Are Kaplan Integrated Tests As Horrible As Other Students Are Making Them Seem?

[Purple_roses]

My school requires students to take Kaplan Integrated Tests at the completion of each course. It is worth 10% of our grade. My class if freaking out for a few reasons.

1) Upper-classmen have told us that no amount of practicing on the Kaplan website will prepare you for the test.

2) Upper-classmen have also told us that their total grade for the semester dropped as much as 7% due to a low Kaplan score.

3) Apparently the Kaplan tests ask questions that we may not have covered in class yet. For instance, apparently the first semester test has questions about specific medications. However, my nursing school does not offer pharmacology until the 2nd semester, meaning my class may not have a clue about medication questions.

I wasn't worried about this test until today, when people started freaking out about it. Is this test really something to worry about? Is there a good chance that I'll do well on it if I've been studying well and have been practicing NCLEX style questions throughout the whole semester? Was anyone's grade actually improved after taking the Kaplan Integrated Test?

Thanks in advance for any responses.

[AspiringNurseMW]

Absolutely using the Kaplan website helps for taking the test. I don't know about grades because it's not part of ours, we just have to remediate for either an hour or two.

The Kaplan test I took for fundamentals is based off of THEIR fundamentals.

Here's the thing. I got a 75%, but since it wasn't part of my grade I didn't study nor did try very hard during.

But I think it's good practice for NCLEX and using different test taking strategies to answer questions where you know nothing or little about the content/subject. Because there is no possible way one can cover all the nursing content that could possibly be on the NCLEX.