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SCORING NCLEX-RN ITEMS:THE ESSENCE.Scoring NCLEX-RN items, as done by the CAT system, may be different from the system/marking scheme of your licensing/examination authority. The computer selects one item at random from a pool of say thousands or even millions of questions with grading levels of difficulty. Thus the computer automatically determines the grading level of each item selected. For example if you answered question/item 1 correctly, the CAT system quickly determines your level of ability. And when you click the NEXT button, it gives you an item a little difficult than the previous one. Should you get it right again, you keep on going up the ladder with increasing difficulty in the questions until the computer is 95% convinced that your performance is above or below the minimum required standard. And the computer will automatically end the testing. However, when you get an item wrong, the system deduces your level of ability from that answer. The next question will be one with lesser difficulty. And when you keep getting more wrongs, the difficulty keeps reducing in grading until the CAT system is 95% certain that your ability is just below the minimum required to be an RN. I have heard people complained that they knew or answered most of the questions correctly, and didn’t deserve to fail. Possibly, most of your correct answers belonged to non –scoring and few were scoring. Non-scoring questions are also called pre-test questions. Non-scoring or pre-test questions are 15 questions that every NCLEX-RN candidate must answer. But the candidate earns no marks for getting them correct. They are trial NCLEX-RN questions in their development stages for possible inclusion in the next exam as scoring questions. Based on each candidate’s performance on these 15 questions, the board may or may not decide to make them scoring questions in future exams. You will not be able to make these questions out during your exam. The third trend of this system is you getting one difficult item correct and having the next wrong. You continue in that correct-correct, wrong-correct -wrong, or wrong- correct-correct trend until you answer the needed number of questions for the system to be able to identify your ability. It can take a minimum of 75 or up to the maximum of 265 items for the CAT system to decide a pass or fail. In case you should run out of time whiles answering the questions, no problem you can still pass.Scoring NCLEX-RN is different,and this is how. The computer will use the items you answered to look for your consistency in getting the correct or incorrect answers. The computer uses that to determine if your performance would have been above standard (to pass) or below standard (to fail), if you had had more time. The good thing about the CAT system of scoring NCLEX-RN exam is it eliminates the unfair situation where individuals with different levels of ability have to write the same type of exam questions and number of questions; and, also, be scored using the same marking scheme. This is because it is believed that there is a number of individuals out there with different or lower cognitive ability but their performance may still be above the minimum required to pass NCLEX-RN.
Having finished writing your NCLEX-RN, you may want to know your results. You can learn of your results few hours after the NCLEX-RN exam. You either get this from your RN travel agency or you go to the website of the state board of nursing under which you registered. Just click on registered nurse license verification/look up and follow instructions. If you passed your name, RN license number, date of issue and date of expiration are displayed. License look up is free under most state boards of nursing, but others do charge a fee for this. However when you are unsuccessful, no information about you is displayed. The board will usually write to you indicating your performance with regard to the various categories and subcategories in the test plan. Some of the boards of nursing have license look up for CNA (certified nurse assistance),LPN (license practical nurse ) and RN all on the same web page. So you got to look for the RN column.
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