Hi, welcome to the very first episode of our brand new podcast, NCLEX Ready.
My goal through this podcast is to help you achieve your dreams and become a nurse. And I’ll be doing so by sharing my best tips with you every week.
In this first episode, I share with you my own personal journey.
I haven’t had the best of times trying to pass the NCLEX. In fact, I failed it twice before I was able to pass it.
You see, I was born with hearing loss in both ears, which means I had to learn in a more visual way.
As a visual learner with a short attention span, lectures were a hundred percent not my thing. Still, I survived nursing school. I went through the NCLEX lecture and reviewed the thousands of pages of the NCLEX review book. I did it all.
And yet, I still ended up failing twice.
So, suffice to say, after the second time, I was pretty defeated.
But I wasn’t ready to give up on my dream of becoming a nurse just yet.
Instead, I decided to create my own method to study for the NCLEX and pass it.
Listen to this first episode of NCLEX Ready to discover everything you need to know about my journey.
Let’s dive in.
The Birth of QD Nurses
Failing the NCLEX twice made me feel defeated (as it would anyone else). I had done all the right things, I had spent all my days studying for it and doing everything I could to remember all the information I needed to pass the exam.
And yet, I still failed. My classmates were passing on their first attempt, and here I was experiencing failure after failure.
But after years of nursing school and investing so much into this career path, I just couldn’t walk away from my dreams of becoming a nurse.
And that’s how QD Nurses was conceived. You see, had I passed the NCLEX on my first attempt, none of us would be here.
Creating My Own Method to Pass the NCLEX
What nursing student is able to retain everything they need from the huge NCLEX review book? Definitely not me, that’s for sure. And who has the energy to reread the huge NCLEX review book? Still not me.
So how on earth did I pass the NCLEX on my third attempt? Well, to put it simply, I created my very own method.
You see, I created my own flashcards that simplified everything that I needed to know for the big test, and guess what? I passed it in just seventy-five questions.
My nursing flashcards were created to give nursing students more confidence to be NCLEX ready. My method has worked for many nursing students before you, and I’m certain they’ll work for you too.
The Secret Behind My Flashcards
Why do my flashcards work so well, you might be asking yourself? Well, when I first attempted to pass the NCLEX, I spent two months studying non-stop for it. I had so much information to remember that it was daunting.
According to what my lecturers had advised me, I was supposed to focus on my areas of weakness while skipping over the primary highlighted areas that had priority. Even with all that studying, I still ended up having to answer the maximum amount of questions.
You see, it’s not true that as you take the test and provide accurate answers, you’ll be shown simpler questions. In fact, the opposite is true. The more accurately you respond, the more complex the questions get.
While studying for my second attempt, I decided to streamline my study strategy to concentrate on the nursing topic that I found the most challenging, pharmacology. At this point, I had begun to use the flashcards strategy for terms that I was unsure about. Still, I found my flashcard format to be too new.
During this second attempt, I again maxed out the questions and ended up failing. This failure was not taken lightly; I was losing confidence again.
But I didn’t give up. I took a month off to rest, and during my study session for my third (and final) attempt, I came up with a new set of flashcards that would ultimately become the first version of what I have today.
Thanks to those flashcards, on my third attempt, I only had to answer seventy-five questions to be able to pass!
I discuss all of this in more detail in the episode above, so make sure to give it a listen!
