Failed the NCLEX. Where are they now? Kayla Revel

“I graduated from Gurnick in 2012, and it hasn’t been the easiest road I’ve been on. I lucked out and got a Nursing Assistant job for almost a year for a quadriplegic doctor from Sweden, staying to teach Economics at Cal Berkeley. It was an awesome home health job, and helped me get some experience while waiting for my ATT number to take the NCLEX. I received my ATT in November, and I was so busy and exhausted from my 12 hour shifts with my job that I put NCLEX off for the rest of the year. Not a good idea. It was a struggle to work and try and study at the same time, but I did it. My first attempt, unfortunately, was in February of 2013. I studied on my breaks, before work after work, and even during my second job as a waitress. I studied for almost 2 months before taking it. I thought I was ready so I took it. I didn’t pass. I was so devastated and felt defeated. I had even signed up for an IV therapy and Blood Withdrawal course, in which some of my old classmates were in. They all had passed, and I felt so embarrassed not knowing if I passed or not. That is when I decided to take the course with D&D.

D&D was not only a refresher course for the material I studied for hours, but they taught us a specific technique to tackle NCLEX style questions. This test isn’t designed to just test you on your knowledge, and that is where I went wrong with my studies. I took this course the week prior to my second attempt at the NCLEX, and I felt so ready to take. I took it for my second time and I passed! It was the best feeling ever. I felt confident answering almost all of the questions, applying what I learned from DnD. I learned so much from this refresher course.

I passed in April of 2013, and I got offered a Charge Nurse position at an Assisted Living Facility in San Francisco, in September of 2013. It has been an interesting and challenging road for me. But I had love and support from amazing professors, my family, and I was introduced to an amazing group of people at D&D who played a huge roll in my success. I couldn’t have done it without any of them. It was hard, but it gave me the drive to continue my education, and I am looking to continue on to RN school.

Utilize the resources and the help that is offered to you. Nothing is impossible unless you let it be!”

Do I Need A Live Class?

Do you find yourself reading the same paragraph of material over and over because it is not sinking in?  Do you find it hard to get motivated and stick with a study plan?  Do you feel overwhelmed and discouraged staring at a pile of books and resources, and you don’t know where to start?  Do you find your scores not improving on the practice exams?  Then you might be the perfect candidate for all the advantages a live NCLEX review class can offer.

Now that you have realized you need a live review class, what questions should you be asking to make sure you are signing up for a class fit for you, in order to succeed?

1) Size of the class– Make sure to ask how many students are in the class.  The larger the class size, the less likely you will be able to engage in class.  Class sizes should be limited especially if you need and desire a lot of personalized and individualized attention.  Having less students to manage allows more opportunities to clarify concepts as well as answer questions.

2) Length of class– How many hours are being provided and what activities are you going to be engaged in besides lecture.  It may be that the class provides more hours lecturing on content.  However, this can lead to passive learning.  Passive learning often does not stick because it can often lead to only superficial understanding or worse, memorization of content.  If all the hours will be spent in lecturing, you might as well sit at the comfort of your own home reading, listening, or watching video lectures.

3) Activities in class must be diversified to keep you engaged and active in the learning process- questions that are discussed should be geared towards application of nursing concepts into practice and for the NCLEX.  To prepare for CAT exams (computer adaptive exams) a candidate can no longer just memorize a stack of feedbacks (info that some review centers say they got from inside sources and past test-takers on what showed up in NCLEX exams) and pass the exam.  Nurses must be able to process information to the level of understanding nursing workflow; hence it is important to have instructors, who can combine knowledge of the NCLEX with clinical experience, in order to facilitate the students’ visualization of how nursing decisions are made and lead to patient outcomes.

4) Time for evaluation and recommendations-Is your weakness just content, processing of the information, or the ability to make a decision and act like a nurse?  To really help you, time and effort must be made to evaluate how much information you were able to digest about the concept(s) that was just taught.  You must demonstrate the ability to solve problems surrounding the topic that was just reviewed.  Having an experienced NCLEX review instructor and coach, who is able to provide you with additional perspective on what areas you need to work on and help you come up with a realistic action plan will increase your chances for success.

There are many advantages to attending a live review class.  There may be many reasons why you can’t attend a live class; but for some, it is the only way to achieve your goal of passing the NCLEX.  Are you thinking about attending a live review class?  What are the reasons that may be holding you back?