Customer Reviews

Family Nurse Practitioner Certification: Intensive Review

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I just passed my ANCC today and here are some books I wish I had in school. The following helped me to pass the ANCC because they are most like the test. First, Margaret Fitzgerald's book Nurse Practitioner Certification Examination and Practice Preparation is a great must have book for school and test prep. If you can, take her live seminar or get the CDs. Next Leik's book Family Nurse Practitioner Certification Intensive Review:Fast Facts and Practice Questions, great book, good to synthesize all of the Fitzgerald info. The Hollier/Wirfs book: Certification Prep Exams Practice Test s and Questions with Rationales 4th ed is a great prep for questions, don't bother buying the review book by Hollier, it is too basic. Next, make SURE you buy the Family Nurse Practitioner Certification Review by Zerwekh and Claborn. This is the only review book I could find that has a CD rom . The CD is almost like the actual test and some of the questions are very similar. If you start off by buying these four books you will be in good shape. Good luck on the exam!

Be careful with this book; while there are a lot of excellent exam tips, there are also many errors and/or typos. At times it feels as if the book were slapped together. The result is that you have to scrutinize every sentence for veracity. Not an entirely bad thing :~) Also, the outline is not entirely clear at times.
An example of a blatant error is:
"Exercise-induced Asthma
Premedicate 20 minutes before the activity with two puffs of an inhaled steroid or mast cell stabilizer."
Yikes!
I found the Fitzgerald book to be much better, and while I will continue to study with this text, I will review the Fitzgerald text during the week before I take the test.
Good Luck on your exam!

Recently, I spoke with the author (Maria Leik) on the phone to tell her that I passed my FNP exam. I told her that I was going to write a testimonial for her book (I think it helped me pass the test), so she asked me to please pass on this message. Here goes...
She said that the errors on both the ANP and FNP Intensive Review Books have been CORRECTED in a new printing by Springer Publishing. The books that are now being sold on AMAZON (and other vendors) are in their latest editions with NO ERRORS. She said to make "sure that you purchase a 'new'copy!!!".

Maria Leik's book, just published in July 2007 is AWESOME. I love it !!! The content is concise and helps the NP student focus on the important areas of knowledge required for passing the exam. Maria includes study tips and exam tips, all of which help to analyze the questions and to choose the correct answer. The layout of the content in system reviews makes it easy to read and to study from. The 500 practice questions are extremely helpful too.
I studied from Maria's book for 2 weeks before taking the exam in August....and passed. It made me feel confident and I know it helped me pass the exam !!!!!
Thanks Maria, your book is "THE BEST".

I wanted this book because it has a lot of review questions at the end. Plus a friend had recommended it to me after she had passed her boards.I bought it, but I wouldn't probably buy it again. I started keeping track of the errors that I found at pg 102....I'm now at pg 127 and here are some examples of pretty important errors that I've come across just in that section of pages..... (keep in mind, I'm no expert, just a recently graduated FNP student studying for my boards).....
1. pg. 102 - she cites (2 separate times) the BMI equation as weight (in kg) x height (in meters) squared. The actual equation is wt in kg DIVIDED BY height in meters squared.
2. pg. 104 - she forgets to mention dry cough as a possible side effect from ACE inhibitors.
3. pg. 105 - says to take ibuprofen 30 minutes before niacin dose to prevent flushing. The correct statement should say ASA (aspirin), not ibuprofen.
4. pg. 120 - when explaining + PPD (tuberculin) test results, she doesn't state what the positive result for a normal healthy individual is. She just says what it is for higher risk populations. I wanted to know for normal people, so I looked it up - it's >15mm of induration
5. pg 126 - she doesn't even mention galactorrhea as a possible symptom associated with hyperprolactinemia.
6. pg. 127 - doesn't include gonadotropin, melanocyte-stimulating hormone or prolactin in the list of hormones coming from the anterior pituitary.

I've stopped keeping track of all the mistakes. On the positive side, all the mistakes I'm finding a) give me confidence that I can spot an error (I really do know more than I thought), and b) make me look up the correct answer, thereby solidifying them in my brain.

I haven't gotten past pg 127 so far, or to the questions, so I can't speak for the rest of the book. But I'm pretty skeptical that I won't find anymore errors if there were this many in so few pages. If you decide to buy this book, just be aware of all the possible mistakes. If something doesn't sound right to you, look it up - you're probably right. Although I'll probably finish this book just because I paid for it and there is some good information in it, I think I'm going to stick with the Fitzgerald book for the rest of my studying.

Hope this is helpful.

just passed my AANC FNP exam and would defintely reccomend this book to anyone out their preparing for their boards as well as students. I have had the book thro NP school and of all my review books this prepared me best for the exam. The exam has changed with plenty of ethics and policy questions which most review books don't cover. I feel that If I did not use this book I wouldn't have passed on 1st attempt. I also had other great resources like Fitzgerald review book and CDS but this tops them all. Her ( maria leik) sample questions are also very identical to what is on the test and that prepares you to answer such type questions. Good Luck

I PASSED the AANP exam! Excellent resource to study for the FNP exam. I also recommend taking her live review course, it is complete and to the point. She has had 100% pass in most of her classes ( n p r e v i e w. c o m). If you can't make it to her review I also recommend for you to get the Fitzgerald review and her Audio CDs. Make sure you study for at least a couple of months before the test. Good Luck!

This book is a must have for FNP test preparation. I used this book, along with a few others (1. Fitzgerald; 2. Zerwich & Claiborne; 3. Hollier) to prepare for the ANCC Family Nurse Practitioner exam. I just took the test on Thursday and passed on my first attempt!! There were a few mistakes in this book (test question and answer discrepancies), but they were few and far between. Despite the few mistakes, I would definitely recommend this book. I would not use this as my only resource, however the test taking tips, 500 test questions and concise information are definite pluses. Trust me, the goal of passing the exam is definitely attainable and using the aforementioned resources will make reaching that goal a little bit easier. Good luck!!!

Just took the AANP FNP Cert Exam last week and passed it! Among the 5 review books and materials that I've used, this book was the most helpful to me. The practice questions were similar to the actual test questions (actually, I sort of knew this even before the exam). The test tips, concised lectures, and of course the 500 test questions were very useful. In comparison to Fitzgerald's, her "discussion lectures" were informative and a good way to refresh your knowledge, however her practice tests questions were not ideally presented. I just eventually had to skip them because it made me feel I have to memorize a whole lot more. Her tests questions were more of theoretical and not case study types. In my opinion, the actual test questions were NOT AT ALL tricky. Its either you knew the answer or you don't. I suggest that after you make sure you have a good theoretical foundation, then soak yourself in practice test questions until you get to a comfortable level. You can do it!

I highly recommend this book for anyone studying for their FNP/APN exam. It is an easy read with tons of information and practice questions.