AANP exam--prep for adult NP?

Specialties NP

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Hi all, I'm taking the Adult NP exam through the AANP in a couple of months. I'm trying to devise a plan for studying--I think I'm going to review all of my pharm, physical exam normals/abnormals, and pathophys/disease specific info. Then I'm going to use the Leik book and the Fitzgerald book. Have any of you taken the online review course from Fitzgerald? Curious if it was helpful, and worth the $220. Any tips? Thanks, Sam

Specializes in Trauma, Emergency, Urgent Care.

Good luck to you as well. How did you prepare for the exam?

I took the ANCC ANP exam 5 days ago and passed it. I guess right now the best piece of advice I could give is try not to get all worked up over the test. I ended up doing that and when I sat down to take the actual test, I was extremely nervous and it was difficult for me to focus and concentrate. Test anxiety can really make a difference for the worst in taking exams. Chances are you will go into the exam having had studied a lot of information, which will most likely be on the exam. With any standardized test, there's always the chance that there will items we don't know or have never studied. Be confident in the things you have studied and the content you are familiar with and just relax. Best of luck to you know and let us know how it goes!!

Specializes in Trauma, Emergency, Urgent Care.

Thanks.......good advice. A bit easier said than done, but good advice. In fact, I am either getting more comfortable or more burned out. I called AANP today and moved my exam to a closer date. I just cannot see myself continuing to study at this pace much longer. Wing and a prayer time.

I am in the last week of the last semester of my FNP program. We just took a mock exam and I only scored about 60% (91 correct out of 152 questions) so I am not feeling confident.

Did anyone have to take an oral exam at the end of your program. We have to take an hour long oral exam where three of our instructors sit and fire questions at us for an hour, then you leave the room for about 5 minutes and they call you back in and say if you passed or failed.

Well, I just took my oral exam about two weeks ago and I got a horrible case of the stupids the minute I entered the room. I just froze, like I had never even been a nurse! I kept digging myself deeper in a hole and they finally stopped asking questions after only 40 minutes so I knew it was all over! they called me back in the room and of course told me I didn't pass and of course I started bawling like a baby ( I never cry! not even at my mom's funeral) but the tears just started flooding. I thought I was doomed and had wasted 4 years of my life, 100,000 hours of sleep not to mention $50,000 in tuition.

Then they told me I could re-take it. my re-take date is dec 15th. but I don't have a clue as to what to study. I studied the fitzgerald rev. book and it didn't help me with one question! I have to pass it this time! I must be really dumb because as I was taking the review questions in the fitzgerald book I was only scoring about 40% and that is stretching it. I don't know what I'm doing wrong unless I just actually don't know anything!

I AM going to p ass it, I have already paid $450 to take a live seminar Barkley course in Nashville TN the first week-end in January.

If anyone has any miracle suggestions I would love to hear them. I'm about to have a nervous breakdown, seriously. :sniff:

Hey Dixiecup,

So sorry to hear all you have been through especially with that oral exam. I can't imagine how horrible that must have been for you. Out of curiosity where did you get your FNP training?

It sounds like you have some significant test anxiety. I understand. I have some test anxiety too. Something I did when I reviewed for the ANP exam which I just took 6 days ago and passed it, was review all of my class notes. I was very blessed to have a great teacher who honed in on a lot of content she knew we needed to know. That was the first thing I did. Then I went to the review books and studied from those. I was actually going through the review books first, but I was doing horrible and recounting your similar experiences with them and it was because I hadn't reviewed the basics yet. Also, I have a friend from school was gracious enough to study with me. Would it be possible for you to find a study partner, maybe from the same school?

When my study partner and I would review notes and then we would answer questions from the review book, it really helped solidify what we knew and we became confident in what we learned.

Don't beat yourself up. You just graduated. It takes time to review for this exam because there is so much content. Take some time off of studying for the holidays and then gear up after the first of year with that review class. Pace yourself and you will be ok.

Hope that helps!

Specializes in Trauma, Emergency, Urgent Care.

If it were me, I would prepare for the oral exam by looking over my class notes from school. My quess is that they will choose questions that are based upon the material they emphasized during the coursework.

Regarding the Fitz review material. On my first pass through the Fitz book, I answered the questions before reading the text, and did not do very well either. I took the online exams with Fitz and my scores were over 20% points better. Finally, on my second pass through the review book, I improved by about 15%.

Moral of the story is to keep going over the boards material, BUT not until you pass the orals. First things first.

I think that was my problem. They told us to study the review books for the oral but the questions were basically on class content so it didn't help me one bit. This time I am reviewing guidelines because they asked a lot of stuff about " if you had a new diabetic, how would you evaluate him and what would be your management plan:

They also asked ethical questions which I am not good at. Plus for some reason they bombarded me with OB questions which I had not reviewed very much and couldn't remember the time frame for tests and things.

anyway, thanks for listening. Tuesday is the big re-take so I'll let ya know how it goes.

Hey Dixiecup,

So sorry to hear all you have been through especially with that oral exam. I can't imagine how horrible that must have been for you. Out of curiosity where did you get your FNP training?

It sounds like you have some significant test anxiety. I understand. I have some test anxiety too. Something I did when I reviewed for the ANP exam which I just took 6 days ago and passed it, was review all of my class notes. I was very blessed to have a great teacher who honed in on a lot of content she knew we needed to know. That was the first thing I did. Then I went to the review books and studied from those. I was actually going through the review books first, but I was doing horrible and recounting your similar experiences with them and it was because I hadn't reviewed the basics yet. Also, I have a friend from school was gracious enough to study with me. Would it be possible for you to find a study partner, maybe from the same school?

When my study partner and I would review notes and then we would answer questions from the review book, it really helped solidify what we knew and we became confident in what we learned.

Don't beat yourself up. You just graduated. It takes time to review for this exam because there is so much content. Take some time off of studying for the holidays and then gear up after the first of year with that review class. Pace yourself and you will be ok.

Hope that helps!

I got my training at SLU . it was all online so not a lot of note taking. a lot of self study.

I had to take an oral exam. It seemed to me they wanted to hear things like you are interested in entrepreneurial projects. Alot of lofty things. I had one heck of a time getting to the oral exam because they made me do 4 different head to toe exams so by the time I got to orals, it was a relief. Good Luck. I really had a hard time getting through the program but keeping focused and tenacity paid off. Keep your eye on the ball and never lose your dignity and self-confidence.

I have taken both exams. The AANP is more hands on. There are generic names of psych meds and drug interactions were addressed. I called AANP and their questions are weighted.

My question- When you fail the test, they send you a vague, nebulous summary of your weak areas. For example, they put diagnosis as a weakness. That isn't valuable feedback when you have studied a 300 page book. In other words, there are no clues on how to do better the next time you take the test so how can you change your studying to pass next time? Thanks for any help you can give.

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