RPN licensing exam in 8 weeks — is 65% on practice questions a bad starting point?
I'm writing my RPN licensing exam in 8 weeks and trying to calibrate how much prep I actually need. I graduated from a 2-year RPN program 3 months ago with a 78% average and I've been working part-time as an unregulated care provider in a LTC facility while I wait for my exam date. I'm currently doing 60 practice questions a day and scoring 65–68% across mixed-topic sets.
My weakest areas are pharmacology calculations — especially weight-based pediatric dosing — and prioritization questions where you rank 4 patients by acuity. Clinical judgment questions feel more intuitive because of my work placement, but pure pathophysiology knowledge questions are hit-or-miss.
I've been using Mosby's RPN prep and a Canadian-specific question bank. My instructor said aim for 75% or higher before feeling confident, but I'm nowhere near that consistently. Is 65–68% at 8 weeks out actually a warning sign or a normal starting point?
Also wondering how different the real exam felt from practice banks in terms of difficulty. Some Mosby's questions feel almost too easy and I worry it's not calibrated to actual exam difficulty.
The real exam was harder than Mosby's in my experience. The Canadian-specific question banks are much closer to actual difficulty. I'd weight practice time toward those and use Mosby's mainly for concept reinforcement rather than as a difficulty benchmark.
I did about 2,400 practice questions total over 10 weeks. That's probably more than necessary but it made pharmacology calculations automatic. At 60/day you're on a similar volume track if you maintain it — don't jump to 100/day suddenly and burn yourself out.
65–68% at 8 weeks is totally normal — I was at 63% when I started prep and passed on my first attempt. Trajectory matters more than starting score. If you're moving up 1–2% per week, you'll be well above 75% by exam day.
For prioritization questions I used ABC plus time-sensitivity plus reversibility, applied mechanically until it became automatic. It doesn't work 100% of the time but it gets you to the right answer on about 80% of those questions. Drill it until you don't have to think about it.