hello guys welcome back to another video if you are new here my name is Andrea and I am a nursing student doing an accelerated BSN program at West Coast University for today's video we are going to be talking about the ATI fundamentals proctored exam now West Coast University does use ATI but I know not every nursing program uses ATI some use Kaplan some use e world but West Coast at least the Los Angeles campus uses the ATI system ATI claims that it is a strong predictor of the NCLEX pass rate so if you get a level two um you have a high chance of passing the end clex so with that said West Coast requires a level two to pass the class and if you don't get a level two you will have to remediate retake it and then if you fail again you will have to retake the class the score breakdown is a little weird and a little frustrating so as you can see a level one is from 50% to to 64.9% and then a level two is from 65% to um 81.6% and then 81.7% and up is a level three so that's the ATI grading system but the most frustrating part about this exam is not only the fact that you know you obviously have to score level two but the West Coast grading breakdown according to those levels and how how it is portrayed on canvas on canvas the exam is worth 100 points and if you get a level two that is a 90 out of 100 points so you basically like aced the exam obviously if you get a level three you get the full 100 points but if you get a level one the jump is from 90 to 50 so a level one would be 50 out of 100 points so you failed that exam I agree that it's not fair because you could have a 64 and get the 50 out of 100 but if you have a 65 you get the 90 out of 100 and as you know getting a 50 out of 100 on canvas will significantly drop your um overall grade and if you're already like struggling to pass every other exam it all accumulates you know towards the end score and that might compromise you passing the overall class that is why this exam was a very big deal so as I mentioned there are nine ATI books and all of the ATI books combined is what makes up of the enlex there are nine ATI proctored exams I thought that we were taking all nine proctored exams but I have to correct that information because at West Coast we are only going to be taking a total of three proctored exams the first one was the fundamentals I know that mental health is one of them and I can't remember off the top of my head what the third one was so I'm not sure how other programs are doing it but but at my West Coast location we are only taking three of the proor exams so with that said I did pass with a level two and I will tell you the exact score that I got but before I mention that I just want to disclose that I really feel for the people that were not able to pass with the level two we all worked really hard for it it was just a really really hard exam it was one of the hardest exams that I've ever taken in my life just because you didn't pass it doesn't mean that you're not going to be a nurse it doesn't mean that you were going to be a bad nurse it was just a really hard exam that was designed for us to fail I'll get further into detail about that in a little bit towards the end of the video additionally I want to say that I am not sharing the score that I received in a way of boasting or bragging or or in any attempts to make other people feel bad I'm only sharing it with the genuine intention of wanting to be able to share the tips and tricks that I used in order to pass so that I can be a source of information for those that are about to take the exam or those who are planning to take the exam be so I ended up getting a 79.8% on the exam putting me at a level two I was one or two questions away from a level three which was very frustrating now I say this very carefully because I am grateful I passed and again I feel for the people that did not pass but there were questions where I'm going to be honest with you I just had no idea what the answer was like I had no clue how to go about answering it I didn't know what the heck they were talking about and I just did eeny meeny miny mo but I was really frustrated because it could have been one of the questions that I literally guessed on that would have taken me from a level two to a level three I'm still really relieved that I passed and again getting the level two when it is read out on canvas is a 90 out of 100 and really at the end of it all it's the end grade that matters for the class because that is what's going to be on your transcript right but before we get started on talking about what I did to study and prepare for the exam in order to get a level two here's a quick glimpse of the days leading up to the exam the day before and the day of hope you enjoy it's kind of crazy the kind of things life throws at you knew good morning it's about 5:40 I'm just going to do my skin care and then we're going to get going cuz I'm running super late my throat freaking hurts guys my freaking throat hurts so bad my anxiety is so high it's a great start to the day it's fine it's fine positive affirmations positive affirmations of course I'm going to go pick up some coffee you know the drill I do have 110 before for my friends class we have just the present we have a presentation today um I look like crap for presentation but I don't give a cuz it's really not that important at this point um and for the majority of that class we're going to lecture and um I'm just going to be honest with you I'm not going to pay attention to that lecture no um I'm going to like just tune her out and study for this exam if if I'm being completely hon feel like I'm dancing on Moonlight of all the stars at night none of them can shine as bright as you do they can't compared to your life thousands of miles between still could hello I'm back it is actually a week later I got really really sick um we had Memorial Day week off and unfortunately the one week that I had off and had no school all week I get sick right anyway this is everything that I did for the exam um so the first and second thing on this list is the ATI book as well as my lecture notes and I kind of want to like combine them because I used these two interchangeably so the first thing that I did was obviously take notes throughout the entirety of the term our lectures are based on the engaged modules on the ATI dashboard and the engaged modules literally just follow the book in more detail I would even go as far as to say that the engage modules would be like the textbook and this is like the workbook to that textbook so the engage modules are basically like what my professor lectured on and what we did homework on and what I took really good notes on so that brings me to the second thing that I use which is the book this this book this is going to be your Bible for um your first term at West Coast Co West Coast sets it up in a way where literally all of the classes that you guys have will be dedicated to the like at um topic that you are working on for that uh term so all three classes that I'm taking right now all correlate with one another in regards to like covering the materials that are on this book so I used this book in several ways uh again because this was like a summary of my lectures would read the ATI book chapters on the engaged lectures that we would cover in class like a day or two before those lectures are covered in class that way when I went into class it wasn't like the first time that I was getting exposed to the material and I would really just skim through the chapter and these chapters in this book are really short I think like the longest one would be like five pages and then after the class lecture and when I have already finished like my pretty notes based on that lecture I would obviously try to read them once or twice on my own time that way that way I am retaining the information and then when I finished doing that I went back to the book and went to the same chapters based on the lecture and I would skim through it again and then I would complete the post quiz that's on there at the end of every chapter there's like a little post quiz I would do it without cheating like I wouldn't make it an open note thing I tried to like answer it as honestly as possible all the red is like everything that I got wrong and as you can see I was getting a lot of these things wrong um but that's part of the learning process um I also want to add that as I was going through the chapters of this ATI book I was Anita I was highlighting I was making little sticky tabs to keep myself organized however way you guys want to go about it um just know that this book is like your Holy Bible especially when it comes to taking that proctored exam thirdly in addition to the lecture notes you guys know I'm a big fan of ani cards they're basically quizlets but like on a different level I love Ani so much because I am able to access it through multiple devices and um I've just grown accustomed to it and I love all the plugins that you can have on ay so for the lecture topics that don't really require like much understanding but there's no other way to like learn the material but repetition that's when I would use ay cards so the other thing that I did was create a study guide for myself I basically followed along the table of contents of the book and then included as like subtopics for each category the important things that were on that chapter that I needed to know and I formatted it as a checklist um so you guys know that I use my study guides in two ways so the first way I skim through it and make sure I'm I covered every material I went through all of the lecture notes and then the second way that I use the study guide is I wait until like a day or two before the exam and I use it as a serious check off I highlight everything that I absolutely am 100% confident about and everything that I am not confident about I will go back to my lecture notes and review those and do practice quizzes on those as well um and then I will repeat that until I can cover the whole study guide without hesitation that brings me to the next thing on the list of things that I used which are the practice assessments and practice questions if you watched my last Vlog you guys saw that we had to do the practice assessment A and B and do the remediation plan for like the assignment of that week there are a total of four practice exams on the ATI dashboard um there's practice assessment A and B and then there's practice assessment A and B with ngn now I highly highly highly recommend that you take them on your own time even if it's not like a requirement for you guys to take it like the way my teacher made it a requirement even if it's not a requirement take it on your own time take all four as for the other practice questions I used three resources the first being the dynamic quizzes there uh if you've never access the dynamic quizzes before you basically just go to assessments Dynamic quizzes you can customize your own quiz or test you can choose the amount of questions the level of difficulty you can even choose if it's timed or not and there are total of 402 practice questions at random I went through all 402 questions yeah the next set of practice questions that I went over were the engage post tests engage again is one of the modules that we used on the ATI dashboard and at the end of every chapter there is like a post test and even though we had to do those post tests anyway as part of our ATI homework throughout the term I went ahead and retook all of those quizzes they range from like 10 questions to 25 there were like one or two that had 50 questions but those were like the more easier topics um so they're not long you know if you if you take like less than a minute to answer each questions cuz you're you're trying to like go through them fast you know you just want like the exposure um you can finish like one 10 question post test in like 8 minutes thirdly the last set of practice questions that I used were the practice tests that my class tutor provided West Coast provides a class tutor for the major um Theory class of your term so our tutor created his own version um of a practice exam I know a lot of other programs don't have like a class tutor that creates your own practice you can still use the dynamic quizzes you can still use the engaged quizzes and then you can still will use the practice proctored assessments um additionally there are also practice questions online there's a bunch of them on Quizlet there's some on study dock there's some on like registered RN even but I suggest that you utilize as many practice questions as you possibly can because I am telling you now there is nothing that you can do to prepare for how nursing School questions are the way they set you up to trick you it's a different type of way that questions are asked and the only way you are going to be able to learn how to answer these type of questions is through multiple exposures lastly I watched all of the level up RN fundamental videos they have a set of flashcards that they sell online as well and their YouTube playlist videos basically like follow along those flash cards I didn't buy the flash cards I just watched the videos but their videos literally follow at this ATI book as well and I noticed they were pretty much accurate as to what is on this book and each video on that playlist was about like 5 to like 12 minutes long so they're Quick videos I would watch them like before I go to bed I would watch them especially like in the traffic drive home and there were days where it took me like an hour and like 30 minutes to get home so I killed like about half of the playlist from just driving home and I also used it at times when like you know reading the information just was not clicking so you need like to watch a extra like lecture video on it I really suggest um using level up R end I will link the fundamentals playlist in the description below so those are pretty much everything that I did to study for the exam with doing all of this I ended up scoring a level two a very high level two now for my tips and advice this exam was one of the hardest exams I have ever taken in my life there's nothing that will prepare you for the types of questions they will ask and the most annoying thing about this exam is that no matter how good your instructor is no matter how great of a job they do at teaching you this book and nursing fundamental mentals in general and like everything you need to know about that topic there's nothing they can do to prepare you for how these questions are going to be asked on the actual proctored exam that is because they do not have access to the exam they don't even have access to the results of the exam so we don't know what questions we got wrong they can't help us out and they can't check for us so there's no way of like correcting our mistakes and Bing ourselves which is so annoying I'm not even going to get started on that even though the title of the exam says fundamentals the majority of that exam is all meds surge why I don't know my professors have also agreed that these type of questions are Med surge level questions and there shouldn't be any reason why they are asked of fundamental students the best tip that I can advise you and I wish somebody had told us I wish our teachers would have known um is that is to go over basic Med surge now Med surge is basically like all the tubings of the body so that includes like your tracheostomy that includes um oxygen therapy that includes interal feeding tubes GI tubes um geromy tubes um and then IV lines those are not fundamentals at all but I can guarantee you the the test that we were given had like over 10 questions on those topics and those although this book brushes on those topics they're probably like a total of five pages on this book about like about those type of lines and tubings for the body um and they just brush up on it because again it's fundamentals and you go into more detail about it as you get into med searge but why were there so many questions about Med surge on a fundamentals exam I don't know they like just set you up for failure all that information will be on this med search book a tip that I have is if you want to go like that extra distance and maybe um skim through some of the chapters that include those topics from the med search book I think it's a really stra idea um it's really stupid that you even have to open this book for this socalled class topic right it's so dumb don't even get me started about it but that's just the reality I will say though there are multiple versions of the um exam I think my professor said there are like four to six versions of this exam at least as of 2023 springly there are some versions that are a little bit easier than the other versions but unfortunately my cohort of course with my luck got stuck with one of the harder um versions I do recommend that you go over a little bit of Med search just in case you do get the same version that I did I do want to let you guys know that I will be opening up a Etsy shop to sell my notes including the study guide and steady checklist that I created for the Proctor exam for fundamentals um as well as other notes from previous classes if you guys are interested in purchasing my notes um I promise they're going to come at an affordable price I know as nursing students we don't get to work as much so we're not generating as much income as we are focused on studying and going to school so I just want to let you know that I do have that in mind when I am uploading and creating the price for them but just know that I also put in hard work to make them if you guys are interested in purchasing I will link this shop in the description below anyway that is all for this video that is pretty much everything that I did to study for the exam and those are the tips that I um really suggest you look out for and do in order to um excel in this exam 've already taken this exam and you didn't pass or you didn't get the score that you were expecting don't worry it does not define you it does not mean that you're going to be a terrible nurse it does not mean you're not going to pass nursing school it was just a really really hard exam that literally was designed to stump you and it's just one of those hurdles that we have to overcome in nursing school and for those that are about to take this exam or those that are starting core or starting your fundamentals class in order to prepare to take this exam I hope this video did not scare you instead I hope that it is beneficial and helpful for you when you do take that exam just know that I am rooting for you I believe in you you got this and as long as we are giving it our best practicing good self-discipline you and I will make it through our programs that is all for this video and I will see you guys in the next one bye