Preparing for NCLEX with Virtual ATI

I am writing this post because there are not enough current stories and statements addressing the use of virtual ATI as a resource for the NCLEX in 2015. A little background, I was not excited that my school forced my class to use ATI to get my "greenlight" in order to get my ATT. Our previous 8 week experience with ATI was less than adequate. So I didn't expect much and seeing on these forums that pretty much everyone and their grandmother was using either Kaplan or HURST I was discouraged further. Since I had already paid for it I decided to give it a shot. Sidenote, this is my experience and what I did, you will probably want to do it differently.

Since I wanted my ATT so badly and had to wait for the greenlight before I could get it, I ended up rushing through ATI in less than/about two weeks. I had study Plan C. Now the positive of ATI is that they give you instant feedback on the question you just answered but not during your "greenlight" comprehensive assessment. When I started ATI I would get somewhere in the low to mid 60s on my assessments but by the day before NCLEX I could expect a low 70 on any assessment. I got an 80% on the comprehensive assessment, I truly do not know how, and got my greenlight. I scheduled my test date within 2 weeks and the remainder of those 2 weeks I did every assessment the tutor could throw at me averaging about 120-180 questions a day (2 or 3 assessments a day) with the exception of the detailed med surg assessment which consists of 13 assessments lasting 30-40 questions that I completed in one day. The positive of ATI is that it trains you to start focusing on the most important answer and it repeatedly asks you questions where that is the answer. That is why, I think, some people say they memorize the questions, not because the questions are exactly the same but because the concepts are, which I think is a positive, because as you've probably heard by now, there is no way to know everything for the nclex. I took my nclex and I got about 100 questions, two-thirds of which were SATA, and today I found out I passed which is pretty great.

I did not read the ATI books, which are a joke! Whenever I had trouble with a concept or such I would go look up the topic on khanacademy which is an EXCELLENT youtube resource that explains something from the pathophysiological point of view so you don't memorize you just understand. They have awesome playlists for diabetes and pulmonary disorders and hypertension etc etc. Also there is simplenursing, overly simplified but good, and crammed. If you struggle with pharm, which lets be real who doesn't, and you have access to ATI try using the pharmacology made easy under your products tab under tutorials. It is EXTREMELY lengthy but if you just do not know ANYTHING in a certain pharm category, I didn't know psych meds AT ALL, then that will be really helpful because they go into good detail and organize it by category first ex: antidepressants and list the five categories of AD and then go into each one. I thought that was a solid resource. Quizlet is also great especially for mnemonics, there is a great psych med mnemonic on there.

To reiterate, I'm writing this post to let all of those people out there, that are forced to pay for ATI or have ATI as a free” resource, know that just using ATI without anything else will get your prepared enough to take the NCLEX and pass. I did read the study guide that is floating around here once and the mnemonics are pretty great, especially the one for contact precautions and fetal heart rate decelerations, but overall I just focused on doing as many questions as ATI could give me. If you're not an overachiever and are in NO WAY ever going to use three, four, five resources to prepare for the nclex then know it's okay just do a million questions and review the concepts you truly don't understand.