Family Nurse Practitioner Certification Intensive Review: Fast Facts and Practice Questions

LOVE this book. Why didn't I purchase this book at the beginner of FNP school?!! Of all the resources I used to prepare for the exam, this was by far the best one. I also did the live Fitzgerald review and purchased Fitzgerald's Nurse Practitioner Certification Examination and Practice Preparation book. Additionally, I purchased the ANA's Family Nurse Practitioner Review and Resource Manual Volumes 1 & 2 from the ANCC, which were quite pricey ( I purchased these books mainly for the first 2 chapters of Volume 1 which cover the nurse practitioner role and healthcare issues). The Leik book is inexpensive and so worth it. I basically used the Leik book as my main study tool and used the Fitzgerald books for additional information when I did not understand a disorder or concept. The Fitzgerald books were too detailed and overwhelming at first. I did not comprehend some of the concepts from the Fitzgerald workbook (the one you get if you attend the live course) until I read Leik. After a few weeks of studying I found the Fitzgerald workbook to be a great complementary tool to Leik. Leik summarizes and simplifies a great deal of information. She gives excellent exam tips throughout the book. Her test taking strategies in chapter one were spot on, as well as the 650 practice questions in the back of the book.Over half the ANCC is on non-clinical topics. Leik covers Hospice, Medico Ethical Guidelines (things like medicare, the nurse practice act, scope of practice, culture, etc) and Research in the last three chapters. You MUST spend time reviewing NON-clinical topics for the ANCC. I found the research hierarchy diagram from Fitzgerald (meta-analysis, RCT, Cohort etc) to be very helpful. Fitzgerald's online information (which you get access to if you attend her course) was not very user-friendly, but I found she had good pictures of rashes, eye infections, and other disorders which you should review for the exam. It is difficult to find one good solid resource that encompasses ALL the non-clinical topics. Fitzgerald's Certification Exam & Practice Prep has a chapter called professional issues which is good for billing, medicare, medicaid etc.I purchased practice questions/tests from Board Vitals, Exam Edge and the FNP Mastery phone app. All excellent. Board Vitals has many non-clinical practice questions and so does FNP mastery. Exam Edge is set up as tests of 100 questions each, there are non-clinical questions in exam edge tests, but not that many. I found the Board Vitals questions to be quite wordy but very helpful in preparing for the exam. The website is very user friendly. I purchased 10 tests of 100 questions each from Exam Edge. You can take each test up to three times. I found the exam edge questions to be designed more similar to the questions I actually saw on the ANCC. Having said that, if I was only going to purchase one test bank resource, I would go with Board Vitals.My studying was all over the place at first and without Leik I would have been lost. There are errors in her book - which she addresses on her website: http://www.npreview.com/Updates-Review-Books.html. I also saw errors in the review books Volume 1 & 2 that I purchased from the ANCC/ANA. If I was only going to purchase one book, it would be Leik. But I personally think it is a good idea to use more than one resource. As I mentioned already Leik and Fitzgerald worked well together for me.Remember read each question slowly. If the answer is not obvious at first, go back to the stem of the question and look for clues. The question may be asking for an assessment or growth indicator, for example, and once you figure that part out, you can eliminate wrong answer choices and choose the correct answer based on the stem of the question. In addition to reviewing everything and doing practice questions, sleep and controlling exam anxiety were crucial for me. For those with high exam anxiety, try listening to exam success hypnosis/meditation while you are falling asleep. It really helped me. Good luck and buy this book!

I just took the FNP Certification Exam through AANP and passed using Leik as my primary source and the Barkley Review as a secondary source. Here is my evaluation of each and tips for how to pass the exam!!!!!!I took the test in Jan 2018. I attended the Barkeley Review Live in-person review course for ~$400+, which included a comprehensive book, access to their review course online to review at your leisure, and a DRT, or digital readiness test in order to test whether or not your would pass the test if you took the certification exam today. Barkeley's materials and review course are VERY general and good for any new practitioner starting out, like me, because it really reviews everything you learned in school. The in-person review course was 2.5 days of 8-6 and one day of 8-2 of non-stop information overload. Looking back, I wouldn't choose to do Barkley again to prepare for the exam. The certification exam was extremely SPECIFIC whereas their material is very GENERAL and lacks testing techniques to help you pass. Barkeley does, however, help you feel prepared to begin a new job as a new practitioner.I ended up putting away Barkeley's material and gravitating toward Maria Leik’s book and app when I felt like my DRT readiness score was only in the 60's after reviewing the Barkeley cd's, book, and in-person review material for literally 6 months straight for 8 hrs at a time- something had to be missing here. Leik's book is an easy read and extremely COMPREHENSIVE. In her first chapter, she actually explains the format of the test, how many questions to expect, and test taking tips, which are a life-saver during the exam. One tip that saved me was:Use the MARK key often and liberally so you can re-read the questions you doubt. It Marked 50 questions and thought it was helpful. She also has an excellent chapter on how to effectively take the test- like write down all normal you see and write down things you want to remember during the exam while they give you the intro for 15 mins, etc. I found that helpful for the cardiac stuff, which I struggle with. It seriously helped me alleviate my extreme test anxiety I struggle with and remember vital information that was used repeatedly on the test, which I did not have to recite over and over again.Note that if you purchase this book on the Kindle App, it does not contain the access code to her phone app, which I think is essential for passing this test, in my opinion; however, if you purchase the physical copy of the book, the code is included. Not a wise choice by the book producer- they told me they hope to rectify that soon when I contacted them. As of now, the app is called "FNP Family Nurse Practitioner Prep 2018" by Springer Publishing and Higher Learning Technologies, Inc. It cost $70, which includes the entire Leik book and 720 AANC and AANP prep questions, which you can customize to your weaknesses. I cannot say enough good things about this app! I really think it is one of the key reasons I passed this test because it is most similar to the testing situation. With the app you can test yourself with each question and mark which questions you do and don’t know and the explanations are clearly laid out and easy to remember. They are the same as the book, but it is more similar to the board exam mode. I don't recommend just purchasing the app alone because the book really should be utilized again and again to read and highlight and return to sections of material you want to refresh your memory of. However, the app is great for refreshing quick knowledge of easily forgettable things like the Rule of 9's.In order to do well on the test, concentrate on elderly folks, not pediatrics the way Barkeley stresses. Barkeley was also wrong on almost every single thing they said that "everyone gets a question about this or that"- so not true. I did not get a single question they highlighted to remember in their live in-person review course or the audio cds. There was a ton of focus on geriatrics on my test in comparison to kids, which Barkley stresses.Also do the ANCC practice test online. It is free. At least 1 question was verbatim the same on my examination!I did not think it was easy by any stretch of the imagination though. There were a ton of medical terminology words that I have never heard of before even though I was a straight A student in my master's program, attended one of the top 5 nursing programs in the country, and have been in school for the past 7 years straight. Do not let that scare you though!!!!!!!! In my school at least, the professors taught us that drugs would be heavily emphasized on the test, I did not think that it was too bad. More commonly used drugs were used. However, what was tricky about the exam wasThe test was more specific and gave a ton of distractors in each question. It was like two diagnoses could be EASILY be the right answer made from the description. I often felt like I needed more information in the question!!!! I thought it was tough to parse out. Take each question and read the question once or twice. Then you can usually throw out one answer and you are not certain about the last three- something that helped me was actually making tic marks next to each answer choice of which one was MORE right than the others. Did it sound more like varicella? Does it sound more like Herpes? And so on and so forth. It helped a little, esp. for STD's and dermatology.However, at the end of the day even after feeling like I had no idea what was happening during the test and that the certification exam was not well excuted because too many questions had too many answer choices that sounded right based on the limited information in the scenario, I did pass. Don't be surprised if you don't get your score immediately in the testing room on your computer. I did not and I totally thought I bombed it. However, it was a computer glitch! Hopefully, some of these words I am passing on to you will help you take your test in confidence and not waste your money!!!!!

Super belle revision. Assez complet. Je l'ai utilisé pour l'étude de l'examen canadien et je l'ai adoré. Je suis même en train de le relire. Pour les canadien faire attention puisque les ligne directrice utilisé ne sont pas canadienne. Donc avant l'examen je n'ai pas vraiment tenu compte de ce qui étais dit dans ce livre a propos de certaine condition dont des ligne directrice Canadienne sont disponible (asthme par exemple). Il y a de belle section sur des ''exam tips'' qui sont tres pertinante et environ 600 questions de revision a la fin. Je le recommande fortement (en plus des CD/cours et livre de questions de revision de Amelie Hollier).

Followed it to a T and rocked the AANP in one shot.The practice questions were very similar format.Be wary of a few glaring errors.

Great study guide. Easy to ready and concise. Provides a quick summary at the end of each chapter. Also, provides a rationale for answers to questions.

This teamed up with Fitzgerald becomes the best cram set for certification exams.

Excellent text. Only wish I had discovered during my NP courses rather then just for the final exam. Huge help with great tips.