PNCB PNP Boards

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Hey Everyone,

I just took my Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Boards and passed! I wanted to share what I did to study in case others are looking for some guidance.

I used Barkley's CD review and Book to guide most of my studying. --highly reccommend

I also went through the Silbert-Flagg and Sloand Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Review--I highly recommend this book.

I also had the NAPNAP Core questions book--this was the least helpful.

I used my Burns textbook as reference as well as medbullets.com and Table of Contents | Pediatrics Clerkship | The University of Chicago.

I took both practice tests on the PNCB website--pricey but I think were worth it.

I studied about 12-15 hours a week for 4-6 weeks leading up to the boards.

Hope this is helpful-

Hello Future PNPs of America!!!!

Just passed my PNCB boards and what a sigh of relief! Wanted to let y'all know what I did.

I gave myself a month to study going by body systems.

Study Resources:

Barkley PNP self paced audio books.---Highly recommend! (Expensive AF!)

Silbert-Flagg Primary Care Blue Book.----Highly Recommend!

Burns 2017 Pediatric Primary Care as a reference for unclear topics.

Good LUCK!! Y'all can do it!

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Hello everyone,

I passed the PNCB Primary Care PNP exam 2 weeks ago and am here to share helpful study materials along with my overall recommendations ?

- Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Certification Primary Care Review Guide 6th Edition by Joanne Silbert-Flagg and Elizabeth Sloand. EXTREMELY HELPFUL! I read this cover to cover and took notes on the whole thing. Great, concise yet thorough information with lots of practice questions and answers.

- Pediatric Primary Care Practice Guidelines for Nurses 3rd Edition by Beth Richardson. EXTREMELY HELPFUL as adjunct to the Silbert-Flagg

- Bright Futures Pocket Guidelines 4th Edition by the AAP. Very helpful and cute pocket size for taking to work/clinicals or keeping in your bag.

- Barkley and Associates PNP DRT Practice Tests. I did 2 before the PNCB exam. About $30 for 100 questions with rationales. These questions were very helpful. Highly recommend taking at least 1 Barkley DRT before PNCB

- Boardvitals.com PNP question bank about $100 for a 30 day access to over 1,400 questions. These are mixed acute and primary care pediatric questions so not all of them are pertinent but it was way more helpful than I originally thought. I had a handful of PNCB questions that were on topics ONLY discussed on the boardvitals.com site and were not in ANY pediatric text or review book

- Pediatric Primary Care 6th Edition by Burns, Dunn, Brady...ect was the textbook used in my graduate program. I honestly did not touch it for 6 months prior to the PNCB exam but it was helpful during school and is a good resource.

Everyone's study needs and methods are different but these are what worked for me. I studied about 20+ hours a week for 3 months and passed on my first attempt. 2 weeks prior to the exam I did practice questions religiously and that helped a ton. There are some free review questions on quizlet.com if you search "PNCB PNP" or something along those lines.

Good luck!

Katie Reynolds, MSN, APRN, CPNP-PC

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Hello,

I am studying for my PNCB PNP-PC boards and this has been very helpful. Thank y'all! I did want to ask how y'all were scoring on practice exams?

I am currently using the Barkley home study review course and am supplementing with the Silbert-Flagg and Sloand Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Review book. I am scoring from 70%- 90% range for the most part with this book. I also have Board vitals for questions (these questions are not all geared toward PC PNPs and that is obvious) and am scoring in the mid 80's.

Any advice?

Thanks!

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did you find that the practice questions in Silbert-Flagg were similar to those on the actual exam? or the PNCB modules?

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Specializes in Nurse.

Thanks to everyone who posted comments on the PNCB Exams here.

I have also read the comments of some who took the tests and did not pass the first time. Though heartbreaking, I hope you will redouble your efforts and know that you CAN pass.

Consider attending the NAPNAP Live Review course and study the manual afterwards. Good luck!

I am preparing to take the Primary Care Exam (PNP-PC) soon. I have been trying to find the MOSBY ONLINE REVIEW TEST KEY all over the internet with no luck.

Does anyone know how to purchase this?

Seems like it is very helpful. I remember using Mosby's CDs for my NCLEX several years back and the questions were very helpful.

Thanks to everyone for responding.

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Hello!

I wanted to update this thread as I found it useful when studying for my boards. I passed my PNCB-PC boards on the first try thanks to the resources below. I used a few of the resources already flagged here but this was my approach. I studied for about 7 weeks for 3-5 hours about 5-6 days a week, and I utilized several resources:

-Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Certification Primary Care Review Guide 6th Edition by Joanne Silbert-Flagg and Elizabeth Sloand. This review guide grew on me throughout my studying. I don't learn incredibly well by reading text alone but the outline of information is easy to follow and they hammer the important points. I couldn't read it cover-to-cover so I would start each chapter but attempting the quiz in the back and reviewing the sections I missed on the quiz within the chapter. If I scored below a 75% on the quiz I would read the entire chapter before moving on. This kept me fresh so I was able to keep studying other materials throughout my study sessions.

-NAPNAP Primary Care PNP Certification Review Course. I found this to be a helpful framework for studying. I completed this course first before adding on other studying materials and used my notes from the lectures to supplement and support my other studying. Some of the information was dated but generally it was a helpful overview of some key pediatrics information. Plus you get a 150 questions at the end that was helpful practice. It was $100 for the online review. They do an in-person version as well which is more expensive and limited in space and location 

-PocketPrep PNCB CPNP-PC Study Questions. This was much cheaper than BoardVitals and pulled a lot (maybe all) of their questions from Burns' Pediatric Primary Care Textbook which was the bible in my program. The question bank is about 500 and I went through all of them at least twice. It was $20/month and I canceled my subscription as soon as I passed my boards. 

- PNCB Practice Exams. You definitely should do these! These questions were the most similar to the questions I saw on my actual boards. It's lame you have to buy two sets to get the full 150 but I wouldn't skimp here. 

-I also used BoardVitals and made it through half of the 1400 or so practice questions before realizing that these questions focused more on genetic counseling and research than what the actual boards will. I think I could have passed without this resource to be honest. Some people say they saw content on BoardVitals they didn't see anywhere else that ended up on the boards but that wasn't my experience. And if that is true I think I would rather miss the 1-2 questions of esoteric knowledge than spend that much money and invest that much time on BoardVitals- that's just my two cents.

-Through my program I had access to UpToDate which I used when I wanted a deeper understanding of content I was confused on or missing on practice exams. I know its not cheap but if you have access to it I found it useful for understanding how to approach things like HLD, HTN, DM and other disorders in pediatrics. 

I completed the Flagg textbook (and all the quizzes), the NAPNAP review course and the questions banks for PocketPrep and the PNCB practice exams before sitting for my exam. During it I think I flagged something like 35 out of the 175 questions. I felt pretty confident I passed before submitting my exam.  Hopes that's helpful and good luck!

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