Even though I still am nervous to take my licensing exam, I feel like this class has helped to prepare me for the NCLEX and my nursing carrier. In addition to taking many ATI practice exams, we still have a live NCLEX review, that I am excited to learn new ways of studying to help narrow down on the topics that I am struggling with. This live class will also help with developing a study plan to help keep me on track of my studying time. Throughout this class we have taken many practice and proctored ATI exams to help prepare and learn our weaknesses for the NCLEX. I had some good exams while pharmacology was my weak points. At the beginning of the semester, I thought remediating questions was very helpful, however, it became very repetitive throughout the semester. I felt like I was not doing remediations to improve my knowledge and just get them done to be finished. I used my individual performance profiles for each ATI assessment to help with slower testing, reading each answer more closely, reading the full question, picking out key words form the question, and reviewing topics that I had forgotten about. Some of the topics such as pharmacology I had forgotten about due to when we took the class. For example, we always go over ACEs, ARBs, beta blockers and other heart medication, but I forgot about medications such as side effects of statins, and other medications we do not take about frequently. By doing these practice exams it also reminded me of the little things as well, for example, isolation precautions, triage tags and more. My average time was adequate on the practice exams, however, I either took too much time on a question and over thought it or took too little time and did not read the question fully. After realizing this during the pharmacology proctored assessment, I took my time on the retake and improved tremendously. By doing remediations that required three critical points, allowed me to prioritize the information in each topic I got wrong. Content gaps helps me identify topics that I need to study more in depth before taking the NCLEX. One of my weakest points is pharmacology, however this allowed me ask question during clinical time. I am currently in preceptorship, by doing remediations it also showed me what I could ask my preceptor about. For example, I had to do remediations on a antifungal medication, by asking my preceptor about this medication I had the opportunity to see the drug in a clinical setting that helped solidify the information, and point out the important aspects of the medication as well. The content gaps also helped to identify why some answers were wrong and why others were correct. By explaining why, the answer was incorrect it helped distinguish key words in the question or answers. This allowed me start thinking to find key words in the question or answers to help narrow down the choices to multiple choice questions. The ATI also demonstrated that my self-care strategies needed adjustment to have the best probable outcome for the practice exams. One of the self-care changes I made were finding a better workplace to study, when to take breaks, and time management. For example, we had to take a few adaptive quizzes that could last for 75 questions or 200 questions. By having this drastic difference in questions, you had to plan ahead and take the adaptive quizzes much earlier that planed because they were very time consuming compared to the 70 question practice exams we took. By changing my study place also improved my scores on practice exams and how much I got done. I took a few of the questions and did many remediations in the quiet section of the library. This allowed a decrease in descriptions that helped me focus on the quizzes or get a significant amount of remediations completed compared to when I did them at homework my roommates around. The adaptive quizzes also allowed me to better understand by test taking abilities. It allowed me to understand and be aware of when I became distracted, fatigued or unfocused. This allowed me to practice during the proctored comprehensive exam, to stand up when needed and take a break and become refocused on the exam. I will use these new learned skills that I have gained this semester to help complete and pass the NCLEX, and in my future nursing career. For example, I will use the new test taking ideas and concepts when I sit for the NCLEX. In addition the new self-care strategies I have adopted will help in my ever day life the be more self-aware and become less stressed during my nursing career.
