CCRN

Specialties Critical

Published

I took the CCRN this week and passed. I'll just share how I prepared. I must say that standardized testing is not my thing. I studied for about 45 days, and by studying I mean maybe 10 hours a week. I started off with the Laura Gasparis DVD and review questions. The DVDs were great it gave you a base knowledge on what to expect, however I was not a fan of the book so I switched to the Pass CCRN online question bank. I found these questions to be very helpful reading and understanding the rationales is very important. I also ordered a booklet with 190 questions from AACN. These questions are a better representation of what you would see on the exam there were a few questions that were exactly the same that I saw on the exam. I also took the self assessment exam from their website 2 days before the actual test and scored a 73%. This was an exact representation of my score on the actual exam. The take home message is the stuff is hard you have to study and understand the material some questions are pretty straight forward and others you really have to think and work it through. I am now studyingfor the CSC which i will be taking in a month. Hope this helped.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

Would you say it is more cardiac focused? I am beginning my journey to take the test and for whatever reason, cardiac is the one thing I have never fallen in love with in nursing. After reviewing the EKG portion I feel like I need to take a 12-lead class at work to get a better understanding.

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there are no cardiac strips on the exam however you do need to understand where certain mi happen and how it's reflected on the ekg. I felt like the cardiac section was straightforward but I also work in a cardiac surgery ICU

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Moved to Critical Care Nursing.

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