PASSED the ANCC-FNP exam-first time (2017)

[HealthANDLove1122]

Hi everyone!

It has been years since I posted on here but I promised myself that I would help other nurses if and when I did pass the ANCC-FNP exam. I took the exam yesterday (10/14/2017) and I wanted to tell you guys how I passed as this information may be resourceful for you. I graduated with my MSN in May of this year (2017) and I took one entire month and a half off of studying and worked full time to catch up on my finances. I was exhausted and did not want to start studying as I knew my brain cells deserved a break!

During the time off, I was on allnurses reading many different posts about what people utilized to help them pass their certification exam. I was baffled by the fact that people were using 6 to 7 different resources and study materials. I'm one of those people who need 1-2 solid studying materials and strictly focus on those items. Well, I did end up purchasing Fitzgerald's review book and bought other books from Amazon that people mentioned but as I reviewed these items, I felt it was WAY too much information to absorb and I probably just studied 6 hours a week and truly did not retain the information. In fact, it was draining me out even more and I was starting to get frustrated.

Towards August, I knew I had to get serious about my studying as the exam was scheduled for 10/14/2017 and I happened to sign up for a Saturday afternoon exam date on purpose (sleep is extremely important) so that I can wake up a little later and feel refreshed. I finally figured out that the 2 main sources I was going to use were boardvitals and Maria Leiks review course. I read about her review course online and I saw her page on Facebook about how many people passed her exam after utilizing her review course. So the entire month of August, I used boardvitals and did about thousands of questions (maybe 3,000?). These questions were by NO MEANS easy. There were challenging and really made you think. As I reviewed the questions and the rationales, I started making notes on a word document so that I can later review this information during my down time at work and after work. Boardvitals has the BEST questions for the non-clinical review portion. I must have done at least 400 questions on that and I feel that this helped me with my exam as almost HALF my exam questions were non-clinical. I also did plenty of questions and purchased the FNP mastery aap on my phone and used this source during free time. I felt that the FNP mastery app was resourceful but was too straightforward and easier than the boardvitals and the actual ANCC exam.

I was scheduled to take Maria's review course on the second week of September but due to the hurricane that occurred, she rescheduled the course to early October. I ended up taking the course in early October but she also had sent out her review book back in September. When this came in the mail, I started using her guide book for my main studying and then would incorporate whatever I learned from boardvitals on there as well. Like I said, I wanted to use the minimal amount of sources as possible as that's my style of learning. The review course was a webinar thankfully, and my work accommodated my week off request. I took her course (4 days straight) and I truly feel that the information she presented and covered were definitely on the ANCC.

Anyway, I hope this can help most of you who are planning to take this exam. I wanted to share the experience with you as I want to help my other nurses succeed and truly care about seeing passionate health care providers in our world. If you have any comments to add, please feel free to do so :)