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Failed NCLEX twice — what am I doing wrong with my prep?

by Alex G. 0 views4 replies
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Alex G.OP
May 27, 2026

I'm honestly at my lowest right now. I graduated from nursing school in January, failed my first NCLEX attempt in March, studied like crazy for two months, and just got my results last week — failed again. My Pearson Vue trick showed the "bad" popup both times. I don't even know where to start to fix this.

For my second attempt I did a nclex prep course through a well-known company, watched all the videos, and answered probably 2,000+ nclex practice questions. My scores on practice tests were averaging around 58-62%, which I know isn't great but I thought I was improving. The thing is I feel like I understand the content when I read it, but then I freeze when I see the actual nclex exam practice questions — especially the priority and delegation ones. I've heard the test is all about critical thinking, not just memorization, but I genuinely don't know how to "think like a nurse" yet.

Has anyone been in this situation and turned it around? I'm trying to figure out if I need a completely different strategy or just more reps. I started doing some free NCLEX Practice Exam 1 sets online to see where my weak spots are. Would really appreciate any advice from people who've been here.

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Sarah M.
May 28, 2026
I failed my first attempt too and was devastated. What finally clicked for me was switching from content-heavy review to strictly doing nclex examination style questions and reading every single rationale — even for questions I got right. I stopped trying to memorize facts and started asking "what is the nurse's FIRST action" with every question. Went from a 60% average to passing on attempt three. It's a mindset shift more than a knowledge gap, honestly.
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Daniel M.
May 28, 2026
Have you tried Uworld? I know everyone says it but there's a reason. The rationales are incredibly detailed and they specifically teach you how to approach priority questions. Also — what does your breakdown look like? If you're bombing pharmacology or mental health specifically, that's a different fix than if it's scattered. Knowing your weak categories matters a lot before you just throw more sample nclex questions at yourself randomly.
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Daniel M.
May 28, 2026
Don't give up. A lot of great nurses fail more than once — the test is notoriously tricky, not a measure of how good you'll be at the job. Try mixing in some NCLEX-RN Practice Test 20 sets focused on alternate format questions like SATA and ordered response. Those tripped me up hard until I practiced them specifically.
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Nicole F.
May 28, 2026
60% on practice exams is borderline — you really want 65%+ consistently before sitting again. Give yourself 8-10 weeks minimum and do at least 100 nclex example questions daily with full rationale review. No shortcuts on the rationales, that's where the actual learning happens.

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