How to Prepare Well with ANCC Practice Tests

ANCC Practice Tests
ANCC Practice Tests

Registered Nurses and Clinical Nurse Specialists looking to advance their careers should consider ANCC certification. The American Nurses Credentialing Center represents the nurse practitioners and attests that they meet the highest level of nursing standards.

And thus, nurses with ANCC certification can demand a higher salary for providing their services.

If you’re preparing for the ANCC certification, it’s crucial to go through multiple ANCC Practice Test Sets. There are good reasons for doing that, which is discussed in this article. Along with that, learn some pro tips on how to get ANCC certified successfully.

Choose the Correct ANCC Practice Tests Set

ANCC offers certifications for multiple specialties. And the practice sets for each specialty differ accordingly. This is the first thing you need to keep in mind when preparing for ANCC certification.

In general, ANCC offers four NP specialties, which are:

  1. Adult-Gerontology Acute Care
  2. Adult-Gerontology Primary Care
  3. Family
  4. Psychiatric-Mental Health

But the practice sets go more granular. Depending on where you’re buying the sets from, you’ll have ANCC Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner sets, ANCC Family Nurse Practitioner Practice sets, Pediatric Primary Care Nurse Practitioner sets, among others. Then you have renewals and Clinical Nurse Specialist practice test sets.

Many people make the mistake of downloading or paying for a completely different test set. Therefore, to avoid issues like these, always check the title and description. Ensure it matches with the ANCC specialty you’re pursuing.

Understand the Exam Content

To succeed in the ANCC exams, you must understand the structure and content. Every specialty exam will have, more or less, a different structure.

For example, the ANCC Family Nurse Practitioner exam asks a total of 175 questions from four different domains. Those are:

  1. Assessment
  2. Diagnosis
  3. Clinical Management
  4. Professional Role

For each of these domains, there are sub-domains. The Assessment section will have topics like evidence-based population health promotion and screening, risk assessment, and functional assessment.

Compare this with another popular ANCC examination, “Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner.” This examination has three domains, which are Core Competencies, Clinical Practice, and Professional Role.

If you want to pass any ANCC examination, you must thoroughly acquaint yourself with the exam structure and domains.

To better understand the exam content, you can refer to the Test Content Outline for that particular specialty. It lists all the essential topics and domains for any ANCC governed examination.

Select a Study Plan and Stick to it

To get ANCC certified, you need to work hard. There isn’t any alternative to hard work and practice yet. But working hard is not enough; you need to work smart. And for it, you must create a study plan.

Your study plan for the ANCC examination should include details like how many hours you’re going to devote, what subjects you’re going to cover, and on what specific days, when you should be attending the practice test sets, among other things.

When planning these things, you should be as realistic as possible. If you’re working as an RN, you should pinpoint how many hours each day you can allocate for preparation. Do you wish to take some time off? These things will help you in planning for the examination.

You should have at least six months of planning leading up to the examination.

Find an Online Platform that Offers Unlimited Test Access

Online exam platforms are here to change how students prepare for examinations. These provide the flexibility of quick access to practice sets while lowering the cost. You can log in at any time of the day and test yourself to see how good you are.In fact, you can also visit websites like Assessment Center HQ that provide all the tools and resources required for self-assessments.

Another benefit of attending the exams online is that you can find out the results instantly. There’s no manual evaluation involved, and the software handles everything.

When selecting such an online test platform, you should focus on the ones that provide unlimited test access. This way, you can access all the practice sets of a particular ANCC examination without paying extras.

Challenge Yourself with Tougher Scenarios

The passing rate for ANCC stood at 86.3% for the year 2018. Other exams, too, had a passing range of around 80%. Thus, not everyone attending the exams makes it through, even if most of them are experienced and hold a Master’s degree.

The only potential way to increase your chances is to get better. And you get better by facing more challenging scenarios. You can switch from a no time exam type to a timed one. This will force you to complete the exam within the period. These types of features are present on some online test platforms. So do use them when you’re comfortable.

With the ANCC certificate, you will be considered a specialist. Going rigorously through the ANCC Practice Tests sets is the key to pass the examination and get the certificate.