Hey All! I am applying to start Carrington's RN program in January 2019 and I just took my Kaplan exam last night. I spent months scouring the internet looking for study tips and came up pretty short so I wanted to share mine here to hopefully help someone else out. Firstly I studied out of the Hesi, Kaplan, and McGraw Hill nursing entry exam review books (all purchased on amazon). I also studied off of Khan Academy's SAT prep for reading, writing, and to brush up on grammar. I scored 100% in reading, 96% in math, and 81% in writing. If you've already taken the exam I would love to compare scores, especially if you've applied before! I'm pretty happy with my scores but I have no frame of reference for it they are good enough to get in.
Math: There is a calculator available to you for every question. Most of the questions are working with fractions and decimals and are VERY easy. There were a few very simple "solve for x" equations and a few simple word problems as well. The HESI and Kaplan review book's math section are significantly more difficult than what you will encounter on the actual exam. The McGraw hill is very similar in difficulty but touches on things I found you really didn't need for the exam, like geometry.
Reading: The reading comprehension section was WAY easier than the reading comprehension sections of the Khan SAT prep, Kaplan, and Hesi books. The passages were comparable to those of the McGraw hill book, but honestly I would say a smidge easier. I would not stress about this section, it was very straightforward.
Writing: This section was definitely the hardest. You are given a passage to read and then given a series of questions about how to alter the passage. Some questions ask you to pick the best spot to add a sentence, to pick out a sentence to delete because it is repetitive, to identify which sentence is missing a verb etc. The most difficult part about this section was that I often felt that multiple answers were correct. None of the review books were helpful for this section but the Khan Academy website was. Their SAT writing review section had the most similar questions to the actual exam and going through their grammar review page was extremely helpful in brushing up on things like subject-verb agreement, semicolon usage, affect vs. effect etc.
I know this is long but I hope it is helpful to someone! If anyone has any questions for me I am happy to answer them! Again if anyone else has taken the exam/applied to carrington before I would love to chat with you too to get a better a sense of where my scores are standing!
