I took the HESI exam and I'm ecstatic that I got a cumulative score of 97%! A lot of the posts I read helped me out while studying, so I want to pay it forward and write my own post.
This will have some general strategy/review of what materials I used to study.
P.S. I am sorry this is so long, due to the length of the post I'm going to have to put the rest of the post in comments...hopefully it helps though.
RESULTS/THOUGHTS ON SECTIONS
Before going into this I would like to state that I was finishing up second semester of anatomy and physiology as well as taking a microbiology course when I began studying for this exam.
Also I did not need to take Physics for my school; so the subjects I took were: Math, Chemistry, Anatomy/Physiology, Vocabulary, Grammar, and Reading Comprehension.
Math-94%
I did the math section first because it felt like the right combination of needing to not be mentally weary during but also wasn't one I was terribly worried about (a good warm up/wake up section, if you will).
The most common questions are on ratios and fractions. There were more fill in the blanks than most of the practice tests I took. There were two military time question (no roman numeral ones for me) and a fair amount of conversions; most conversions were based on English system with a few based on metric. I don't think there was any English to metric or vice versa conversions.
Take your time, check your answers.
Vocabulary-96%
I did vocabulary second because it was another section that I was a little worried about, but not as worried about as reading comprehension or chemistry. You'll notice as you're studying with multiple materials that some of the same words are popping up-a lot of those words did show up on the exam. As you're studying, if you're not sure of a word (even if it's not the word being tested for, such as being in the explanations, or in the review sections of study guides), write it down along with its meaning. A lot of words that I came across as I was studying did appear in the test (not all of them were from the Elsevier book but I'd say at least 40% of them were). There was one put in alphabetical order question as well.
Anatomy-100%
I took anatomy third because I was the most confident about this section and wanted to raise my confidence in general, plus I had heard that biology and chemistry (the ones I was most worried about) had a lot of overlap with anatomy and thought if I did anatomy and physiology first it would prepare me for the other sciences which I was much more worried about.
Because I had just finished taking two semesters of anatomy in a row, perhaps I had an unfair advantage of feeling very fresh concerning the material. There was one question on something I had never learned about that I just tried to think through to the best of my ability and guessed. But overall, this is about basics (anatomical position, where muscles are located, types of tissue, etc.) I do agree with other reviews that it was more heavily about A&P I content. If you are rusty, I would make sure to supplement Elsevier with other more in depth reviews.
