AOCNP exam facts, from hours log to score report

Each route begins with an RN license that is current and unencumbered, issued in the US, a US territory or Canada. Then the kind of NP program decides how much adult oncology practice you need:

• NP program with an oncology concentration: 500 hours of supervised adult oncology NP practice.
• Adult (primary or acute), family, gerontology or women's health NP program: 1,000 hours of adult oncology NP practice.

Hours count whether earned during the program or after it, provided all of them sit within the 5 years before you apply, and the same period has to include a graduate oncology course of at least 2 credits or 30 hours of oncology CE. Pediatric NP programs are not on the list.

Each form has 165 multiple-choice questions. Only 125 count toward your result; the other 40 are pretest questions, indistinguishable from scored ones. Each question has four options and one correct answer, and drugs appear under generic names only.

The clock, 3 h in all, covers a short computer tutorial and a closing survey, and none of it pauses: no breaks are scheduled, so even a pause for water costs test minutes. Subtracting the tutorial leaves roughly a minute per question.

The pass standard is a scaled score of 55 on a 25–75 scale. Scaled means converted: 55 is neither a percent nor a set number correct, and the board publishes no raw count for a pass.

You see the result on screen when the session ends, and it is official. A failing report gives your scaled score, the passing score and your performance by subject area, which is what to plan a retake from. A passing report says PASS without a number, plus the points and subject areas you will need for your first renewal.

ONCC's yearly statistics put the pass rate of initial candidates at 63% in 2022, 61% in 2023 and 79% in 2025. We found no 2024 report on oncc.org as of November 2026, so no 2024 figure is given here.

PSI's authorization to test opens a 90-day window. Failing sends you back under the board's rule, which is to reapply after the current window expires, at most once per 90-day window; after 3 failed attempts in 3 years, wait 1 year. Every retake starts with a fresh application.

You can move your test date once, before the authorization expires, to a date within the next 12 months; the transfer costs $100. The DoubleTake add-on changes what the second attempt costs, not when you may take it (cost).

1. Apply and pay online at oncc.org; the member price needs your ONS or APHON membership.
2. The authorization to test comes by email, 4–6 weeks after you apply per the manual; look in the spam folder too.
3. Book a PSI test center inside your window. Testing runs year-round in the US, its territories and Canada; testing elsewhere has a single window each year (2026 window: June 1–30).
4. Bring the identification PSI asks for, and expect your certificate by mail some weeks after a pass.

Area V, Professional Practice and Roles of the APRN, is 5% of the scored questions. Its questions live only in the practice test, with no separate page. The oncology-specific part is accreditation: the Commission on Cancer accredits hospital cancer programs, the National Cancer Institute designates research cancer centers, and FACT accredits cellular therapy and transplant programs. Know which body does which.

The rest of the area applies to every APRN. Its ethics, consent and cultural-care parts are covered once, on PMHNP-BC ethics, legal and cultural care; quality improvement, competency review and peer education have no page here.