My NCLEX Experience

NOT IN OPTIMUM LEVEL

Last night Feb 6, I thought my test exam was in the next two days. I decided to burn myself out by studying. Had coffee in Starbuck's and when I got home, drank more coffee. While on bed trying to sleep for my coming "rest" day to condition my mind, I had sudden doubts that my NCLEX was Feb 7 instead of 8. I hurried to check my email and turns out, I was right.

After a stressful sleep, I started my exam day mentally exhausted. I had a big headache that bothered me up to my exam day. I was confused; it maybe exhaustion or am I unconsciously being anxious? I guess it was both. The element of surprise has caused so much havoc.

TENSION BUILDING PHASE

Only thinking to my self "I am at war! I am a soldier and my enemy is the computer and my bullets are Concepts and Test Taking Strategies".

WAITING OUTSIDE THE BUILDING

Got to Trident Tower by 11am. I was surprised that the guard in front wouldn't let the test takers inside the building. The guard told me to come back at 2pm. So, just went to Starbuck's at People Support and stayed for an hour. I bought food to bring to the testing center. When I got back to the building at 2pm the guard told me to wait 30 mins more. I've noticed the other test takers were getting tired standing. One of them sat on the stairs. The guard went outside and told the girl she couldn't sit and to stand up. This scene really got me pissed, but why waste your cool when your about to take an exam right?

MY FIRST TEN QUESTIONS

Finally, Exam time. I wasn't exactly thinking right during this time. I just breezed through my first ten questions. Just clicked and clicked without even thinking. I noticed that my mind was drifting and thinking, "If i failed, what will happen next? Maybe I'll save up or maybe I wouldn't even have the motivation to re-take this again". Then after number ten, I stopped and thought to myself, I should take time because this is actually it. I started rationalizing each choice and applied Concepts and a couple of test taking strategies.

STOPPED AT 75 IN LESS THAN AN HOUR

Every time, topics came up that I was really familiar with I would almost raise my arms. When I've noticed that tricky choices were wrong, I touched the screen to cover it. I noticed that if I had the wrong answers the next question got easier and vice versa. When I got to 75, i started to get hungry. So I was waiting for the question "Do you want to take a break?" to appear so that I could eat (Not even sure if they would let me get the food from the locker). But the computer screen just shut down. The Proctor escorted me, I asked her how long did I take to finish the exam, she answered that it was less than an hour.

CONFIDENT BUT WHO KNOWS...

I know I had wrong answers but you don't have to get a perfect grade to pass. Surely, I chose more correct answers than the wrong ones. Let's wait and see. I'm just confident. Then again, I need confirmation to validate all this. Come Tuesday we'll find out... :)