Failing the NCLEX is common, and it is getting more common
In 2025 roughly one in three NCLEX-RN candidates did not pass. You are in a group of about 101,000 people, most of whom will sit it again and most of whom will pass. The 45 days before your next attempt are the whole of the work, and the first two weeks are the ones candidates usually waste.
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The first thing to do is read the report, not book the retest
Most candidates book the next attempt within days of getting the result, then spend the waiting period doing more practice questions. That order is backwards. The question is not how much more you study, it is what you study, and the answer is in a document NCSBN has already sent you.
Your Candidate Performance Report tells you, for every content area on the test plan, whether you were above, near or below the passing standard. It does not tell you why you were below. A candidate below standard in Pharmacological and Parenteral Therapies might have a genuine content gap, or might know the material and be losing those items to reading speed, to the case-study format, or to running out of time.
Those four causes need four different plans. Working out which one you are is the first session, and it is the reason a second attempt with a plan behaves so differently from a second attempt with more question banks.
- The performance report read line by line with a credentialed nurse
- Content gap, item format, pacing and reading load told apart
- Study weighted to what actually cost you
- Sessions booked around your shift pattern, nights included
What your retake plan contains
Written after the first session and adjusted as you go
- A weighted breakdown of your study hours by content area, and the reasoning
- Next Generation item types practiced as a skill separate from content
- A week-by-week schedule that fits the days you actually have left
- One timed full-length run under exam conditions, with the debrief
- A named nurse you keep, rather than whoever is free that week
Why the same score report leads to different work
Almost every failed attempt is mostly one of these. More practice questions only helps with the first.
A real content gap
You do not know a content area well enough yet. This is the one that responds to more study, and it is less common than candidates assume when they book another question bank.
Item format
Next Generation case studies, matrix and bow-tie items score differently from standard multiple choice. Candidates who trained on one format and sat the other lose points they had the knowledge to win.
Pacing
Running long on early items and rushing the rest. It shows up as scattered wrong answers with no content pattern, which is exactly why the report on its own cannot diagnose it.
Reading load
The most common single issue for nurses trained outside the United States, and a real cost in a second language. It is technique rather than clinical knowledge, and it is teachable.
What the waiting period looks like when it is planned
The wait is fixed and you cannot shorten it. The only decision left is what goes in it.
Diagnose, before you study anything
Read the performance report with someone who can tell you what each content area covers and whether your gap is knowledge, item format, pacing or reading load. Everything after this depends on getting it right, and getting it wrong costs you the whole window.
Weakest area first, in the order the report gives
Study weighted toward what cost you most, booked around your shifts rather than around an ideal week. A plan you cannot keep to is worse than no plan, because it also costs you the belief that you can do this.
Item format as its own skill
Case studies, bow-tie and matrix items award partial credit and do not behave like the multiple choice most people trained on. Knowing the material is not the same as knowing how it is being asked, and this is where a lot of second attempts are still being lost.
One timed run, then taper
A full-length attempt under real conditions, then pacing work off the debrief. No new material in the final week, deliberately. You want to arrive rehearsed rather than crammed.
A second attempt is a different exam, statistically
Repeat pass rates are lower than first-time rates in every category, which is worth knowing going in. It is an argument for changing the method, not for studying longer.
Figures reported by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing in 2025 NCLEX Examination Statistics, Research Brief Volume 96, June 2026, Table 1, with the 2024 brief for the year-on-year comparison. The repeat figure is the sum of the two repeat rows in that table: 42,513 US-educated plus 40,187 internationally educated. Pass rates fell in every category that year while the total number of candidates rose by 10,576. Read the NCSBN brief.
Preparation is teaching and practice, never the exam itself
- No help of any kind during the exam. Not a message, not a call, not a lookup.
- No live questions, no recalled items, no reconstructed NCLEX banks.
- No sitting the exam on anyone's behalf, ever.
- We do not guarantee a pass, and you should be careful of anyone who does.
- We do guarantee the process: a named nurse, a set number of hours, a plan built from your own report, and a further block of sessions at no cost if you do not pass.
NCLEX content is secure, and using recalled items is a testing-security violation. It voids your result, it can bar you from re-sitting, and it puts the license you have worked years for at permanent risk. Read the full policy.
Frequently Asked Questions
NCSBN sets a minimum of 45 days between attempts and that applies in every US jurisdiction. Your board of nursing may add conditions of its own, such as a cap on total attempts or a remediation requirement, so check with the board you are licensing under as well as the national rule. There is more detail on our NCLEX retake policy page.
Book it, but do not treat booking as progress. The date is the easy part. What decides the second attempt is whether the 45 days are spent on the thing that actually cost you, and you cannot know that until the performance report has been read properly.
No. Start on a provisional weighting from your program history and practice results, and we re-weight the plan the day the report arrives. Losing two weeks of a 45-day window waiting for a document is the most expensive thing you can do right now.
Yes, and the case for changing method rather than repeating it gets stronger each time. Repeating the same preparation and expecting a different result is the pattern we see most often in candidates on a third or fourth attempt. What we look at first is what changed between attempts, which is usually less than people think.
Your board of nursing sees your attempt history. Employers generally do not, and a license issued after a second attempt is the same license. Ask your board directly if this matters for a specific application, because the rules are set state by state.
Around your shift pattern, nights included. That is the default assumption rather than an accommodation, because almost everyone retaking the NCLEX is working while they do it.
Exam plans start at $199. You get an exact figure after the first conversation, based on how many sessions the plan needs, and nothing is booked until you agree it.
Send us the performance report
We will read it, tell you where the points actually went, and set out what the 45 days would look like and what it would cost. Before you commit to anything.
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