Passed ANCC 8/23!

Published Aug 24, 2016

1 Post

I passed the horrifying, anxiety ridden ANCC FNP exam yesterday! I want to thank ALL of you that posted about their experiences studying for and taking the actual exam. That info provided direction and support navigating this process. So now I'd like to add my 2 cents.

A little background on me - I have always been a driven student, got great grades with little effort, the information just seemed to automatically make sense until graduate school. The great grades did not come without fear of failure or test anxiety but I got through it none the less. Six years after my BSN I entered the FNP program (MSN)---in my late 30's. Now by this time I was working full time, 3 kids going through different stages of development (code for angst ridden preteen and teen years), and heavily involved in professional organization committees. Suffice it to say my brain was on overload. It took me a little bit longer to get through the program (4yrs instead of 3) and it seemed I couldn't get an A to save my life. The last semester of the program (Spring 2016) I quit my job to focus on school.

Fast forward to May. I was living off savings, my last kid was graduating 8 th grade, and I needed to take this exam to start working ASAP. For my LPN and RN NCLEX I didn't take a review course. I prayed and I found programs online that allowed me to take multiple practice tests and passed both the first time. Because of the brain changes in middle adulthood, I couldn't chance it...my brain was fried. So this is what I did:

Live Fitzgerald review course: Taken a month after graduation. I highly recommend Sally, she gives you great examples to make sense of the information. My rote memorization skills suck, I do better with associations and she gives you that. The information was comprehensive and easy to follow. I was able to identify what I really needed to focus on. After the live course you have access to more in depth information on topics that weren't thoroughly discussed in the seminar. This is where I found the most comprehensive information regarding non-clinical topics, such as, policy, culture, and research.

Fitzgerald book (most recent edition): used this while in school. Used it to ensure I understood specific topics. Like others have stated, it's a bit more in depth than necessary, but I found it helped with terminology I may have been unfamiliar with.

Barkley review book: my program made us take the Barkley readiness exam at the beginning of the semester and the end. Um lets just say I did worse on the post test. Luckily we weren't penalized for doing poorly on that assignment. The questions on that exam seemed so obscure that I had to get the book. I didn't like the way it had the Peds sections set up, way too much information for the exam. Though I will use it as a quick reference tool now.

Leik review book: had some errors but the info was easy to follow, I love bullet points! I could glance at the page and identify what was most useful as opposed to the other two books which were more formatted like a textbook. It gave me the nitty gritty. Like others have stated, there were some errors but it made me go find the correct information. I also did ALL the questions and read ALL the rationales for each correct answer.

APEA cd's: my friend took boards years ago so she gave me a set of cd's with information pre-JNC8. I listened to Amelie like she was speaking the word of God! Every time I got in the car she was talking. I'm pretty sure my daughter can pass boards now too from listening so often. Aside from the outdated JNC guidelines, everything else was pretty useful. They're about an hour or so long. Highly recommend getting the most recent version.

FamilyNP Prep: Online test bank. You can buy up to 50 exams with the option of retaking them 3 times each. These questions made you stop and actually read what it was asking. The wording resembled exams during my program. A lot of "read the whole damn question before you jump to the wrong answer". I only bought 10, I would not recommend buying more. They helped me fill my quota for questions per day.

Board Vitals: I didn't find these until the week before my exam and boy I wished I had seen them a month earlier. I would recommend these over the FamilyNP prep mentioned above. They were more reflective of the actual ANCC FNP exam. The explanations were on point! Don't take the readiness exam, if you do the quizzes it will give you the same score breakdown as the readiness exam.

FNP Mastery app: great mnemonics and questions with a breakdown for each system and topic. A total of about 600 questions. Did them all 3 times, you can reset as many times as you want. They give you a free trial for 24 hours after that you have to buy the app for $30.

Ok so I know this is long but bare with me. My actual study plan was initially all over the place. One thing I stuck to was at least 100 questions Monday-Saturday. I felt like I needed to study EVERTHING because I just didn't feel like anything was sticking. I finally sat down created a calendar with clear goals for that day. For example, I would study cardiac from all 4 texts, listen to it in the car, and do 100 cardiac questions. I checked it off the calendar once it was completed. Now did I get to do that everyday? Nope. But I made sure I at least did the 100 questions and read the rationale.

By last week, I still felt unprepared but also couldn't look at another book, sit at another screen, or listen to another cd. I was burnt out. So I prayed about it, gave it to God, and hung out with my kid. On Monday before the exam, I reviewed my mnemonics and some research terminology for a couple of hours and chilled.

Test day: I thought I would feel anxious or overwhelmed but I was pretty calm. I have a ritual before every exam (for certification and school) where I go to breakfast alone. I sit, pray, eat, and remain quiet. No cell phone, computer, or tablet.

THE test: after getting through Alcatraz I sat in the cubicle still calm ready to click away for the next 4 hours. As a side, I got through my practice quizzes of 100 q's in about 45 minutes. The tutorial is 20 minutes, I used that time to write my mnemonics down and any other piece of information I could remember (helpful tip from someone here!). The exam began with relatively easy questions but because they seemed easy I convinced myself I was being set up, so I "marked" them to review at the end. I probably marked 75/200 q's, which was not necessary. But like I stated I was convinced I wasn't reading or comprehending the questions correctly. I kept believing they would get harder but they didn't. There were probably about 4 question where I could honestly say that I blindly guessed. The others I either knew right away or I could reason which was the most correct. Definitely use the highlight and strike out features. It took me 3 hours to finish the exam. At the end I reviewed the first 5 that I marked, changed 1 answer and submitted it. I did take a break at the 100th question, by that time I was going into autopilot so I knew I needed to splash some water on my face and do some jumping jacks.

This may have seemed like overkill but I passed. I walked away thinking it wasn't as difficult as everyone made it seem. Thank goodness it's over! Now it's time to find a job! Good luck everyone!!!

Oh yeah-DO the practice quizzes on the ANCC website...Family, Peds, Adult.