The American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) are the two organizations that administer the tests to become
board certified as a nurse practitioner. There are several tests depending on
your educational qualifications. Tests areas include Family, AGNP,
Peds, Midwifery and Psychiatric, and tests can then be Acute or Primary care, again depending on your degree. You only need to be certified by one, but I took the primary care test from both
organizations. Why both, well I got cocky and failed the AANP the first time.
That made me focus and get serious. I also said to hell with this and
registered to take both the ANCC and AANP tests in the same week. Logic told me
I can’t fail both, luckily I passed both and I am now 2 for 3.
Most of my classmates were taking the ANCC test and I started hearing
people saying it was easy and not what they expected. First mistake, do not listen
to people. I should have looked at the websites and noticed that about 80% pass both tests. That means next time you're in a lecture count off your classmates and realize
that on average every 5th person is going to fail. Like those awful
group project, count off 1, 2, 3, 4. . (Shit it’s me).
Mistake number two is I studied wrong. You
need to use more than one resource, and especially do not get stuck on practice
test questions for your studying. Master your material from school and
clinicals. Because although Fitzgerald and others books are decent, not one
question from those books are on the tests. They may be similar enough to
confuse you, but they are not the same.
You will hear that
it does not matter which test you take, which is true. The ANCC has been around
longer than the AANP test, and there was a time when organizations like the
Veterans Administration only recognized the ANCC. Today because they are both
certifying boards, companies cannot discriminate against one or the other or they would probably be sued.
The AANP is 150 timed questions and the ANCC is 175 timed questions. Some
of the questions for both tests do not count, and you do not know which ones. They
mix sample questions into the tests to see how people will answer them, and if
they are viable test questions then they can be added in the future. This
testing is also not like the NCLEX test, where the computer might turn off at 75 questions, or adjust based on how you are doing. You will answer all questions, and they are all random
multiple choice. I did hear that they might be adding some pictures in
the future, which would have been nice with those dermatology questions. For
example reading erythematous scattered raised papules could be a couple things, give me a picture please.
Truthfully, I
really wanted to like the AANP test, because their organization seems geared
towards Nurse Practitioners, and they have local and state chapters for NPs to
network. The ANCC on the other hand is all over the place and seems to certify
everything and anybody including the hospital itself. They are the ones behind the
whole Magnet Hospital certification. Magnet status cost hospital a lot of money
and research is showing Magnet status has not improved patient
outcomes, but it does look good in the advertising and on the letterhead.
Having now seen 475 of the board questions it is true, the AANP test is
concentrated more on assessment, diagnostic and treatment based questions. While
the AANC, while still having assessment, diagnostic and treatment questions, also includes therapeutic communication, research, policy, cultural issues, epidemiology, psychology and some regulatory questions
mixed in. I liked this format, because as an NP only part of your business is assessing and treating patients. Also, look at your program it may be pushing you towards one or the
other test. Besides the core curriculum our program had lots of research and
cultural components.
It might be my
background, but the ANCC seemed easy compared to the AANP. Since I took the AANP
test twice their questions seemed redundant and they like to play
word games. For example instead of checking your knowledge base, they would ask several
questions on one topic like TSH, T3 and T4, or COPD and only change some words in the question or answer looking to trick you.
Have to renew in 5-years, but for hundreds of dollars each it will not be with both organizations. We will see who does a better job of supporting and promoting NPs and probably renew with them.
