Kaplan CAT exam -- accurate?

Published Jul 25, 2018

17 Posts

Hi all! Long time lurker here! I recently graduated my nursing program (in May) and I'm planning to take my NCLEX August 6th! My school came with the Kaplan bundle with 3 CAT tests, but during the last few weeks I've been doing UWorld religiously since so many people recommended it (and I like their rationales better).

For funsies, I decided to take a break from Uworld and see how I would do against Kaplan's CAT test last week. I took the 1st CAT test and it shut off at 110 questions with the overall in green. I said to myself "not bad but need more practice" so I went to take a ton more Uworld.

This past week I took the 2nd CAT test, hoping to get near 75 questions. It shut off at 216 questions instead! I was blown away and devastated. However, I looked at the overall and it was still green.

So my question is: how reliable/similar is Kaplan's CAT to NCLEXs CAT? Anyone else experience this? When I do practice tests from both Uworld and Kaplan, I seem to be doing ok (getting 60's, sometimes even 70's). IDK, this last CAT was just a major blow to my confidence. (PS - yes I know I should be expecting the full 265, but who doesn't want to pass in 75?)