Frequently Asked Questions

The NCLEX (National Council Licensure Examination) is a standardized exam that determines whether a candidate is prepared for entry-level nursing practice. It covers the four major categories of client needs: Safe and Effective Care Environment, Health Promotion and Maintenance, Psychosocial Integrity, and Physiological Integrity.

The Next Generation NCLEX introduces clinical judgment scenarios to better assess a candidate's ability to make safe nursing decisions. Question types include standalone items and unfolding case studies with formats like drag-and-drop, matrix multiple-choice, and highlight.

After each answer, NCLEX updates its estimate of your nursing ability and uses that estimate to select the next item, so items aren't too easy or too hard. After at least 85 items, the exam can stop when it is 95% certain that your ability is clearly above or below the passing standard. Otherwise, the maximum-length rule applies at 150 items, or the time-limit rule applies when your allotted testing time expires (the standard limit is five hours, including breaks).

There is no fixed percentage-correct cutoff. NCSBN publishes separate RN and PN ability passing standards and reevaluates them every three years. The applicable confidence, maximum-length, or time-limit rule determines how the standard is used to reach the result.

Both exams are the same length under the 2026 Candidate Bulletin: NCLEX-RN and NCLEX-PN each range from 85 to 150 items (including 15 unscored pretest items), with a five-hour time limit. Some NGN items have more than one key and use partial-credit scoring, so a single item can contribute more than one scorable point.

It depends on how many items you have completed. If time runs out before you have answered the minimum of 85 items, the result is a fail. If you have answered at least 85 items, the exam is scored using the final ability estimate from all the items you completed: at or above the passing standard is a pass; below it is a fail.