February 2018 AANP / ANCC FNP Boards - PASSED

[alst51]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share my thoughts and study plan with you as this website helped me immensely when studying for boards. I took both the AANP and ANCC FNP boards this week (yes, crazy I know). I have a job lined up and was worried if I didn't pass one, it would take too long to register for my "backup" exam. So, I tested for both this week. It took about a month for ANCC to process my application to test. AANP was much quicker, which impressed me--I was cleared to test in less than a week.

AANP: I'm not sure if it is because I took it first, but I much preferred the AANP exam to ANCC. First of all, AANP is shorter than ANCC. The questions are solely clinical based and are really straightforward. I was finished with this exam after 2 hours and decided to submit as they say changing answers is not recommended. I felt pretty confident with most of my answers. I completed the test and the proctor handed me the paper that said PASS. I was elated. Now the pressure was off of me to achieve certification.

ANCC: I walked out of the testing room thinking I completely failed this one. The questions were HEAVY on policy, ethics, and components of research studies and seemed to be worded ridiculously. Honestly, I was shocked when the proctor handed me the paper that read PASS. I was also finished with this exam an hour early, and chose to submit without changing any answers here as well.

How did I study? Well, I took a vacation right after graduation (highly recommended if you can). I came back and gave myself a month to study. I purchased Leik's phone app and the Fitzgerald online review. Leik's phone app is great as it provides the exact same review info as in her most recent book edition, but all questions are on electronic format for Q & A practice. I read all of the review in the app and answered all of her questions one time through. Fitzgerald online review was great as I am not very well disciplined at sitting and reading on my own for hours. She provides more information than probably necessary, but it seemed that some of her "tangential" subjects popped up on examination. Her review of policy and ethics was great when coupled with Leiks review. REALLY study these things if taking ANCC. If I could make an estimate I would say ANCC is more like 85% policy based (even though they say it's not )

I purchased APEA predictor sets halfway through studying and completed two of those with 71% score on each. I'm not sure if they helped much, but they made me feel better about passing

Finally, I purchased BoardVitals review questions. At first, I thought these questions were WAY too extensive and over the top. BUT, I'm glad I did them. I completed questions and would read all the explanations for answers. A lot of the things I saw on here that I thought were strange and unnecessary were actually on the AANP exam and were not covered in Leik nor Fitzgerald reviews.

As far as what I did everyday--well I can honestly say I devoted about 3-4 hours to studying each day. I think you will know when you are ready to test. Not that I felt that I knew everything by any means, but I was getting more right than wrong on review. Plus, I didn't have much choice with a job waiting on me to finish boards. I guess the external pressures helped me.

Good luck everyone! You will do great.

[vxa5104]

Thank you SO much for this information! What school did you attend? Was it online?