Yesterday evening I drove to Richmond to have dinner with my nursing school study partners who are taking the Kaplan Course live this week. On the way, I stopped by the NCLEX testing location (PearsonVue). It's nice to visit the location, make sure you can find it and estimate time (usually test runs are done at the same time of day and same day of the week as scheduled test).
My friend's experience with the live Kaplan course has been disappointing. Apparently the instructor just rushes through each question and starts eliminating answers using Decision Tree BEFORE the students have even gotten the chance to read the answers for themselves. Uh, hello? Obviously the teacher is very familiar with the questions (same for every course) and has forgotten that these students haven't seen these Q&A's before. Too bad. My friends said that they've gotten out of class early EVERY DAY (and were ahead of schedule) - which obviously points to the fact that the instructor is rushing through the questions. I feel so bad for them- sounds like a less than ideal experience and possibly a waste of money. My online instructor was really great about pacing our class and we never got out of class early.
Anywhoo, the title of this post alludes to my indecision over NCLEX. What is there to be indecisive about? Basically the when & where. Why? Well, last night one of my friends said she remembered hearing rumors that it was better to test in a location other than Richmond and that she's planning to test in Lynchburg. The reasoning? Something about someone (or multiple people) who failed more than once at Richmond, and ended up passing in another Virginia testing location. Well, I could see several scenarios where this could happen. 1) This person simply wasn't ready and therefore third time was a charm (regardless of location) and 2) this person simply needed a change of location to reduce anxiety and remain calm--thus improving her performance. So I'm not really sure what to think of this rumor. Is this just one person's experience? Is it even feasible that there might be a glitch in the system that would make once testing center's experience more difficult than another? I have a hard time imagining that. Yet...I have rescheduled my exam...to the Lynchburg location. And because of the location switch, I had to move up my exam date. BUT that gave me a better testing time of 2pm rather than 8am. Which means I won't have to get up crazy early or get a hotel room. So now I can drive down late morning, grab lunch and then catch a snooze in my car before going into exam.
I didn't really want to test on a Friday (because it takes longer to get results from Board of Nursing website/phone), but I think because I used my driver's license (rather than SSN) when I registered with the BON, I probably won't get results the next morning anyways. I'm hoping that the PearsonVue trick will work for me (way to get unofficial results by trying to sign up to take the exam again; see allnurses.com), otherwise I'll just have to wait until Monday or Tuesday of the following week to get my results. But whatever. Reality is that once the exam shuts down, there's nothing more you can do. Worrying about passing/not passing is not going to change anything.
But thankfully, I can still change my test date. However, the closer we get to the date, the fewer the options are for rescheduling. The good thing about moving up my exam is that it's done that much sooner! I've re-worked my calendar (and will have some Saturday studying to do), but it's still very doable!
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Monday, June 4, 2012
It's a Process
Part one of the interview process went well this morning. I was impressed with how organized and informational it was and I'm still very hopeful to be invited to join their nursing team. I'm also impressed with their orientation process for new grads and what they offer. Next up includes shadowing and an interview with the nurse manager for the unit I'm interested in. We did discuss start date options and I chose second week in July. At this point I have gone ahead and scheduled my NCLEX exam for first week of July. Now to decide if I'm going to get up at 6am and drive to Richmond or if I'll just get a hotel (or maybe I know someone who will let me crash at their place overnight?). I can still reschedule my test up to 24 hours before hand...which is REALLY nice circumstances change.
So I guess this means NCLEX studying/review begins in earnest tonight!?!
My closest friends from nursing school are taking Kaplan (live) this week in Richmond. I'm thinking about driving down tomorrow night to join them for dinner. Will be good to catch up in person.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Interview!!
First RN interview tomorrow. I've been pretty chill up until now. I get a few butterflies when I think about it. Heading to bed shortly (with a sleep aid, of course), but first I'll lay out my clothes and spend a little time reviewing my interview notes which I wrote up a few weeks ago. And hopefully I'll sleep well and be rested so that I'm coherent and able to speak with clarity and purpose (no rambling!)
Of all the places and all the new grad RN positions available right now, this is where I want to work. And it's my first RN interview! No warm-up interviews for this girl. Hahaha! Actually, I'm hoping this will be the first of several interviews (for the same position). I've got a number of questions, and I'm hoping that I'll have most or all of the answers after this (roughly) two hour interview.
Of all the places and all the new grad RN positions available right now, this is where I want to work. And it's my first RN interview! No warm-up interviews for this girl. Hahaha! Actually, I'm hoping this will be the first of several interviews (for the same position). I've got a number of questions, and I'm hoping that I'll have most or all of the answers after this (roughly) two hour interview.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Kaplan: Day Four
And it's over. I'm kinda relieved. I'm ready to get going on my studying for NCLEX. Haha! Not really, but I'm glad to have Kaplan behind me.
For the last session today (the first session was for independent taking of the Kaplan's Readiness Test) included a review of questions from the Readiness Test. Not all 180 questions but just the ones that students generally miss (not just our section, but Kaplan-wide). Helpful, but many of the questions I had gotten right. But there were a handful that I had gotten wrong and were surprised by the correct answer.
For the last half hour of class, our instructor talked to us about what we need to do going forward before taking our NCLEX exam. Completing all the Question Trainers (1-7), completing at least 90% of the QBank questions (total 1300), and aiming for a cumulative performance of 60% or higher on the QBank questions. Expectation is for us to review every question and rationale in every Trainer and after every QBank test. They suggest doing no more than 150 questions a day so that we really spend time reviewing every question and rationale and spend time looking up content that we don't know or understand.
My head is spinning. But I've broken it down and here is my initial plan with the materials provided by Kaplan:
For the last session today (the first session was for independent taking of the Kaplan's Readiness Test) included a review of questions from the Readiness Test. Not all 180 questions but just the ones that students generally miss (not just our section, but Kaplan-wide). Helpful, but many of the questions I had gotten right. But there were a handful that I had gotten wrong and were surprised by the correct answer.
For the last half hour of class, our instructor talked to us about what we need to do going forward before taking our NCLEX exam. Completing all the Question Trainers (1-7), completing at least 90% of the QBank questions (total 1300), and aiming for a cumulative performance of 60% or higher on the QBank questions. Expectation is for us to review every question and rationale in every Trainer and after every QBank test. They suggest doing no more than 150 questions a day so that we really spend time reviewing every question and rationale and spend time looking up content that we don't know or understand.
My head is spinning. But I've broken it down and here is my initial plan with the materials provided by Kaplan:
At this point, I do not expect to study seventeen days straight. No way. My goal would be maybe five days a week. Kaplan suggests answering questions every day. Eh. There certainly will be days when I simply can't. Plus, who knows what's going to happen regarding work. If I get the job, then this schedule will have to be modified in a big way. I'll know more after Monday's interview as to their goal for hiring and orientation. But reality is that if I'm offered a job it will be at least two weeks before I'd start work because there are drug tests and background checks that have to get done. So if I can get at least ten full days of studying done before starting work, that would be awesome. Maybe I really should push myself to study every day and then if I do get the job, I'll still be able to take the NCLEX in early July.
And of course this schedule is just reflecting Kaplan resources and does not take into account my earlier expectation to use Saunders and LaCharity resources. Maybe I won't need to? I will continue taking flash cards to the gym (this has worked REALLY well with the cards put on rings) and of course I can apply Decision Tree to the flash card questions.
So the question is... when to start?
At this point I am glad that I did Kaplan's prep course. I'm glad I did the "Classroom Anywhere" format. A few bumps (see Kaplan: Day One post) but these were largely due to the fact that I was going through my school for Kaplan and my school did not adequately communicate with us. Can't blame Kaplan for that. The Kaplan instructors and staff were all very good and very helpful and managed the online aspect very well. The only downside was the chat window and dealing with people who don't follow instructions. But that's life, right? I guess the true test will be whether I pass NCLEX the first time or not. But then again maybe I would have done fine without Kaplan. I DID get a good score on the Diagnostic before I'd even taken Kaplan course. Well, we won't know now will we?
Provision.
God is good people.
This morning I had plans to head over to campus to pick up a reference letter that I need for my job interview on Monday. At 11:45, I'm in the car and leaving my neighborhood and realize that due to it being close to the lunch hour, I should call the division office and ask if someone will be there to give me the letter that is waiting for me. But when I call, the automated message for the school says that they close at 11:30am on Fridays. aaaaah! oh no! I try calling both admin assistants directly and just got their voice mails. So I know they are probably gone. I almost turned the car around and drove home. But I hoped that somehow, someway, someone would still be at the school to let me into the office to pick up my letter. I did NOT want to walk into the interview on Monday only having two out of the three letters.
I've had weeks to get these letters pulled together. But reality was that faculty was on vacation and busy starting the summer semester and I was not a priority. However, when I went to campus earlier this week (to pick up my Kaplan book), I ran into the faculty member who had not replied to my requests for a reference letter. She promised she'd do it on Thursday. So I made plans to pick it up on Friday (Kaplan prevented me from picking it up on Thursday). So here I am, in my car, realizing that I'd blown it and would have to pick up my reference letter on Monday after my interview. Sigh. I hate excuses. I hate getting them and I hate giving them. And in my mind I was determined not to go into my interview passing blame onto my faculty member or stupid campus hours. I was willing to suck it up and look bad.
So I kept driving to campus. I get there and find there are still about three dozen cars sprinkled in the vast parking lots. I park my car and start walking toward the building when a girl calls out to me and says, "Do you know why the Main Building is locked?" aaaah!!! I tell her that I myself just learned that they close at 11:30 on Friday mornings. She's dejected and I'm less hopeful, realizing the science/nursing building is probably locked too. But with great hope (and desperation) I walk towards the nursing building. I put my hand on the door and am shocked when it gives. It's NOT locked! Hallelujah! One boundary crossed. A few more steps and I find the main office reception area locked. Shucks. I look through the glass wall and yes, I can see an envelope with my name sitting there. So close.
I head downstairs and find the door to the nursing faculty offices ajar- hoping that someone with a key or password can let me into the office upstairs where my envelope is (I even brought my ID with me to prove it belongs to me). I notice a guy sitting in the student lounge area downstairs, but head toward the faculty offices. No one. I head out the other end of the hallway and track back deciding I should see if that guy has seen any faculty or staff. He says he's not sure, but that there were two ladies that he saw upstairs walking towards the back of the building. I say thanks and rush upstairs. Sure enough the back door to the upstairs faculty office wing/area is open...and that's when I realize that there are TWO entrances to the main office. The main office is just in the middle of the upstairs faculty office area/wing. I can hear that someone is in one of the faculty offices (which is why the entry door is open), so I head into the office wing and head towards the reception desks. The lights are off (but light comes in through the glass wall) and I immediately have this moment of thinking "Wait, could I get in trouble for this?" Would someone think that I had broken in? Surely not- the door was open. So I quickly skirted the desks, grabbed my envelope with my name on it and booked it out of there. Whew! With my letter in hand I head out the building saying "Thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus!"
When I called the office this morning I was disappointed and discouraged. But my God is good and nudged me to keep driving to campus. It could have ended up all for naught, but it ended up okay! God provided. I have my letter. And I don't have to hang my head and apologize on Monday for only having two of the three letters.
Now I'm just hoping that what's written in this reference letter was worth all that stress. I have no idea what she wrote in the letter. My instructor sealed it and signed over the envelope closure. Her opinion is that the reference carries more weight that way. I'm hoping! =)
Okay, my last Kaplan session starts in 30 minutes... Here goes!
This morning I had plans to head over to campus to pick up a reference letter that I need for my job interview on Monday. At 11:45, I'm in the car and leaving my neighborhood and realize that due to it being close to the lunch hour, I should call the division office and ask if someone will be there to give me the letter that is waiting for me. But when I call, the automated message for the school says that they close at 11:30am on Fridays. aaaaah! oh no! I try calling both admin assistants directly and just got their voice mails. So I know they are probably gone. I almost turned the car around and drove home. But I hoped that somehow, someway, someone would still be at the school to let me into the office to pick up my letter. I did NOT want to walk into the interview on Monday only having two out of the three letters.
I've had weeks to get these letters pulled together. But reality was that faculty was on vacation and busy starting the summer semester and I was not a priority. However, when I went to campus earlier this week (to pick up my Kaplan book), I ran into the faculty member who had not replied to my requests for a reference letter. She promised she'd do it on Thursday. So I made plans to pick it up on Friday (Kaplan prevented me from picking it up on Thursday). So here I am, in my car, realizing that I'd blown it and would have to pick up my reference letter on Monday after my interview. Sigh. I hate excuses. I hate getting them and I hate giving them. And in my mind I was determined not to go into my interview passing blame onto my faculty member or stupid campus hours. I was willing to suck it up and look bad.
So I kept driving to campus. I get there and find there are still about three dozen cars sprinkled in the vast parking lots. I park my car and start walking toward the building when a girl calls out to me and says, "Do you know why the Main Building is locked?" aaaah!!! I tell her that I myself just learned that they close at 11:30 on Friday mornings. She's dejected and I'm less hopeful, realizing the science/nursing building is probably locked too. But with great hope (and desperation) I walk towards the nursing building. I put my hand on the door and am shocked when it gives. It's NOT locked! Hallelujah! One boundary crossed. A few more steps and I find the main office reception area locked. Shucks. I look through the glass wall and yes, I can see an envelope with my name sitting there. So close.
I head downstairs and find the door to the nursing faculty offices ajar- hoping that someone with a key or password can let me into the office upstairs where my envelope is (I even brought my ID with me to prove it belongs to me). I notice a guy sitting in the student lounge area downstairs, but head toward the faculty offices. No one. I head out the other end of the hallway and track back deciding I should see if that guy has seen any faculty or staff. He says he's not sure, but that there were two ladies that he saw upstairs walking towards the back of the building. I say thanks and rush upstairs. Sure enough the back door to the upstairs faculty office wing/area is open...and that's when I realize that there are TWO entrances to the main office. The main office is just in the middle of the upstairs faculty office area/wing. I can hear that someone is in one of the faculty offices (which is why the entry door is open), so I head into the office wing and head towards the reception desks. The lights are off (but light comes in through the glass wall) and I immediately have this moment of thinking "Wait, could I get in trouble for this?" Would someone think that I had broken in? Surely not- the door was open. So I quickly skirted the desks, grabbed my envelope with my name on it and booked it out of there. Whew! With my letter in hand I head out the building saying "Thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus!"
When I called the office this morning I was disappointed and discouraged. But my God is good and nudged me to keep driving to campus. It could have ended up all for naught, but it ended up okay! God provided. I have my letter. And I don't have to hang my head and apologize on Monday for only having two of the three letters.
Now I'm just hoping that what's written in this reference letter was worth all that stress. I have no idea what she wrote in the letter. My instructor sealed it and signed over the envelope closure. Her opinion is that the reference carries more weight that way. I'm hoping! =)
Okay, my last Kaplan session starts in 30 minutes... Here goes!
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Kaplan: Day Three
Pretty much the same routine today. Just answering a bunch of NCLEX questions with the instructor walking us through each question using the Kaplan Decision Tree. Each day we cover a different area (see schedule on yesterday's "Day Two" post), so the content changes and there's still stuff to learn and to consider.
During our one hour break, I didn't really break, I just played on my computer and then got REALLY sleepy right before we were supposed to start back. So when class began, I laid back on the sofa, my head on a pillow...and oops! I dozed off for about 5-10 minutes. hahaha! Not good. So I forced myself to sit back up and drank some cold water...
Tomorrow's schedule has us independently taking our "Readiness Test" during the time period when we'd normally meet for our first session and then we meet back online for the second session late afternoon. My understanding is that we'll go through a select number of the questions from the Readiness Test - perhaps the most commonly missed questions--I'm not sure. But then they'll also generically discuss our results and what they mean for us and what we need to do to get ourselves ready to take the NCLEX using Kaplan's resources--based on the results of the tests within Kaplan's site.
I went ahead and took my Readiness Test this evening, so that I don't have to do it tomorrow. 180 questions in three hours! ugh. I'm glad it's over with! But I couldn't believe my eyes when I got my result! My score was EXACTLY the same as what I got on my Diagnostic Test (which was the test required to be taken before starting this class). So, I'm not sure what this means. Possibly, that I didn't learn anything or possibly that it didn't really help me. But I'm just very happy that I didn't score worse, as I'd interpret that as I just got lucky on the first test or else Kaplan just screwed me up.
Kaplan explains that for NCLEX the goal is 50%. That's just the way the Computer Adaptive Testing works to determine competency above or below the line. Below is the explanation we were given in class regarding goal scores:
"The goal score for Question Trainers 1-5 is 65%. For the Readiness, Question Trainers 6 and 7 and all QBank tests, the goal is 60%. Remember that every candidate taking the NCLEX®RN examination gets 50% of their questions correct and 50% of the questions wrong. The difference between passing and failing is level of difficulty of question. If you are getting 50% of your questions correct answering passing level questions, you will pass. Passing questions are written at the application/analysis level of Blooms Taxonomy."
So for those of you who have been online and have seen people posting their scores on the Readiness and Question Trainers, understanding the above, will hopefully help. Kaplan does a great job of explaining how NCLEX determines passing/not passing.
So I'm sure you are wondering what my scores were? Okay, okay. On both my Diagnostic and my Readiness Tests, I scored a 69%. So I'm well above the 50% and well above the 60% -- so that is encouraging. But I really don't understand why I didn't score higher on my Readiness Test after spending three days learning Decision Tree strategy. My theory is that I really just need to jump back into the content and review what I've forgotten or never learned. I've been surprised at what I have retained and how things will just jump back into my head when I'm working on NCLEX questions (even for the past two weeks). My biggest fear has been that it's been slowly draining out of my head. Review, review, review! Practice, practice, practice!
Well, it is late and I'm beat. Until tomorrow...
UPDATE:
My Kaplan instructor explained that the Diagnostic Test had questions from every level, but that the Readiness Test included only "passing level" questions. So the Readiness Test was actually harder, so the fact that I kept a high score was a good thing.
During our one hour break, I didn't really break, I just played on my computer and then got REALLY sleepy right before we were supposed to start back. So when class began, I laid back on the sofa, my head on a pillow...and oops! I dozed off for about 5-10 minutes. hahaha! Not good. So I forced myself to sit back up and drank some cold water...
Tomorrow's schedule has us independently taking our "Readiness Test" during the time period when we'd normally meet for our first session and then we meet back online for the second session late afternoon. My understanding is that we'll go through a select number of the questions from the Readiness Test - perhaps the most commonly missed questions--I'm not sure. But then they'll also generically discuss our results and what they mean for us and what we need to do to get ourselves ready to take the NCLEX using Kaplan's resources--based on the results of the tests within Kaplan's site.
I went ahead and took my Readiness Test this evening, so that I don't have to do it tomorrow. 180 questions in three hours! ugh. I'm glad it's over with! But I couldn't believe my eyes when I got my result! My score was EXACTLY the same as what I got on my Diagnostic Test (which was the test required to be taken before starting this class). So, I'm not sure what this means. Possibly, that I didn't learn anything or possibly that it didn't really help me. But I'm just very happy that I didn't score worse, as I'd interpret that as I just got lucky on the first test or else Kaplan just screwed me up.
Kaplan explains that for NCLEX the goal is 50%. That's just the way the Computer Adaptive Testing works to determine competency above or below the line. Below is the explanation we were given in class regarding goal scores:
"The goal score for Question Trainers 1-5 is 65%. For the Readiness, Question Trainers 6 and 7 and all QBank tests, the goal is 60%. Remember that every candidate taking the NCLEX®RN examination gets 50% of their questions correct and 50% of the questions wrong. The difference between passing and failing is level of difficulty of question. If you are getting 50% of your questions correct answering passing level questions, you will pass. Passing questions are written at the application/analysis level of Blooms Taxonomy."
So for those of you who have been online and have seen people posting their scores on the Readiness and Question Trainers, understanding the above, will hopefully help. Kaplan does a great job of explaining how NCLEX determines passing/not passing.
So I'm sure you are wondering what my scores were? Okay, okay. On both my Diagnostic and my Readiness Tests, I scored a 69%. So I'm well above the 50% and well above the 60% -- so that is encouraging. But I really don't understand why I didn't score higher on my Readiness Test after spending three days learning Decision Tree strategy. My theory is that I really just need to jump back into the content and review what I've forgotten or never learned. I've been surprised at what I have retained and how things will just jump back into my head when I'm working on NCLEX questions (even for the past two weeks). My biggest fear has been that it's been slowly draining out of my head. Review, review, review! Practice, practice, practice!
Well, it is late and I'm beat. Until tomorrow...
UPDATE:
My Kaplan instructor explained that the Diagnostic Test had questions from every level, but that the Readiness Test included only "passing level" questions. So the Readiness Test was actually harder, so the fact that I kept a high score was a good thing.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Kaplan: Day Two
So.... Class started at noon. Power went out at 12:30. hahahaha! Um, so what do you do? Well, after waiting a few minutes to see if the power might come back on, I called and reported the outage. Then I changed my clothes into something more presentable, all the while hoping that the power would come back on. I called a friend 2 miles away to see if his power was out (if not, I'd have run over there to use his internet), but his power was out too. So I shut down my computer, threw it in the car with a pair of headphones and headed to Panera (nearest free wifi). I texted that same friend and asked if he'd text me when the power came back on. I rushed into Panera (it's 1pm at this point) and find an empty table with a accessible outlet. I boot up my computer and then head over to the counter to order a drink. I head back to my table, pull out my headphones and log-in to the site. The audio is horribly choppy- I call it bit-mapped audio (again, Kaplan warned us about wireless being less than ideal). *SIGH* Then I get a text from my friend saying power is back on...it's 1:10 or so. The Panera connection is lousy and my power is back on...so I pack up my stuff and headed back home. I had to laugh. That's all I could do. The *only* thing I could've done differently was to wait at the house and *hope* the power would come on soon. But, this is me we are talking about...I made a plan and stuck with it...but then reversed course when the plan failed. Thankfully Panera is less than 15 minutes from the house, so I was home and logged back in by 1:30... exactly an hour after losing connectivity.
Sure, I missed an hour. But what did I miss? Oh, about 12 NCLEX questions. And rumor has it that I can go back onto Kaplan's course site and find those questions and walk through them myself! Kaplan recognizes that life happens sometimes, so they have really done a good job duplicating resources so that we can get them one way or another. I forgot to mention that yesterday, my online instructor lost video feed several times and had to reboot and reconnect. Apparently there were having pretty bad storms and tornadoes in her area. Thankfully the TA's are in a different location and were able to jump in and take care of the class details. I think we lost our main instructor for the last 30-45 minutes of the class - she just wasn't able to reconnect. But the TA's who are also Kaplan instructors were able to keep us going and getting us done on time.
Today I didn't do anything productive while watching/ listening to the class. I let the clothes sit in the washer (why???) and never pulled out any hand weights. I did get sleepy, but instead just got up and just got some cold water and sat back down. The class was was pretty much the same as yesterday. Six hours of answering question after question using the Decision Tree. There are definitely tips I'm learning - like questions to ask myself while going through the possible answers, but when I get a question wrong...it's because I don't know or can't remember the related content to justify that answer. I'm a pretty good tester in general and I surprise myself at times at how well I can guess, but sometimes I'm at a complete loss. I do think that having these isolated questions on a given topic, can somewhat help me with recall later for specific content areas--seeing as I've had to apply information or learn information after getting a question wrong.
I'll definitely need to do a fair amount of content review before taking the NCLEX. Kaplan's course site is going to help...but I'm a bit overwhelmed at all that I need to do before testing. Kaplan does provide several study plan schedules which can help. I think I'm still in a bit of denial that I really need to sit down and be ultra disciplined about studying for NCLEX. I suppose it doesn't help that I haven't selected a date to test yet, but I'm waiting until after my interview and until after I know what is going to happen with that job. I definitely plan to start studying for NCLEX in earnest next week, regardless of job, but having a test date will definitely drive the studying and give me a goal.
I should've posted the course schedule yesterday, but here it is:
Tomorrow I have Sessions 5 & 6.
Until then...
Sure, I missed an hour. But what did I miss? Oh, about 12 NCLEX questions. And rumor has it that I can go back onto Kaplan's course site and find those questions and walk through them myself! Kaplan recognizes that life happens sometimes, so they have really done a good job duplicating resources so that we can get them one way or another. I forgot to mention that yesterday, my online instructor lost video feed several times and had to reboot and reconnect. Apparently there were having pretty bad storms and tornadoes in her area. Thankfully the TA's are in a different location and were able to jump in and take care of the class details. I think we lost our main instructor for the last 30-45 minutes of the class - she just wasn't able to reconnect. But the TA's who are also Kaplan instructors were able to keep us going and getting us done on time.
Today I didn't do anything productive while watching/ listening to the class. I let the clothes sit in the washer (why???) and never pulled out any hand weights. I did get sleepy, but instead just got up and just got some cold water and sat back down. The class was was pretty much the same as yesterday. Six hours of answering question after question using the Decision Tree. There are definitely tips I'm learning - like questions to ask myself while going through the possible answers, but when I get a question wrong...it's because I don't know or can't remember the related content to justify that answer. I'm a pretty good tester in general and I surprise myself at times at how well I can guess, but sometimes I'm at a complete loss. I do think that having these isolated questions on a given topic, can somewhat help me with recall later for specific content areas--seeing as I've had to apply information or learn information after getting a question wrong.
I'll definitely need to do a fair amount of content review before taking the NCLEX. Kaplan's course site is going to help...but I'm a bit overwhelmed at all that I need to do before testing. Kaplan does provide several study plan schedules which can help. I think I'm still in a bit of denial that I really need to sit down and be ultra disciplined about studying for NCLEX. I suppose it doesn't help that I haven't selected a date to test yet, but I'm waiting until after my interview and until after I know what is going to happen with that job. I definitely plan to start studying for NCLEX in earnest next week, regardless of job, but having a test date will definitely drive the studying and give me a goal.
I should've posted the course schedule yesterday, but here it is:
Tuesday, Session 1: Orientation/Class
Start/Decision Tree
Tuesday, Session 2: Pharmacology/Reduction
of Risk
Wednesday, Session 3: Reduction of
Risk/Physiological Adaptation
Wednesday, Session 4: Physiological
Adaptation/Basic Care & Comfort/Mgmt of Care
Thursday, Session 5: Management of
Care/Safety and Infection Control
Thursday, Session 6: Safety and Infection
Control/HMP/Psychosocial
Friday, Session 7: Readiness Test (taken
online at home during class time)
Friday, Session 8: Review of the
Readiness Test/Roadmap for Future Study
Tomorrow I have Sessions 5 & 6.
Until then...
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