books or study guides

lvn_to_rn · Nov 1, 2004

:)

I am a LPN with 4 years of Med-Surg under my belt. I am thinking of enroling in Excelsiors RN program. Here is my problem I am reading all over the place people selling study guides for the classess I need. One person on e-bay has guides that come with a money back clause should you fail a exam. I need to know from people that have been successful with this program, how did you do it. Did you learn the material by buying the books and looking up the material of buying the guides. Please let me know. this is to much time and money to leave up to chance. I want to be successful yet obtain the knowledge that I will need also.

It all depends on the type of learner you are. I have used Chancellors Learning System for my prereqs. I would not buy any guides off anyone because they are constantly updating them. With the way I am going, you buy a study guide and it gives you all the information in very concentrated form and you just memorize it and take the exams. There are other programs where you buy the study guides and buy the text books, that is probably the best way to go to learn the best, but it would take forever to get through each course, and I do not have the patience for that.:)

opalmRN · Nov 1, 2004

I am a LPN with 4 years of Med-Surg under my belt. I am thinking of enroling in Excelsiors RN program. Here is my problem I am reading all over the place people selling study guides for the classess I need. One person on e-bay has guides that come with a money back clause should you fail a exam. I need to know from people that have been successful with this program, how did you do it. Did you learn the material by buying the books and looking up the material of buying the guides. Please let me know. this is to much time and money to leave up to chance. I want to be successful yet obtain the knowledge that I will need also.

I can share with you what others have told me regarding the study guides. EC provides this information to you. You can even print the study guides before you enroll. There is no need to purchase the study guides. The study guides will provide the recommended text books, the chapters to focus on and the outline for each portion of the exam.

BBFRN, BSN, PhD · Nov 1, 2004

I passed all the courses without purchasing study materials from a publishing company. I too had several years of Med/Surg LPN experience under my belt.

Join this study group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rnstudygroup/ to access free study materials in their files section.

Here are some more for you as well:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/allexcelsiornurses/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nontradnurses/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RNstudentsforum/

You shouldn't really need to spend lots of money on study materials if you have a strong background in nursing already. Good luck to you!

hoolahan, ASN, RN · Nov 1, 2004

I can share with you what others have told me regarding the study guides. EC provides this information to you. You can even print the study guides before you enroll. There is no need to purchase the study guides. The study guides will provide the recommended text books, the chapters to focus on and the outline for each portion of the exam.

Exactly right. Just follow the syllabus outline EC gives you, and do the recommended readings. Go to the library of a local nursing school for most of the books and xerox the chapters needed if it's not too many, or just read there and make notes. I didn't spend a whole lot of money on books.

I DID use The College Networks Research study guide for nursing research for the BSN class and passed it. But I got it for free, exchanging some of my materials with anther student.

In my experience, I used a few from Chancellors. The general courses were good, psychology, etc.. The nursing stuff was a big book, of a blank outline. It was a complete ripp-off IMHO.

Best of luck!

mona b RN, BSN, RN · Nov 1, 2004

I passed all the courses without purchasing study materials from a publishing company. I too had several years of Med/Surg LPN experience under my belt.
Join this study group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rnstudygroup/ to access free study materials in their files section.
Here are some more for you as well:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/allexcelsiornurses/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nontradnurses/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RNstudentsforum/
You shouldn't really need to spend lots of money on study materials if you have a strong background in nursing already. Good luck to you!

Those are great sites. However, whenever I try to post a message to those forums, it never gets posted. I realize that sometimes it takes time for the mods to preview mssgs but I stopped posting there because I never saw my messages get posted. Actually, it did not used to be that way. I guess they are having trouble with trollers and spammers.

BBFRN, BSN, PhD · Nov 1, 2004

Mona- are you receiving messages from the sites in your inbox? Try going to Yahoo groups and see which ones show up on your list. Rnstudygroup is the only restricted group that I know of. I think the others are still open. Did you get approval from the sites when you joined?

mona b RN, BSN, RN · Nov 1, 2004

Mona- are you receiving messages from the sites in your inbox? Try going to Yahoo groups and see which ones show up on your list. Rnstudygroup is the only restricted group that I know of. I think the others are still open. Did you get approval from the sites when you joined?

I will check my profiles on those sites when I get a chance. If my memory serves me right, I have tried posting to all of them.

bwalston · Nov 2, 2004

*

tinkaboo12 · Nov 2, 2004

*

Thank you very much for your reply. I have applied to every single group people here have sent to me with now response. You spoke of Spazz? How can I reach this person?

Spazzy Nurse, RN · Nov 3, 2004

Thanks Walston, whatever " * " meant. I always miss things before they're edited. :chuckle

I don't know why messages aren't being posted on the yahoo boards. Unless membership is still pending is rnstudygroup still the only one that requires a membership?) then the messages should be posting, I would think. Unless you post them from your e-mail........ do you guys do that? I never did that... I wouldn't even know how to. I would always just go straight to the board.

Tinkaboo---- I would be very very cautious when looking to buy materials online, especially when some seller offers a "guarantee" like that one on EBay that you mentioned. Sounds pretty hokey to me. And exactly as LVN_to_RN said, they are constantly updating them so be careful who you get things from. I have also heard about people buying what they think are study guides but what turn out to be crappy photo copied versions of the study guides.... some with a bunch of stuff already written all over them. EC really is the best place to get the study guides.... you know they're up to date, they are the real thing, and they're FREE!! Give those a shot before using any from publishing companies. You may find that the EC content guides are sufficient. I thought that they were, and I know that many, many other people feel the same.

Laurie888 · Nov 5, 2004

I had a used chancellor's guide for one -- I did not like but I passed the exam. the one thing I DID appreciate from chancellor's were the tapes, having a 40 minute drive to and from work I probably learned at least one or two things a trip that I didn't know before, just by having them on in the background. I used a used college network guide for another (liked better and did pretty well). The one I did best on I downloaded all available files from the yahoo groups AND took the practice exam offered by Excelsior -- something I originally thought would be a waste, but I am sure that is the part that took me over the top and helped me ace the exam. Whether I give myself a couple months or a couple weeks I find I can't really focus until I feel like I'm under the gun, and even then being an untreated ADD'er I've sat through (and not passed) two exams where I couldn't remember the question by the time I finished reading it although I was confident with the material. Getting treatment now, should both study and test better for the remainder!

I am not an LPN, just one of those 1/2 or better nursing program dropouts (3/4!) from many years ago. But I still have my old books and I do use the excelsior guides and brush up on pertinent material, especially for the two tests I didn't buy used guides for. I don't have the exact books, but all my books have chapters on the same material and finding the equivalent isn't hard. Others have mentioned googling for the information. I've done a little of that, too. At work I borrow books from the unit during lunch or on those slower days (not many, but there are some!) and just read anything that seems related to what I need to know.

Also, I think I know which guides on ebay you are talking about. I just bought 2 but they haven't arrived yet. I don't feel overly skeptical, they were inexpensive, and frankly a year ago I was thinking it would be the perfect way to make enough money to finish school -- to create my own guides and sell them because if you are knowledgeable and well-written why not offer a better product at a better price than the publishing companies? But no sooner did I think of it than I started seeing other people doing it, selling notes, and then my son's illness took me away from my studies for about a year and now it wouldn't be unique enough to be successful. I figure the more notes from the more sources the better, for me anyway. When it comes to the nitty gritty stuff, memorizing lab values or drug information, I go to the books for accuracy. The rest has to have an element of common sense involved because if it doesn't make logical sense I'm not going to retain it.

So for me a mish-mash of studying material and methods has worked best, I guess I'm still wading through to see what works best. I definitely wouldn't invest in an entire set of study guides but they are a viable resource. Used guides can always be sold again, but DO check the content with your excelsior content guides and make sure you are getting what you need.