEX review at the end, we just had the ATI exit exam which was 180 questions (much to everyone’s dismay on exam day). My predictor was a 97% passing on first NCLEX attempt, this didn’t boost my confidence much and I still studied hard for about 2-3 weeks for the NCLEX. I have heard of those who relied on the predictor and failed, I figured it is all down to how you do on the day; and I learned when taking my boards that ATI vs NCLEX are just two different animals.
So the big question – is ATI like NCLEX? In my opinion – NO.
I found ATI to be a great brain warm up, but NCLEX questions were way more vague and intricate compared to the ATI questions. They state that they use formally used questions from NCLEX; in that case they need to modernize up, because the ATI questions did not resound the ones on my NCLEX exam.
Take home message: If you are in the ATI program through your school, don’t rely on it as your only NCLEX source. Don’t use the predictor as a benchmark, there is only one prediction for NCLEX – your ability to create a study program for yourself and determination to pound the crap out of it. Study, study, study – you cannot be over-prepared.
NCLEX Success: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow is a great tool to narrowing down or answering NCLEX questions. Those pesky priority questions are the ones in which Maslow can lend a helping hand. Here is how you use the Maslow Strategy:
- Look at the answer choices. Determine if the answer choices are both physiological and psychosocial, if they are – apply the Maslow strategy.
- Now, eliminate all psychosocial answer choices.
- If the answer choice is physiological, don’t eliminate it. Maslow states that physiological needs must be met first. Although pain certainly has a physiological component, it is considered a psychosocial need on Nclex.
NCLEX Success: Use Free Resources!!!
Being a student of any kind, well apart from some of those really rich Harvard prodigies, you probably know all about being on a budget, or to put it plainly – poor. Due to lack of funds due to all those lab fees, uniforms, strange looking nursing gadgets, your pocket is probably lacking the big bucks required to take one of those fancy NCLEX review courses. Hence, the advice I am about to crown you with – GOOGLE MAGIC BABY!
Yes, I passed the NCLEX-RN. And no, I did not pay for Kaplan or Hurst or any other claim-to-pass program. I knew that those courses were never an option because of the cost, so I gave myself a low budget and decided to use Google to help me. When Googling away, I found a plethora of material which was amazing! None of it cost $, and all of it so easy to access. The use of torrents is a controversial topic, but if you are guilt free about it then crack on! There are apps out there, as well as Saunders interactive test bank (very helpful resource), these can be purchased or with a little digging, found for free.
Kaplan Trainers. I see these are talked about a lot on the forums and people seem to freak out about the scores they get on them. I Googled them and found them posted on scribd.com. I printed a few and worked through them as a brain exercise. My best advise is not to focus on the scores! Scores don’t matter – learning matters. It really isn’t about the questions you get right, its about learning from the rationales on the ones you got wrong. Read ALL rationales, but make notes on the ones you get wrong – see if there is a trend, any topic that you are frequently getting wrong, which shows you where you need to put in some hard graft. Focus in on those weaknesses.
Practice, practice, practice! It’s all about banging out those questions.
So get those fingers Googling, and find out what’s free. There are some great Tumblr sites out there too. Below I will post some of the most helpful and intriguing sites I found!
http://rightatrium.tumblr.com/post/43568301576
http://www.scribd.com/doc/148347851/Nclex-Kaplan-Exam-1
http://www.scribd.com/doc/148349057/NCLEX-Kaplan-Exam-6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzqOkRnXBFw
http://mp3skull.com/mp3/hurst_review.html
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NCLEX Success
For all those who are embarking on their NCLEX – I feel for you!
I remember the relentless studying, the anxiety, and the need to use the bathroom every 2 minutes while in the waiting room before taking me test! Arghhhh! It was a momentous day in the life of a student. Overnight you become an RN, like a caterpillar to a butterfly…. Ok I’ll cut the crappy metaphors, we all know the torture! But do not despair, I hope to have helpful tip posts just for you NCLEXers.
This first tip is from my personal experience. Often times on the forum I saw people asking “what books did you use?”
So here is my list:
– Kaplan Strategies, Practice and Review
– Fluids & Electrolytes Made Incredibly Easy
– Prioritization, Delegation, and Assignment: Practice Exercisers for the NCLEX Exam – LaCharity
More Tips to Come! Good Luck!
The RN Hangout 