Week 1

My name is Desiree. I graduated from Gateway in 2021. We learned a lot online because of Covid. I have struggled with taking tests all my life in school and with nursing tests. I have taken the nursing board five times and felt nothing but a failure to life and my family. I feel good about this class. I am struggling with doing things fast because I am that person who rushes, and I am learning to slow down. I am very stressed and have high anxiety. so, when it comes to tests I ruin it because my anxiety gets to my head and I blank. I want to be able to learn to take what I learned and apply it to questions to help me rationalize and slow down to understand how to get to the correct answer. I think doing 50 questions a day is helpful. I also think UWorld is hard so sometimes I do practice questions later in the day. I feel like I rush more because I am tired. I do better with questions in the morning since I am a morning person. I have had trouble sleeping but I can get up and start my day just fine. I can focus more in the morning. My goal is to stay motivated even on days that are overwhelming. I have three kids and work hard to balance care for them and studying. My mom came up from Florida to help me with my kids so I can take this class and I will pass. I want my kids to look at me and think “my mom didn’t give up” and no matter how hard life gets I want to keep going for them. I want to learn to slow down and control my test anxiety, so I gain what I need to pass for my NCLEX. I have been reading the questions twice unless I absolutely know the answer. I take each answer choice and treat it as a true and false and it kind of helps but I am still struggling with it.

Week 2

As I do 75 questions a day, I noticed I am starting to understand more of what is being asked. I want to be able to go into this week with more confidence in myself and when I’m doing questions. I know I need to slow down but if I am 100% sure on a question I click and move on. I want to be able to do that for all my questions and pass my NCLEX this time. I think going over my past tests and rereading all of them is very helpful. I started doing that and the more I learn in class it clicks. I realize what is wrong, but I also try to rethink why I chose the answers I did.

I am doing 75 questions in UWorld instead of 50. I think it’s easier than doing 50 because I can learn more each night. I still feel like I rush on some, but I don’t want to take too much time and dwell on answers and overthink it and pick the wrong one. My scores have been staying around average. I hope to build more confidence and see that score grow over the next few weeks. I want to improve my confidence when I take practice tests to be ready for the real one.

Week 3

Today I feel like I am slowly gaining confidence. I am learning to slow down and apply each answer to the question then see if I can eliminate it by thinking through it, not just guessing. Sometimes I can read too fast, but I am now reading the questions 3 times before I look at the answer choices and try to get an idea of what concept is being asked. I am doing 75 questions a day, not just 50. I am including all the subjects we talked about so far and it is finally making sense on how to answer them. This class is making it more understandable and helpful when answering questions. If I don’t know how to answer the question, I will ask for help or I will look at notes to figure it out. If I’m still stuck, I will look it up, but I am trying not to do that as much. I want to see how much I really know. I make stupid mistakes still, but it makes sense when I read the rationale and redo the questions.

I think slowing down is my answer to getting questions correct at this point. Rereading the questions multiple times is very helpful. I will have my days where I get down, but I still do it. If I feel like I’m too distracted when I’m doing questions, I stop and take a few deep breaths and continue. I won’t stop. I must keep going because my kids see me, and I don’t want to let them down. I want to pass. I don’t want to struggle anymore or have to worry about things I can’t control. I am still learning.

Week 4

This point in the class I am starting to get excited. I have my exam scheduled in a couple weeks, and I am so excited to finally pass and be done! I am nervous but I can do this! I am struggling with time, but I am going to work on that this week and next week. I do not want to over-think this test. It’s just a test. I keep telling myself “I got this” and “it’s just like another test”. I will be going to the library to mimic the environment at the test center. I plan on doing that this week so when I go in, I will not feel more nervous, but confident. I am rereading old tests and even redoing incorrect questions on tests. I want to be done. I am tired of looking at this book and these questions. I need to pass.

I have worked really hard to study for this. The content is clicking this time and it helps when I have pictures to look at when things are being talked about. I am a visual learner, so the pictures help a lot. I read things in the book if I need a better understanding but to be honest, I can’t comprehend very well so reading is my last resort. I do look at the book and try to read but if I don’t get to reading, I go look at something I don’t understand to see if that helps. I watch YouTube videos and I have been relistening to lectures I recorded, and it helps a lot to recall information from week 1-2. I am putting in the work. I do get frustrated when I get a low score on a test or answer a question wrong. But I tell myself to take a deep breath. I got this and reset my mind. I don’t look at the time as often as before because it freaks me out. Sometimes I get caught up and choose the wrong answer and feel dumb when I know what it should’ve been. I am getting excited but it’s hard with my anxiety. I feel like I am too hard on myself but I know this. I don’t want to blank when I go take the test again. I am doing the work and I want it to pay off. I can do this.

Week 5

This has been the hardest 6 weeks I have ever done. I have committed to this, and I am proud of myself for keeping up. I wish I worked this hard in nursing school. My NCLEX test is this week, and I am starting to feel more confident. I want to pass, and I am ready to take my test. The more questions I continue to do is helping me apply what I know, and I am getting excited to see the hard work paid off. I am proud of how hard I have worked and never have expected myself to come this far. It sucks putting life on hold for the 6 weeks, but I know this wasn’t a forever thing, just temporary so I can pass and have money to do things. I am very excited to not ever do these questions again. I am tired of looking at them but until then I am going to continue to work hard to keep up with what I learned so far. Even though my kids were sick, and I caught their sickness, I still was able to answer my questions and do what I was supposed to do. I am excited and ready to be Desiree Moore, RN. My kids are counting down with me and are very excited with me.

After passing the NCLEX

I had my test Saturday, and I was nervous to take it. I was not as nervous as I was before when I took it previously. I would shake and not feel confident at all. This past time when I took the NCLEX I was not shaking, I felt nervous and more confident than before. After the six-week course, I felt so much better about the content I learned and felt more prepared. I understood a lot of things that were on my test that I didn’t before. I applied what I learned from the class. I haven’t worked so hard for something in my life than I did for the six weeks I took this class, and I finally earned it. I am so relieved that I won’t have to worry about finding a decent job now for my family and our finances can finally be straight. I am so glad I took the chance and had an opportunity to take this class because without it I’m not sure if I would have ever felt confident enough to pass like I did this time.