Passed ANCC 1st attempt, my experience and advice

rfmeyer

I wish that I would have started preparing during at the beginning of the last year of school. If so, I think that I would have been ready to take the exam immediately. Also it would have provided good content for the clinical case reviews that will be written up.

Do not expect your program to prepare you to pass the exam

Do not expect that the FNP program, no matter how good of a student you are or how good the program is will prepare you to pass the exam. One of my classmates who graduated with a 4.0 GPA took it immediately, and failed. She flamed the school saying that it was a horrible program because she failed....WRONG.

Just like undergraduate school, the programs are a foundation for practical learning which is done in practice. School provides basic hoops to jump through...many of them useless things that are mandated by ivory-tower academics- nursing theory i.e.

The ANCC test is perhaps 50% clinical

If you study clinical nursing only you will be 50% prepared. The rest is about ethics, policy, legal, theory, research etc. This can actually be a good thing in that much of this content contains a high degree of common sense versus memorization as long as there is a foundational familiarity with language used in these areas.

Research Focus

There is a focus on research including the types of evidence, relative strengths of research, common research pitfalls etc. I would bet there were 3-4 questions about this on the test.

Cultural Competence

I recall that cultural competence was a focus with 3-4 questions on that. Mainly common sense things.

Dose Calculations

There were no questions on calculation of doses of medications.

Labs

There were a couple of questions that included knowing normative lab values.

Skin

There were 3-4 questions that had pictures of skin disorders that you had to identify.

Eye

There was a question that required identification of fundoscopic changes based on the picture. I would recommend looking at pictures of fundoscopic problems on YouTube versus any sort of clinical experience, because let's face it, every eye looks the same in practice.

Infant/Pregnancy/Post-partum

Pay attention to the immunization schedule including infants and pregnant/postpartum, along with and new guidelines for wellness screening. This is really a pretty easy, but tedious to study.

Antibiotics

Pay attention to first and second line antibiotics for the 15-20 most common infections. Also study which drug class to use if not able to use a PCN, or Sulfa.

Know which ones are contraindicated with heart failure or aging/renal failure.

Lungs

Know the asthma and COPD guidelines well.

Hypertension

Know JNC-8.

Heart

Learn murmurs- there were only a couple of questions on it. If the question has "Click" anywhere in the description it is a MVR more than likely and if there is radiation to the neck it is aortic stenosis.

Blood

Know anemias.

Blood vessels

You will see a question on temporal arteritis.

Cancer

Know skin cancers and types of lesions.

Burns/Ulcers

Know the rule of 9s; grading burns, and pressure ulcers

Prep Reviews

As far as specific prep....this IMHO

Do not spend the money on a review course. They throw out a ton of information and much of it is pertinent to practice and the test. The problem is that there is no way to absorb it in the time that you spend in the course. I took Fitzgerald in person, and left with my head spinning and fearful more than anything. They say that nearly everyone who takes the course passes the test, which is likely true. I think, though, that the reason for this is that people who spend the money and time to go to a review are highly dedicated to passing the course and would likely be the subset of people who would pass without going because they know how important it is to be prepared.

Also know that the course is clinical 90% clinical review, which is not the case with the ANCC exam so leaves a huge hole in the preparation.

I bought the review books for Fitzgerald and I don't think that I ever opened them after the course.

Many people use the Leik book. I think that it is a good book, especially if you focus on the exam tips and clinical tips.

I bought the Holier CD's and went through them. They were pretty good because it gives you something to listen to on the way to/from work. The entire course is a recording of a three day course. Know that if you get it with the workbook there are many holes in the course as the slides are not in the workbook and so in places you don't know what she is talking about. Nevertheless she is personable to listen to and has some good tips.

In my opinion, the following is a great way to prepare and pass.

Get a HUGE bank of tests. I ended up getting four iPhone apps that are specific for taking the FNP exams. They are not expensive (I spent about $30 for all four). You will end up with perhaps 2000 questions. Start taking the tests, expecting that you will score poorly, unless you are a genius. Take a few to get the taste for the type of questions and content. Get used to taking tests that are 100 or 200 long. As you go through, if you don't know the answer to the question or are unfamiliar with a topic, stop and look it up. I spent hours on YouTube (a great study resource) learning about conditions that I had no idea on. After I understood the answer and the concept, move to the next question. At first this may mean that you spend days on a test, but you begin to pick up facts, patterns, common descriptions etc.

Go to the Exam Edge website and purchase as many tests as you can afford. These tests have the look and feel of the actual tests, although the pictures on the questions that include these are poor. You will get used to the "choose three from below" types of questions found on the ANCC test. I got 50 (100 questions each) tests and went through them all twice. You can answer a question, see if you got it wrong, and then study it, move on, mark it for later or whatever you want. It also scores your progress and allows you to see your scores improving. Know that there are some questions that are wrong (few). You can reset the tests three times to retake them.

I figure that in preparation I studied perhaps 20,000 questions. It is interesting that many of the resources have the exact same questions, meaning that they are copying/pasting from each other.

Anyway, that is my experience and advice. Any questions or comments are welcome. If anyone is interested in buying any of the resources that I purchased let me know.

Good luck with the exam.