Tips and Tricks for the NCLEX RN

We gathered a group of nurses together who passed their exam on the first time. These are nurses that felt they did very well on the NCLEX-RN, and most passed with less than 80 questions. The group had suggestions.

The first tip was questions, questions, questions (and answers). Many of them had done 3000-5000 questions. The vast majority used the Kaplan class and others used sources such as Board Vitals and ATI. Kaplan was really a staple of the group, though priced considerably higher than other offerings. The questions from ATI were ranked harder than what was on the exam, while Board Vitals provided adaptive testing and all of the different question types (hotspotting, multiple select).

Some good topic areas to cover: Lab values, Urine Culture, Process around starting a new IV, Child Dev, Formulas, Formulas, Formulas! Sometimes the same math problem will be asked in a couple of different ways, or you may have to make the jump on unit conversions. They are not trying to trick you, but be careful about those conversions. Remember that acute conditions come first and then chronic conditions come later.

There are several types of questions on the exam: multiple choice, multiple select, graphics based (hotspotting), drag and drop, and interpretation type questions. Based on the nurses we interviewed, the interpretation type questions (graphs, charts etc) were not terribly advanced or common. If you know how to read a basic plot chart, you should be able to handle that type of question pretty readily.

Most that we interviewed had 6-10 pharma questions. These tended to be tougher questions, but you should be able to eliminate the obvious wrong choices. (apparently there are always a couple of really mismatched choices) More generally, most of the questions have 2-3 sentence question stems.

The number of SATAs were very wide ranging. Some had a few, and others had quite a few. It’s worth reviewing those pretty heavily.

At some point, make sure to sit down and do 265 questions in an actual timed setting. We think that Board Vitals is the best resource for the adaptive, timed testing environment.