#passed the nclex

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I recently passed the NCLEX in 75 Q and created this list of tips I would’ve loved to have before I wrote!

- Essentials: Saunders & UWorld

- Nonessential but nice add on: @yournursingeducators ‘s (on Instagram) NCLEX high yield notes.

- Start early and start slow. Consider your preceptorship/final semester your opportunity to start studying for the NCLEX. Depending on your unit there will likely be downtime, bring a review book and do practice questions.

- Do 30-50 practice questions a day during preceptorship on the days your not working. It’s not much and it’s a good way to ease yourself into it.

- Make Flashcards with key concepts that are straight “memorizables”: lab values, antidotes (especially warfarin -> vit K, heparin -> protamine, digoxin -> digibind, Ca -> Mg), rules and formulas (like parkland formula, MAP formula), and mnemonics (like NSAID for cervical collar or “we better think high glucose” for metabolic syndrome)

- Book your exam and don’t look back. Trust that you’ll be ready when the time comes.

- Two-Three weeks before your exam is crunch time. 225-300 UWorld questions a day (3-4 75 question exams).

- Review the rationales how ever works best for you, but actually review and understand them! For me, I wrote them down in a word document separated into sections, putting drugs & diagnoses in bold.

- Before every study session in the crunch time, review your Flashcards and your rationales document.

- Treat each 75 question test like the actual NCLEX - no food or drinks, no pee breaks, no music. If you plan to use ear plugs, practice with ear plugs. I also found it helps to have a specific scent your relate to NCLEX study time. I got a new hand lotion that I used before every session and in the morning before my NCLEX.

- During crunch week set a time or # of questions to do each day and then be DONE. I would go for a walk afterwards to reset my brain. Over studying can happen and you don’t want to burn out.

- Mistakes are how you learn. Don’t be upset when you get questions wrong - be excited that you got it wrong when it didn’t matter and gave you the opportunity to learn something new.

- You will never been 100% ready, but if you’re consistently scoring above average on the Uworld questions, you’re probably good to go. Trust your gut.

- Treat your anxiety symptoms consistently and treat them the same way on the day of the NCLEX even if you think you’re all good. It’s probably partly related to adrenaline but when you get in there you might start feeling anxious - it’s all good. For me, I took the ginger gravol (not the dimenhydrinate) pretty much every night the last two weeks and on the morning of the exam.

- Don’t look up “Uworld % to pass NCLEX” or anything like that. Don’t compare your understanding to anyone else. Uworld’s site says “Test takers with a test bank score of 56% pass at a rate of 92%” - that’s the only number you should maybe think about, but don’t look up what other people had before the test because it doesn’t always correlate.

- Try not to think of it as a 75 question exam that gets longer if you’re doing worse, really try to think of it as a 145 question exam (at present, due to Covid) that gets shortened when you prove you’re doing well. It’s not essential to get 100% on 75 to be done in 75, the computer adapts quicker than that.

- I seriously recommend doing every single Uworld question. Ultimately the best practice for the exam isn’t Flashcards or memorizing concepts, it’s learning how to maneuver the NCLEX style questions.

Conspiracy theory: the test is way over hyped so all these companies can continue to profit off of your self doubt. Your education prepared you for this. Visualize your success. Visualize how cool your name, BN RN is gonna look. Your BN was WAY harder then the NCLEX. You’ve got this.

@crystalcanyon you asked for any advice and it reminded me to post this, so thank you ☺️