CCRN Study Tips

Synaptic90 · Jan 30

Hey Tif.

From my personal experience, I would say study the Barron's book if you really want to study the material. It took me about 2-3 months. I studied 4 days a week for about 4 hours. The first month I went over topics I'm not really familiar with such as Neuro, endo and ethics. Second month, I started doing the questions at the end of each chapter in the book. Then on the 3rd month I finished the 3 practice exams at the end of the Barron's book. I really recommend buying the practice questions from AACN. They're very familiar to the actual exam in wording. I never touched anything else other than the Barron's and the AACN practice questions. I also watched some YouTube videos which really helped in the end.
Overall, I feel the exam was a lot harder than the NCLEX but doable if you put the effort. I was always between 2 choices. I scored 98/125.

Okami_CCRN, BSN, RN · Jan 30

Hey there,

Everyone's style of learning & studying is different, I have always found it difficult to sit down and actually study. I got serious 1 week prior to the exam date.

I bought and used the AACN Study Guide and a colleague lent me the Laura Gasparis CCRN review DVD's (this was in 2016). I felt adequately prepared and passed on the first try.

I think what helped me was that I primarily worked in a mixed MICU/SICU, that was the dumping ICU for whatever the specialty ICU's didn't want. The CCRN exam is very much a generalist exam and that was the type of critical care I practiced.

CVICUnurse99 · Feb 2

Synaptic90 said:

Hey Tif.

From my personal experience, I would say study the Barron's book if you really want to study the material. It took me about 2-3 months. I studied 4 days a week for about 4 hours. The first month I went over topics I'm not really familiar with such as Neuro, endo and ethics. Second month, I started doing the questions at the end of each chapter in the book. Then on the 3rd month I finished the 3 practice exams at the end of the Barron's book. I really recommend buying the practice questions from AACN. They're very familiar to the actual exam in wording. I never touched anything else other than the Barron's and the AACN practice questions. I also watched some YouTube videos which really helped in the end.
Overall, I feel the exam was a lot harder than the NCLEX but doable if you put the effort. I was always between 2 choices. I scored 98/125.

Congratulations on passing your CCRN, that's amazing! Thank you so much for this tip! Yes, a colleague of mine also told me the same thing, stick to the Barron's, the AACN question bank, and to not purchase the PassCCRN question bank. After 5 days of studying the cardiac chapter, I scored a 60% (18/30). I don't know how to feel about this, definitely discouraging.

CVICUnurse99 · Feb 4

Tifany Lam said:

Congratulations on passing your CCRN, that's amazing! Thank you so much for this tip! Yes, a colleague of mine also told me the same thing, stick to the Barron's, the AACN question bank, and to not purchase the PassCCRN question bank. After 5 days of studying the cardiac chapter, I scored a 60% (18/30) and scored a 55% (15/27) on respiratory. I don't know how to feel about this, definitely discouraging.