Hey all, I just passed my CCRN (with a score of 111/125) and thought I would share my method of preparing.
I started studying a little over one month before the exam (while working full time) using the Educational Enterprises DVD - CCRN Review Cram with Laura Gasparis Vonfrolio. Once I made some headway into the DVD's I began using the CD that came with Pass CCRN by Donahoe Dennison. I took quizzes and read the rationale until I felt that I could comfortably complete quizzes with at least a 7/10 if not an 8/10. You will find many of the quiz questions to be very helpful for taking the CCRN. I did not find the need to take any 150 question practice quizzes. Be sure to take plenty of quizzes from the professionalism and ethical practice, as Laura does not touch on this area. Bottom line: as long as you study the Review Cram and do quizzes, you'll do great!
Hi, I wanted to add my input as a newly passed CCRN. I looked on this site for lots of tips and hopefully I can add a few as well.
I scored 111/125. In school I was a 4.0 student and have experience in MICU and SICU. This is the first exam I've ever taken where I had NO IDEA how I was doing as I was taking the test. There were many questions, approx 30-40 questions that were pretty obvious. Another 30-40 were more the type I had to think about and work through the patho. But the other 75 OMG! I had no idea. It was as if none of the answers were right and I had to choose the least harmful one or the one that looked like it was talking about the right topic. No joke!
It was heavy on cardiac drugs, specifically in combination with each other. I'm good with lungs, but there were some not-so-realistic scenarios that made the answer choices tough.
Prep: I watched the Laura Gasparis Vonfrolio videos. Although I learned a lot from these, I don't think they really did much for me on the exam. This was a surprise because of so much I'd read about her videos being so spot-on. Perhaps it was just the version of the test I received. That said, I still learned a ton of useful info from these videos that help me on my job every day so I certainly still recommend them.
PASS CCRN: Ignored the book mostly - did the CD practice questions for 3 weeks. I think the formatting of the practice questions is a good warm up for the actual exam, but still the content wasn't that well matched to the exam. I would say that reading and understanding the rationales of these questions lead me to learn/look-up more info that was the type which appeared on my test.
I think if you work in a critical care setting, actually practice critical thinking, and study your cardiac/neuro/lung basics you will be able to pass this exam. Prep for uncomplicated swan questions, basic ECG stuff, and a lot of questions regarding treatment of visitors, patient priorities, and choosing a policy vs. common sense. I'm not sure how to prepare for those - maybe it's in the book, but I wasn't focused on that at all.
Good luck to everyone! It took me 3 weeks of intermittently intense study. I was worried that I should've studied more but in the end - after the exam - I realized that there's nothing I would've studied past that point that would've given me more answers on the exam.
OH, the one thing LGV says in her video that is super true - they throw the crazy questions at you first - the ones that no one is going to be able to answer. Don't get discouraged! Just realize that's what's happening and move on!
Passed this week with 112/125. I took a 2-day review course given by our local AACN chapter that was interesting but that I don't think helped me much on the test just because it didn't really cover much new ground for me. I studied the PASS-CCRN! book with concentration on cardiac and pulm, and did the practice CD. The practice questions were helpful but over time I kept getting the same ones over and over again. Studying the book helped quite a bit although I went a little overboard on it.
I got at least 20 questions that didn't seem to have a correct answer at all
Edited to add: I agree with the above poster who said that the rationales on the CD led her to look up good info, that's how it worked for me too.
What version of the Pass CCRN is everyone using and where do I get the lauren gasparis cd and/or dvd...Do I get both or is one better then the other. I want to take is this early part of the year
in2ICU
71 Posts
Hi, I wanted to add my input as a newly passed CCRN. I looked on this site for lots of tips and hopefully I can add a few as well.
I scored 111/125. In school I was a 4.0 student and have experience in MICU and SICU. This is the first exam I've ever taken where I had NO IDEA how I was doing as I was taking the test. There were many questions, approx 30-40 questions that were pretty obvious. Another 30-40 were more the type I had to think about and work through the patho. But the other 75 OMG! I had no idea. It was as if none of the answers were right and I had to choose the least harmful one or the one that looked like it was talking about the right topic. No joke!
It was heavy on cardiac drugs, specifically in combination with each other. I'm good with lungs, but there were some not-so-realistic scenarios that made the answer choices tough.
Prep: I watched the Laura Gasparis Vonfrolio videos. Although I learned a lot from these, I don't think they really did much for me on the exam. This was a surprise because of so much I'd read about her videos being so spot-on. Perhaps it was just the version of the test I received. That said, I still learned a ton of useful info from these videos that help me on my job every day so I certainly still recommend them.
PASS CCRN: Ignored the book mostly - did the CD practice questions for 3 weeks. I think the formatting of the practice questions is a good warm up for the actual exam, but still the content wasn't that well matched to the exam. I would say that reading and understanding the rationales of these questions lead me to learn/look-up more info that was the type which appeared on my test.
I think if you work in a critical care setting, actually practice critical thinking, and study your cardiac/neuro/lung basics you will be able to pass this exam. Prep for uncomplicated swan questions, basic ECG stuff, and a lot of questions regarding treatment of visitors, patient priorities, and choosing a policy vs. common sense. I'm not sure how to prepare for those - maybe it's in the book, but I wasn't focused on that at all.
Good luck to everyone! It took me 3 weeks of intermittently intense study. I was worried that I should've studied more but in the end - after the exam - I realized that there's nothing I would've studied past that point that would've given me more answers on the exam.
OH, the one thing LGV says in her video that is super true - they throw the crazy questions at you first - the ones that no one is going to be able to answer. Don't get discouraged! Just realize that's what's happening and move on!