Originally Posted by christvs
since I am graduating in two months and will be taking my exam in 3 months hopefully. I know you took the FNP exam, and mine will be different (ACNP), but nevertheless...just curious how you prepared for the exam. I know the materials you used, fitzgerald, etc...but how long did you study? After you graduated, did you set aside like 4 hours/day to study? Did you mostly answer sample questions, or did you review content too? Did you feel like everything you did prepared you well to take the exam? Did you get any questions on research, law, ethics, etc? Thanks!
-Christine
hmm i'm not sure how you will take the exam so quickly. You have to have your official transcripts which say "degree conferred". My school told me it would be 6-8 weeks after i graduated to get it, but i just kept calling and got it around 1 month after. Then after you mail the application to ANCC they say you should receive a reply within 90 days, then you have 90 days to take the exam. So it could be up to 3-6 months after you graduate that you can take the exam.
I study a lot, in the sense that i studied about 2 months. But i procrastinate and get distracted so some days it would only be 1 hour. But i also studied at work when i had time, and listed to the CDs in my car or running about 2 times through. I did all of the study book except for psych and neuro chapters which i only had time to skim. I also reviewed the whole notebook that comes with the cd's. I had made notes from the study book probably about 50 pages more or less and reviewed all of them the night before. I also had some notecards from Pharm class that I studied.
Fitzgerald says its not like NCLEX and you can't just do questions and expect to pass. I missed a lot of the questions in the book but felt like i knew the material better after studying the reasoning.
After taking the exam I would say i felt well prepared. And I would not know exactly how much more or differently i could study.
the questions on the exam really make you think.
Oh also go to ANCC website and take their practice exams and print off the test content outline.
Research, law and ethics all on the exam but not too bad. the ethics ones will probably be with dealing how to treat adolescent, like do you treat if they want STD testing or birth control, etc..
The research questions I found were confusing.. There were 4-5 of those.
There weren't very many med questions asking for a specific med, maybe 2-3 and they gave both classes of medicine, generic and brand. They may have asked something about a lab value but not too bad.
They did ask about some things I had never heard of.
Also look in a med book (or fitzgerald CD review book) of the several ortho manuevers and what they are what they mean and why/when you do them.
markles, apleys, etc..
I can try to post more but gotta work tommorow.
Would you like to comment?
Now go relax. I totally agree about Margaret Fitzgerald's books and CDs. I used her review course (the CDs and the review book that goes with it) and also her separate Nurse Practitioner Certification Review book.
