Kaplan’s NCLEX program has been around for a while now, and the company even boasts of a 97% pass rate.
With the recent changes in the NCLEX exam though, how suitable is Kaplan when it comes to preparing for the Next Gen NCLEX?
Are their practice questions representative of the NGN? How well explained are their case studies? Will this course help to polish your clinical judgment skills?
In this Kaplan NCLEX review, we take an objective look at Kaplan’s NCLEX course, establishing whether it is worth it for the NGN.
Summary Table
| Kaplan NCLEX Course | |
Self-Paced Course | Live Online Course | |
Price | $425 | $525 |
Access Period | 6 Months | 6 Months |
Free Trial | 7 Days | 7 Days |
Live Instruction | ✘ | 18 Hrs. |
Full-Length CATs | 3 | 3 |
Overall Practice Material (Qbank + Practice Tests) | 3,800+ Qns. | 3,800+ Qns. |
Question Bank | 2,100+ Qns. | 2,100+ Qns. |
Flashcards | 890+ | 890+ |
Live NCLEX Channel | Yes Unlimited Access | Yes Unlimited Access |
NCLEX eBooks | Yes 2 | Yes 2 |
Mobile App? | ✘ | ✘ |
Kaplan NCLEX Overview
Kaplan is a full-feature NCLEX prep course with a ton of resources ranging from live classes and prep books to a QBank and pre-recorded video lectures.
This test prep company ideally gives you 2 main NCLEX course packages: the Self-Paced NCLEX course, and the Live Online NCLEX course.
At a minimum, whether live or on-demand, here is what you get with any of the Kaplan NCLEX courses:
- 6 months of access to the online study materials.
- An NCLEX study plan.
- 24/7 access to content review sessions in the NCLEX Channel.
- Content videos with 300+ essential nursing topics.
- 3,800+ QBank and practice test questions.
- Detailed answer solutions and explanations.
- 3 full-length NCLEX Computer Adaptive Tests.
- Over 890 flashcards.
- Kaplan’s proprietary “Decision Tree” method to help you master clinical reasoning.
- NCLEX-RN Content Review Guide eBook.
- 700+ page Basics eBook.
Kaplan NCLEX Review For 2025
Plans & Pricing
Kaplan gives you two key NCLEX RN prep options; the Self-Paced and the Live Online NCLEX prep plans.
Aside from the two though, you can also opt for the Practice Pack or the Online Tutoring + Live Online study options.
Kaplan NCLEX Prep Options | ||||
Practice Pack | Self-Paced | Live Online | Online Tutoring + Live Online | |
Pricing | $224 | $425 | $525 | From $999 |
About This Plan | • QBank + 3 CATs.
| • Everything in the Practice Pack. + • Video Library.
| • Everything in Self-Paced. + • Live Instruction & Question-based Lessons. | • Everything in Live Online. + • 5 or 10 hrs. Of private one-on-one tutoring.
|
If you are still deciding which of the 4 NCLEX prep plans would be the best fit for you, you could opt to start off with Kaplan’s free trial.
The 7-day trial period gives you free access to the NCLEX review course, 50 QBank questions, live sessions on the NCLEX Channel, and some on-demand video lessons.
Curriculum
Kaplan’s NCLEX RN course is essentially broken down into 3 key aspects covering content, strategy, and practice.
Whichever Kaplan course you go for, your NCLEX prep package will typically revolve around the following study resources:
- Study plan
- Video Library
- NCLEX Channel
- Live classes (where applicable)
- Content review guide ebook
- Practice work
a) Study Plan
The study plan prepared by Kaplan contains a step-by-step outline of everything you need to work on within this course, and this study schedule is clearly displayed on your dashboard.
The study plan is split into three key phases: ‘Before Class’, ‘In Class’, and ‘After Class’,
Phase 1, Before Class, covers all the work you will need to do before your first review class.
It includes taking a diagnostic exam, getting an orientation of all the various Kaplan NCLEX resources, and there are also guides to familiarize you with the Next Generation NCLEX.
Phase 2, In Class, contains content relevant to when you are taking your Kaplan review classes.
Phase 3, After Class, covers everything you will need to do in preparing for the new NCLEX exam, after your last review class. Here is where you have the majority of the practice work, including readiness exams and mock tests.
For each session, you will be presented with what the goals of that session are, along with a list of assignments to complete, and a time estimate for how long it should take you to complete each assignment.
Assignments range in nature, from having to watch a video lecture, to reading a PDF document or taking a test.
Overall, Kaplan’s study schedule does a decent job of guiding you through the course study materials and helping you develop a logical framework for your NCLEX prep.
b) Video Library
Kaplan’s NCLEX video library contains over 55 on-demand video lessons covering over 300 essential nursing content topics.
These Essential Nursing Content Videos follow the same outline as the Kaplan Content Review Guide so the two can be used in tandem, or alternatively, based on whether you prefer to read through the material or watch a video lecture instead.
The organization of these videos is rather well done, whereby you could sift through the video library alphabetically, or search for a specific topic by topic.
The videos vary in length according to the topic being covered, but most of them are short and to the point, ranging between 1 to 33 minutes in length.
The on-demand video lectures are interwoven with quizzes to help reinforce your content grasp overall providing a more engaging learning experience.
c) NCLEX Channel
Kaplan’s NCLEX Channel contains a collection of topic videos that you can stream live, or access recordings to watch later.
While the video library primarily consists of nursing-related subject matter and knowledge-based content review, the live Channel is a bit more diverse.
Besides covering basic knowledge relevant to Nursing school, the Channel also has sessions dedicated to teaching proven strategies for acing the NCLEX.
These workshops ideally contain everything, from test-taking tips and Next Gen NCLEX guides to hard content knowledge and crucial nursing content.
Taught by expert instructors, each session lasts about 50 minutes and is packed with valuable knowledge whereby even the most complex concepts are expertly broken down into digestible bits that are easy to understand.
In addition to breaking down difficult concepts, these sessions are great for polishing up your critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills.
Within the content review session, the instructor will go through sample NCLEX-style standalone questions and case studies highlighting things to consider and how to think like a nurse in different scenarios.
All in all, the Live Channel sessions really are a goldmine for anyone who wishes to really understand how the Next Gen NCLEX works and develop the skill of thinking like a nurse.
d) Live Classes
Live classes are available to students who sign up for the live online courses.
Ideally, you have 18 hours of live class time, distributed within the course as 6 sessions of 3 hours each.
Rather than merely teaching content knowledge, these live lectures are question-based, with the focus being on NGN question types and the learning strategies applicable to each of those.
How this works is that the instructor assigns lectures for homework, and then uses the class time for discussions.
You get to experience the real-time application of Kaplan’s acclaimed decision tree method from the expert instructors who also focus on honing your critical judgment so you can pass the NCLEX fairly effortlessly.
In case you miss one of the live classes, you can watch a recorded video of the session, or look into makeup options for that same class.
All this will be available from your study plan, so no need to struggle trying to figure anything out on your own.
e) Content Review Guide eBook
An ebook copy of Kapaln’s Content Review Guide is included in the Self-Paced and Live Online courses.
This detailed ebook provides a comprehensive review of the essential NCLEX content so students can face the exam with confidence.
The regularly updated book is well structured in that the chapters follow NCLEX’s Client Need Categories which allows for easy referencing.
At the same time, this book follows the same outline as Kaplan’s video lessons within the Essential Nursing Content Video Library which makes it a great companion for easy following along while watching the lectures.
My only critique here is that it would have been great if Kaplan gave you a hardcopy version of this book included with the courses, instead of the softcopy ebook.
Aside from the acclaimed Content Review Guide book, though, Kaplan additionally gives you a Basics eBook.
This eBook reviews the most frequently tested nursing content with over 700 pages of easy-to-understand outlines, tables, and graphs.
Better yet, similar to the content review guide, this ebook is also fully updated for the Next Gen NCLEX!
Practice Material
Kaplan includes a ton of NCLEX practice work in the form of:
- Lesson quizzes
- Custom tests
- Question trainers
- NCLEX sample tests
- Full-length computer adaptive tests
- Readiness exam
When you combine the question bank and practice test questions, Kaplan gives you over 3,800 NCLEX-style questions to work on, which is plenty!
The Question bank contains over 2,100 realistic practice questions. You’ll get every type of question format that’s on the NCLEX exam, complete with visual rationales for each answer.
The QBank interface does a great job of mirroring the actual NCLEX, ensuring very realistic practice so you will not get flustered on test day.
You can create a Custom test based on specific Client Needs Categories, and areas of difficulty, whether you are struggling with understanding concepts, or making nursing judgments.
The 7 Question Trainers are tests developed by Kaplan to monitor your progress while you are studying for the NCLEX. These are great for identifying your knowledge gaps.
Each of these tests varies in length and level of difficulty, but they have generally been organized from easy to difficult, and from shorter to longer.
The first trainer is 50 questions long, while the last one has 265 questions.
The goal here is that you should attempt to maintain at least 65% in each question trainer test as this indicates that you will have a good chance of passing the NCLEX.
At the end of each question trainer, you are presented with a personalized review highlighting the types of questions you answered incorrectly, and consequently, the content areas where your weaknesses lie.
Kaplan gives you 3 Full-length Computer Adaptive Tests whereby each question adapts based on your level of competency, just like on the real NCLEX.
These CATs allow for very realistic practice, and they even come complete with score reporting, and a detailed evaluation of your performance.
Aside from the CATs, you are additionally given 4 Sample tests, each containing 50 questions and you have an hour to complete the test, except for one test which contains 30 questions to complete in 35 minutes.
The Readiness exam is a 180-question test to be completed in 3.5 hours. Kaplan recommends you take this test approximately 2 weeks before your NCLEX exam.
Answer Explanations
The Kaplan NCLEX course accompanies all its test questions with detailed answers and explanations for.
I must admit that Kaplan’s solution explanations are really well done.
They briefly discuss all answer choices, highlighting why each choice is correct or incorrect, and then there’s a more detailed explanation provided for the question in general.
You are even provided with illustrations, which is really handy in reinforcing the content grasp, especially for visual learners.
Kaplan’s answer explanations are generally broken down into 3 parts.
Part 1, ‘Think like a nurse’ highlights how to think like a nurse in the clinical scenario presented in the question.
Part 2, ‘Content refresher’ summarizes the content knowledge being tested in that particular question.
Lastly, the ‘Info’ section provides an overview of the question including how much time you spent answering and reviewing it.
Performance Tracking & Analytics
After taking a practice set or test, Kaplan gives you a performance report on how you did.
You get a comprehensive breakdown of your performance in each Client Need NCLEX category, clearly revealing your strong and weak areas.
Just as well, you get a breakdown of your performance in each question on the test, complete with how much time you spent testing and reviewing each question.
If you are wondering why the time spent revising each question has been included in your performance review, that’s because, for thorough coverage and comprehension, Kaplan recommends that you spend three times as much time reviewing as you did taking the test.
This means that if you took an hour-long test, you should spend at least 3 hours reviewing it. So the timing helps you see if you are on track with this strategy.
Just as well, after taking a computer adaptive NCLEX simulation test, you are also presented with a score report along with a detailed evaluation of your performance.
Free NCLEX Study Resources
When you sign up for a free Kaplan NCLEX account, you will have 7 days of access to plenty of free NCLEX study resources including:
- 50 NCLEX-style QBank questions.
- Access to live workshop sessions on the NCLEX Channel.
- On-demand videos for Cardio, Pharm, and Shock.
- All 890+ flashcards.
- 3 NGN challenge tests.
Kaplan NCLEX Pros & Cons
– Offers great guidance and training in how to think like a nurse.
– Live channel workshop sessions are incredibly informative.
– Offers a good selection of NCLEX-style practice problems.
– Well done detailed answer rationales.
– Offers a money-back guarantee.
– No longer has an NCLEX mobile App.
Verdict
Kaplan gives a very well-structured NCLEX course whereby content review has been incorporated in a variety of ways to accommodate all learning preferences.
From video lectures and live workshop sessions to flashcards, NCLEX books, and practice resources, this course contains a hoard of study materials.
Not only that, but this course focuses purely on the most critical information you need to know for the NCLEX, without bogging you down with unnecessary details.
The Pharmacology flashcards are incredible for learning the different drug types commonly tested on the Next Gen NCLEX, while the Drug Dosage and Calculation workshop is incredibly informative.
Another thing I liked is that Kaplan doesn’t just teach content knowledge relevant to the nursing field.
Additionally, you also get excellent guidance from expert tutors and instructors on test-taking methodology and NCLEX prep strategies, including how to build your clinical judgment skills.
Everything is explained in a way that is easy to understand, not just in the short and concise on-demand videos, but also within the workshop sessions. You can really tell that the instructors know their stuff, through and through.
The quality of their practice material was sufficient, doing a good job of mirroring the actual NCLEX. The best part about their practice work though, has got to be the answer rationales.
Kaplan’s rock-solid answer rationales provide excellent coverage around every answer choice.
The explanation includes guidance on how you should have used various test-taking strategies to arrive at the correct answer, along with content refreshers containing well-done animations and illustrations for quick coverage of the concept being tested in that particular question.
Lastly, if you are not a self-paced learner and instead prefer the kind of structure offered by live class time and a fixed study schedule, then you will love Kaplan’s Live Online course.
Not only are the tutors very knowledgeable and engaging, but the homework assignments are very targeted, really helping to reinforce what you just learned in the live class session.
Overall, Kaplan NCLEX really is worth it.
It may be a bit more expensive than other NCLEX test prep programs in the market, but if you apply yourself and sequentially follow their study plan, then you will be perfectly set up for NCLEX success.
Kaplan NCLEX FAQs
Is Kaplan Worth It For NCLEX?
Yes, Kaplan is absolutely with it for the Next Gen NCLEX.
Not only do they provide plenty of content review materials, but their test-taking methodology and NCLEX prep strategies are really spot on.
How Long Is The Kaplan NCLEX Course?
It will take you about one and a half months to get through Kaplan’s NCLEX course.
However, keep in mind that this highly depends on your preferred study pace among other factors. Some may take even 3 months to get through all the study material.
Nevertheless, the good thing is that for any course subscription, you have 6 months of access to the online study resources in that course.
Are Kaplan Tests Harder Than NCLEX?
Yes, Kaplan’s tests are slightly harder than the NCLEX but that is a good thing because it guarantees that after studying with Kaplan, you will be adequately prepared to face the actual NCLEX.