What Helped Me Get Level 3 On Most of ATI Exams...

The school that I go to requires you to take the ATI examinations after you complete a class. The ATI examinations are worth 25% of your grade. So, aiming high is the reality that must be done if you want to get ahead.

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What Helped Me Get Level 3 On Most of ATI Exams...

I obtained a level 3 score on mental health, nursing care of the newborn, and nursing care of the child. Prior to my proctored ATI examination, I always received two weeks to prepare for the test.

Exam Preparation

To prepare for the examinations, I always read the ATI books. Reading them can be daunting, but it's a necessity. As you read each chapter, it's important to complete the end of chapter quiz after reading the chapter.

Pace yourself depending on your timeline. For example, read at least 3-5 chapters a day or more if you can. The key here is to retain as much of the knowledge possible. The only way to retain the knowledge is through thorough understanding of the subject matter and testing with a lot of rationales. If you come across a subject that you don't understand such as Fifth disease, then Google or Wikipedia it. Understand physiology and the complications with the disease.

ATI Practice Test

The next important part of studying for the ATI, is utilizing the ATI practice test in the ATI online modules. Typically, there are at least 4 practice test for each area such as mental health, pediatrics, or maternity. It's important to do each practice test throughout your study time. For example, I will complete one practice test weeks ahead of the ATI exam, then I will complete another ATI practice test at least 2 weeks before the exam. During the last 2 weeks, I will complete the rest of the practice tests.

Take Screenshots Before Submitting

Another tip that really helps me out, is to take screenshots of each of the questions in the ATI practice exams. For example, if there are 40-60 practice questions about maternity, I will do all of them and before I submit to get my grade I will take a screenshot and paste them into a word document.

Later, I will fix screen shots such as expand them and place the document into landscape mode. Then I will print them out 2 sided and study them prior to my exam.

I highly recommend NCLEX style test banks during the courses such as "Pediatric Success: A Q&A Review Applying Critical Thinking to Test Taking (Davis's Q&A Success)". They provide this book for med-surg, maternity, and mental health. I used these books to help me get high quiz scores. In addition, these books made it easier to study ATI material. This book will have multiple NCLEX style questions that help prepare for quizzes and ATI exams.

So that's what I got for you in terms of studying for the ATI exams. I do a lot of highlighting, and I write multiple side notes in my ATI books. Read, recall, retain, and test. I only have my ATI Med-Surg left, and this is the heaviest one of all of them. I am hoping for a level 3 as long as my study habits will prepare me. So far it has worked.

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StocktonNurse

About StocktonNurse, BSN, LVN, RN, EMT-B

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Specializes in Cardiac ICU; CV Nursing; Medical Surg; Psychiatric.

So to just inform you all I was able to get a level 3 on my Med-Surg ATI by using my method of studying. In addition I discovered tonight that I got the highest score in my program ever! Tonight's a good drive home from school.

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We took our comp predictor the very first day of complex med surg. I have a 92% chance of passing the nclex if I were to have taken it that day. Not bad, but not great either.

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Specializes in Cardiac ICU; CV Nursing; Medical Surg; Psychiatric.

I took my ATI RN Comprehensive Predictor 2016 I got a score of 79.3%. This score states that I have a 98% of "Predicted Probability of Passing NCLEX-RN® on the First Attempt". I was able to obtain this score by just doing every single ATI practice test that was available. When I did the comprehensive practice ATI's, I noticed that it was focused on Medical-Surgical, Pediatrics, Maternity, Mental Health, Nutrition, Community Nursing, and Leadership/Delegation. So I studied all of the ATI practice test that I could to achieve this score. I chose not to read any of the ATI books. I mainly just did all of the practice test questions, and read ALL of the rationales. A method that helps out is doing the ATI comprehensive practice test and looking at your weak points. If you notice that you are weaker in peds or maternity, then spend extra time reviewing those ATI practice test, and look up certain areas that you do not comprehend. One book that has been my constant go-to is "Illustrated Study Guide for the NCLEX-RN® Exam, 7e (Mosby's Illustrated Study Guide for NCLEX-RN Exam)". I bought this book for $4 plus shipping since it was a little older and used. They have the newer version that I would consider, but I've already spent enough money. This book has a lot of visual pictures that are great to look at for certain disorders, and has great knowledge about any topics for the NCLEX. It's just a great book because it isn't huge like a saunders, and light enough to carry in a back pack and have as a go to book to look up most disorders and see the interventions and assessments. In addition, our school paid for a HURST review 3 weeks prior to taking this test to help jog our memories of the comprehensive information. I like the material and I will utilize it for future nclex studying.

Here is my experience with the ATI RN Comprehensive Predictor 2016. I really felt like I had a lot of Maternity and Pediatric questions compared to other areas. My school discussed this matter with us weeks ago that the newer nclex has increased maternity and pediatric questions. So who knows, but I do feel like I should've studied more maternity after that test. The past cohorts in school had to take this test as a pass or fail, such as obtain a 70% score or higher and you pass. But, previous cohorts have scored lower than 70% and this jeopardized their graduating from the program. So for our cohort, the school changed it's policy and now the test is based on percentage, such as if you get a 70% then you get that amount in points. For example, if you get 65% out of 15 points, then you get 9.75 points. Since this test was no longer a pass or fail test, this decreased the amount of anxiety for me to study. So I correlate my score with this new policy. If the test stayed pass or fail, I feel that I would have implemented more study techniques to get a higher grade. If so, I know I would have gotten higher than a 80% score. If you are under this circumstance such as pass or fail, I would have utilized these other study techniques: I would have studied every single question at then end of each chapter in all of the ATI books, and I would use my previous tips about printing out screen shots and memorizing answers and their rationales. For example, the ATI MEd-Surg has like 100 chapters, I would have completed every single end of chapter question. This would have reinforced more information for me. Thanks for reading this, and I hope this helps out anyone that needs it for these crazy ATI test.

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Thank you for this info! I have taken the med-surg and it is very difficult but like you said if you keep at it and do the work you can achieve a level 3. I have peds, maternity and community left and I want to score a level 3 on those so I am definitely going to do this method like you said. Thanks so much!

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Thats quite a detailed plan :D I winged it and go level 3's on all but fundementals (go figure, Ill never figure out crutches questions), passed my comp with 92%... though when I say I winged it I guess I should include that I made sure I remediated on the practice tests and took that task very seriously, not just mindlessly completing the task :) I tried to understand why I got it wrong, like did I simply not know what they were asking or did I have a misconception about something and worked from there.

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This is so helpful. Thank you.

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Any other tips? I am practicing for ATI comp predictor exam which I will take Nov 3 this year but I am flying at a steady 63% accross the board and on pharm 10% less, so in other words... Im a failure lol so any other tips would be appreciated and much needed please. Thank you.

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Specializes in Cardiac ICU; CV Nursing; Medical Surg; Psychiatric.

You don't have time to read books anymore at this point all though you could read up on areas that your score lower on. This was my plan prior to the comprehensive. Practice every single ati test bank that you have!! Make a detailed plan that allows you to cover the majority of the topics. Such as do the ati practice test for maternity one day do another version. The next day do pediatrics, do at least two different test. The next day cover the pharm test and do 2-3 versions. Pharm might need an extra day. Study the med surg thoroughly such as do 2-3 different versions. Now the med surg also has test that are focused on just neuro, GI, GU, reap, cardiac. Now do those test also per day such as neuro and Gu in one day and do different versions.

Now while you are studying you have to read all the rationales!! That's the main point. Try to get down the pathophysiologh of fluid volume excess and fluid volume deficit. In addition I highly utilized this book while I was studying because it was light and straight to the point Illustrated Study Guide for the NCLEX-RN® Exam

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Specializes in MICU, Burn ICU.

You are so awesome, thank you! I've been using ATI ebooks/modules along with my other readings/assignments just to be better prepared for proctored exams and because of that, it isn't so much of a load when it comes to test day. Really hope what I've been doing helps ?

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Any tips on the Leadership ATI???

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Specializes in MICU, Burn ICU.

Just an update if anyone cares to know lol I surprisingly made a level 3 for Funds Proctored yesterday. I cannot share what was exactly on the exam but there were some unexpected topics that were in there in terms of SATA. Majority of the class scored a level 2, our average being 72%. I would just say to trust in yourself and do not linger too long on a question.

Next exam will be Pharm... yikes

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