NCLEX-RN and NCLEX-PN Test Plans (NCSBN)
by NCLEX Examination Committee · National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN)
NCSBN's official blueprints for the NCLEX-RN and NCLEX-PN, effective April 2026 through March 2029. Free PDFs listing every client-needs category with its percentage weighting, item-type descriptions, clinical judgment coverage and exam administration rules.
More resources on NCLEX Preparation
Prioritization, Delegation, and Assignment: Practice Exercises for the NCLEX Examination, 6th Edition
Practice exercises drilling the management-of-care items candidates most often miss: which patient to assess first, what may be delegated to an LPN or assistive personnel, and which findings to escalate. Sixth edition adds NGN-style questions and case studies.
Saunders Comprehensive Review for the NCLEX-RN Examination, 9th Edition
Silvestri's roughly 1,100-page content review covering every nursing area in the test plan, with about 5,700 practice questions in print and online, Next Generation item types, clinical judgment boxes and rationales for each answer option. The one book that maps content to the test plan end to end rather than only drilling questions, which is what a candidate rebuilding weak areas needs.
UWorld NCLEX-RN QBank
Question bank of roughly 3,400 items including 750 Next Generation formats, with adaptive computerized-adaptive-style practice tests, up to six self-assessment exams, and illustrated rationales for every option. Written by practising registered nurses and nurse educators.
RegisteredNurseRN Free NCLEX Quizzes
Nurse Sarah's free quiz library with rationales, spanning pharmacology, EKG rhythm interpretation, fluids and electrolytes, acid-base, maternity, pediatrics, dosage calculation and body systems. Most quizzes pair with a teaching video on the same site's YouTube channel. The strongest genuinely free content-plus-questions pairing in a niche where nearly everything is a funnel to a subscription. No sign-up wall, rationales included, and the quiz-plus-video pairing makes it usable for remediation rather than just score-chasing.
Klimek Reviews (official Mark Klimek channel)
Free videos from the authorized Mark Klimek channel covering prioritization rules, ABC versus CAB decisions, unexpected-finding logic, must-know drug classes and select-all-that-apply technique. Aimed at answering strategy rather than systematic content coverage.
NCSBN Clinical Judgment Measurement Model
NCSBN's explanation of the layered model behind Next Generation NCLEX items, ending in six cognitive skills: recognize cues, analyze cues, prioritize hypotheses, generate solutions, take action, evaluate outcomes. Includes downloadable model diagram and clinical judgment skills cards. The 2023 format change is the thing candidates most often misunderstand, and almost every explanation online is a paraphrase of this page. Going to the source removes a layer of distortion.