Failed the board exam

Keku I am so sorry for you. Whatever you do, don't give up. I had pretty bad anxiety during my exam and a few times I just took my hand off the mouse, took a few deep breaths, said a prayer and then continued. It helped me to just stop for a few seconds and regroup. Best wishes to you.

It is ok for the kids to see you cry as long as they also see you pick yourself up and keep trying. Children need to know that it is ok to work really hard but come up short. It happens but it is how you deal with it that makes the difference. They will learn resilience from watching you work to pass the next time. Yes, it stinks to have to have life on hold and retest but life does not end.

It absolutely is! I speak from experience. I had both the AANP & ANCC scheduled to hedge my bets. I failed the AANP and was devastated. I have 4 kids and this was a set back. I gathered myself and passed the ANCC. Then went back and passed the AANP the second time because I refused to be bested by it. You will pass. We put so much pressure on ourselves and inadvertently set ourselves up. Good Luck!

Keku, please do not give up, just have a plan of study.

Here I wanted to share my plan of study for the AANP Exam. I took it May 23, 2017 and PASSED (thank God)! I graduated from Walden University in the beginning of February, and kind of took about a month off (I was still studying a little and listening to Fitzgerald CDs' in a car). I started studying seriously mid-March 2017 and studied hard for about 2 months. Some days I studied 2-3 hours, other days 7-8 hours. On average, I would say about 5 hours a day. Here is what I studied:

1. First of all I listened to 2010 edition of Fitzgerald CD's (friend of mine gave them to me) for about a year and a half – a little bit at a time during driving. I went over all of them at least 6 times.

2.Leik book was my study bible. I know the book has some outdated material in it, but 90-95% of the material is still usable. As I was going over and memorizing the material in Leik book, I was writing the most important stuff out into a blank notebook. I believe when you write stuff down, you memorize it better. Also, I was highlighting the MOST important stuff. I went over the entire Leik book at least 3 times. Repetition is the mother of learning”.

3.I took Amelie Hollier Review course right after I graduated (end of February, 2017) and found it very helpful. I went over her book (the one provided for the review course) once more (closer to the exam date, which was around the beginning of May). Also, I was lucky and won her predictor exam (150 questions), which I saved for the end of my studies. I took the predictor exam a week or two before I took the boards and scored 71%, which kind of suggested that I was ready.

4.I did all 600 or so questions in Leik book. And some of them I did twice. I was getting 80-85% of them after I went through the Leik book.

5.I went ahead and purchased a Certification Practice Questions” (ISBN 978-1-892418-18-0) by Amelie Hollier (as was suggested in some Youtube videos) and found it to be very helpful. In my opinion the questions asked on boards were very similar to the ones in that book. Fitzgerald's questions I found to be a little too tough, Leik questions were a little too easy, whereas Amelie's questions were just right. I did all the disorders” questions (the first part of the book) and all the FNP and Gero practice exams. I think I did close to 1800 or so questions total including Leik, Hollier, (some Fitzgerald) and Hollier's predictor exam.

6.Another important thing I utilized was the quizlet app. There, I found some questions made up by a user jenhopper”, which were directly from Leik book. So every time I finished a chapter in Leik's book, I went ahead and did the flash cards on that chapter in quizlet. After the flashcards I took the test within the quizlet app. Those were not the most sophisticated tests in the world, but they did help to study and memorize material.

After studying all that and taking the exam, I scored 75% on the AANP exam and PASSED! Some of the questions were tough and long, while others were extremely easy and to the point. As I mentioned above, Amelie Hollier's practice questions were the closest thing I found to be similar to the real exam.

Lastly, I want to add that I did all the studying while working about 25-30 hrs a week and having a toddler around. I believe that if I was able to pass, everyone else can too. Study hard, and do not give up!!!!!!!!! ; - )

Cerberus - thank you for sharing such a detailed plan of attack (if you will). Wow.... you put a lot of work into preparing for the exam.