ATI Proctored Exam Help — By Subject

The ATI Proctored Exam refers to any exam in ATI's Content Mastery Series, a set of standardized, monitored subject-specific tests nursing programs use to measure a student's readiness in a given area, such as Pharmacology, Fundamentals, or Med-Surg. Assessment Technologies Institute develops, scores, and periodically updates these exams for both RN and PN nursing tracks.¹

Each exam ties to a specific nursing course and typically follows two unproctored practice assessments, which prepare a student for the proctored version that counts toward a course grade.

Yes, ATI periodically revises its Content Mastery Series exams, which is why searches for a specific year, such as 2023, 2024, 2025, or 2026, return different discussions and study materials online. Revisions typically update the item bank, adjust content weighting, and, in more recent years, incorporate Next Generation NCLEX (NGN) item formats such as case studies and bow-tie questions.¹

The nursing profession saw a significant content shift industry-wide in April 2023, when the NCSBN officially launched the Next Generation NCLEX exam. ATI and other test developers updated their own assessments around this period to better reflect NGN-style clinical judgment questions, which explains why 2023 shows the highest search volume among exam-year queries.²

Despite these periodic updates, the core content categories tested within each subject, such as dosage calculation in Pharmacology or delegation in Fundamentals, remain largely consistent across exam years. A newer exam form generally reflects updated question formats and refreshed items rather than an entirely different body of nursing knowledge.

The specific exam form and item bank a student receives depends on their nursing program's current ATI license and course schedule, not on personal choice. Most programs administer whichever current-year form ATI has issued to that institution at the time of the course, so a student cannot generally choose to take an older or newer version.

If you are studying with older materials, such as a 2019 or 2020 practice set, focus on the underlying content categories and reasoning patterns rather than exact question wording, since those tend to persist across exam form updates even when specific items change.

ATI ranks performance on every Content Mastery Series exam into four proficiency tiers: Below Level 1, Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3, each reflecting a defined probability of meeting NCLEX-RN content standards in that subject.³ Level 2 typically serves as the program benchmark most nursing schools require for course credit.

These proficiency tiers have remained ATI's standard scoring framework across exam years and updates, so the levels described on our subject-specific guides below apply regardless of which exam form or year a student is assigned. Read our full breakdown on the Pharmacology proctored exam guide for a detailed proficiency-level table.

Most nursing programs administer ATI proctored exams through Respondus LockDown Browser paired with Respondus Monitor for webcam verification, regardless of which exam year or form is in use.¹ A smaller number of programs proctor in person at a physical testing center instead.

See our full exam-day help resources for guidance on setting up your testing environment before exam day, whichever exam year you're assigned.