akFNP20

Hi everyone! On 11/18 I passed my AANP FNP exam by the grace of God! I spent a lot of time taking in all the advice on allnurses and I promised myself if I passed I would pay it back… I am going to walk you through my experience. I graduated on August 28th and started really studying mid September. I also stated a DNP program, that is fast paced so I could not give 100% to studying 24/7. I knew I had no time to waste. Looking back, I would say I religiously studied for about 4-5 days a week and hours varying from 2 hours to 8 hours leading up to my exam date. I tried Fitzgerald and Hollier, while both were good and are amazing instructors I felt Fitzgerlad was TOO in depth and Hollier was too broad for me. So after I realized that I decided to stick to the Leik book. I studied the whole book, first time through I read through it all and made notes, while doing about 50 – 100 questions in the back of the book. I also purchased the Ruphy and Penny LIVE review (2 days, about 3.5 hours each day). I still felt like I was not ready so I pushed my exam back 5 days. Within those extra 5 days, I reread and wrote the exam tips on a piece of paper and this was also the time I touched up on stuff I felt I was not strong in. I came across two more reviews, some may say it is overkill, but I promise it helped me. I purchased the Latrina Walden bronze crash course (5 one hour videos and listened to these on my drives to work). Then two days before the exam I did the two day LIVE review by Vanencia Clark about three hours both days. I also bought about 10 ExamEdge exams (scored 400s-500s), did the two APEA exams (60s-70s), and did all three PSI tests (60s-70s) and bought BoardVitals. I would probably have not done BoardVitals since it is too in depth. The day of the exam, I listened to the first Walden video (probably should not have but I felt like I was forgetting some dermatology key points). Then I stopped at my place of worship to just take a minute to breathe and without any distractions just believe in myself. About the exam: Out of the 150 questions I believe about 10 of them I did not know the answer to. The rest of them I was familiar with the subject due to studying. Last advice: I TRULY believe that you can all do it… I still CANNOT believe I passed and kept questioning the preliminary results, until I got the real results in the mail. You are all nurses, went to school, this is just another challenge that you will ALL overcome. Before and during my exam I told myself if I fail at least I know what the exam process is like and I will touch up on weak points to retake it again. I also took a quick minute to breathe every 50 questions and just motivate myself again and tell myself I GOT THIS. I feel like during the studying process we do not give ourselves enough credit (at least I don’t) and sometimes we need to just believe in our own strength. One last thing- I did not tell a single person I took the exam. I did not want anyone texting me right after asking how I did. So if that helps, do it! I hope this helps! If you have any other questions, please reach out and email me! YOU ALL GOT THIS!