When going through the ATI medical- surgical exam I felt more prepared that the last ATI pharmacological exam. Having three different class decocted to medical – surgical content helped prepare for this exam. In my nursing education we took Adult Health I, Adult Health II, and Adult Health III. All of these classes build on each other. For example, you would learn the “normal” or expected values in Adult Health I where you would use this information to identify abnormal findings in Adult Health II. Feeling more confident during this exam, I did not second guess myself comparatively to the ATI Pharmacological exam. I did allow myself to have two breaks during this exam. When I felt myself become unfocused and not fully reading the question I would pause and take a breath or get a snack to allow me to refocus on the exam after 10 minutes. The most difficult part of the exam for me was the select all that apply questions, when I see these questions I become flustered because I know they are difficult for me. This is because you have to get all the answers for the question be correct. For example, I would have selected two answers instead of three of the correct answers. This quiz took me less time comparatively to the ATI pharmacological exam because I only had to answer 77 questions instead of 160 questions. The hardest part of all these adaptive exams is the fact you do not know how many questions you will answer. Normally our exams in class are just 50 questions. I enjoy having a set number of questions because it provides me with a goal to get through. However, this is a goal of mine to become more comfortable with taking these exams because this reflexes the NCLAX exam. I do personally believe that these ATI adaptive exams are very helpful for taking the NCLAX in the future and to provide us with more question to review the content we have learned over these four years. For my next exam, my goal will be to take a break between each 50 questions to ensure I do not lose my focus and to have the motivation to read each question carefully.
