critical thinking test by ATI

drugstorecowgirl214 · Jun 11, 2008

Hello Everyone,
I will be starting the program in Aug and today we were informed that we have to take the critical thinking test by Aug (not the TEAS). I went on ATI website to check the content for the test but could not find anything.
Does anyone know about this test? What should I study in order to prepare for the test? What is the minimum percentage we have to get?
Any input would be appreciated as I would like to start preparing now.
Thanks a lot!

We took the ATI critical thinking test in our first term of NS. There isn't anything to study....it has stuff like if you have numbers # # # #...what series of numbers will come next......I hated it. They'll explain the whole percentage thing to you. It begins to make sense once you hear the whole speil.

gaajr1, RN · Jun 11, 2008

Thanks for the info. Not having any material to prepare is killing me.

shock-me-sane · Jun 12, 2008

we had to take that. I looked at my ati results and the areas it graded on was

Evaluation

Inference

Explanation

Analysis

Interpretation

Self-regulation

It was 3 years ago since I took it, but I do remember that you really can't study for it. It just is a tool to see where your strengths and weakness are.

good luck

gaajr1, RN · Jun 12, 2008

shock-me-sane, thanks a lot for your effort. I really appreciate that and good to know the areas we are going to be tested on. If you can, could you tell me what is self-regulation? I mean in the testing sense.

ladybugsea · Jun 12, 2008

No, you can't prepare for it. But you will probably have to take it again at the end of your program. The hope is that your nursing education improved your score, and hence your CT skills.

As far as self-regulation, I knew what it meant after I had taken it, but not sure now! I think it had to do with keeping your biases in check, something like that.

bookworm1 · Jun 12, 2008

There is no preparation for it. We were required to take it at the beginning of the nursing program and we are expected to take it at the end of the nursing program. It looks at your critical thinking skills and evaluates areas of strengths and weakness (such as analysis, evaluation, etc.) and offers suggestions to improve on various areas.

We were told that "No one passes the first test" (great boost to confidence!), but I passed and my evaluation said that I had no areas of weakness. Yeah right! I am just glad the test isn't a determining factor for our school or we'd have lost out on a lot of excellent future nurses. Unfortuantely, the rest of the ATI tests do count. I just wish the content would agree with the content we are taught in class and in clinical!