PCCN Exam 2014 - any & all comments appreciated

Specialties Critical

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Specializes in Critical Care.

Hi All, :)

I am a critical care nurse working in a very busy Medical/Surgical PCU w/ cardiac monitoring for nearly 2 years and will be taking my PCCN exam this Tuesday (unless I chicken out and reschedule it haha), and I would greatly appreciate any feedback regarding my preparation in terms of likely hood of being sufficient to pass, as well as anyone's personal experience with studying and taking this exam. CCRN experience is also appreciated.

I have prepared by doing the following:

Watching twice over the entire Laura Gasparis Vronfolio CCRN lecture series - disregarding specifics related to Swans etc, but otherwise paying close attention and taking concise notes (writing helps me memorize facts). My co-workers swear by her lectures, and indeed, nearly all her information has been helped me with the PCCN practice exam booklet.

Studying most of the Progressive Care Nursing Certification, Preparation, Review, and Practice Exam book by Thomas Aherns. This book gets a little wordy, but because it's specific to the PCCN, I have studied most of it, in particular, reading the the cardiac section twice.

Attempting to complete all or most of the questions in the Laura Gasparis CCRN Review Questions & Rational book - this is a tough book at times and it has over 1,200 questions categorized by system, but I have only 3 more sections to go. My co-workers tell me doing test questions is most beneficial, so this is the largest amount of questions I've been able to find. I did pretty well in cardiac & pulmonology, not so good in renal though.

Reviewing the handouts I got at a PCCN/CCRN review class I went to about 6 months ago.

Completed the 120 question official PCCN practice test booklet and got 83% (20 questions wrong out of 120). Do you think this gives me a good prognosis for the test?

I will do the 75 question official online PCCN practice test tomorrow, which I am nervous for, as my co-workers tell me it is quite difficult and a definite blow to one's confidence, however they say it did not keep them from successfully passing the exam.

I have been a nurse for almost 2 years (just shy by 2.5 months), however because of overtime, I have the hours of experience necessary to qualify for the exam.

I have never failed an exam yet, and I (foolishly) told some of my co-workers my test date, so now I will be quite embarrassed if I fail. I'll also be sad if all this studying is for not. :sorry: To be honest though, I have not been able to study in a concentrated fashion for more than a few days at time (2-4 days concentrated studying at various periods) over a 2 month period because I am busy with work (I work 12 hr nights) and personal matters.

I would greatly appreciate anyone's advice and feedback regarding my studying, preparation, and advice for taking and passing this test. Thank you in advance! :)

It may be too late to reply to you, hopefully you've successfully passed the exam and to that I say, congrats! Now for others who stumble on this page, I wanted to share my experience studying for the PCCN. For a little background, I have nearly 3 years experience in on a cardiothoracic IMC floor. From my experience taking the NCLEX, I know that I do better completing heaps of questions and then determining my weak points and studying content then. However, I decided to change it up for the PCCN studied content: I took an online course that was content based and then used the following book to supplement: Progressive Care Nursing Certification: Preparation, Review, and Practice Exams: 9780071761444: Medicine & Health Science Books @ Amazon.com

I didn't pass the first time and felt very frustrated. The second time around, I used this book which had well over 1,000 questions and passed with 3 weeks of studying: http://www.amazon.com/PCCN-Certification-Review-2nd-Edition/dp/1284027481/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413904943&sr=8-1&keywords=PCCN

That's my recommendation: questions, questions, questions!

Removed.

hearts895, Congratulations. I saw on another post that you passed the PCCN exam.

marianne1624 Congratulations on passing the exam. Thank you for your advice. My friend and I am diligently studying now to take the exam (her for the first time and me a second time) by February. I, like you, did not like the Thomas Ahrens progressive care certification book. I found it too wordly (which lost me a lot). I like the additional book that you referred, in your posting. We are moving into pulmonary this week and will start on cardiovascular next week (2 weeks). We purchased the test booklet that has 2 full exams also. If you are wanting to sell the book, let me know.

Can anyone reccomend an audio book to help study for the PCCN? Thank you

Hello, I recently passed the PCCN. I used Ahrens, Prentice, Kleinpell Progressive care nursing certification. I can honestly say once I got into this book it was so easy to follow. My best recommendation for this test is to note the vocabulary this book uses; it is very similar to the test but not similar to the language we use in our everyday practice. Good Luck!

Hi, and congrats on passing the PCCN. Did you take the practice test from AACN?

I just passed the PCCN exam. I used the med-ed review course and did the self assessment exam from AACN.

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