Got a 68 on my NAPLEX, tips for studying second time around

[pharm_fresh]

Unfortunately, I found out I did not pass my NAPLEX exam. I did go to school here and was an average student who was doing pretty average at a good school. I'm just having a bit of anxiety/depression for personal reasons and I think that happened to make me freak out during the exam which caused me to not finish and ultimately fail.

I know my biggest issue was taking calculations too lightly (I was always good at that stuff in school, so I figured I'd pass it on the exam easy), but I didn't practice hard enough because I was too worried about therapeutics which has always been my weak spot since I don't have a job and forget drug details easily.

Please for those who passed the second time around, if you could offer tips and guidance, that would be great. Feel free to PM me. that would mean a lot to me

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[cuddlezbear]

Hi, there

I just took the Naplex too and I barely passed because I studied all wrong. I coached four of my friends on how to pass and they did significantly better than I did with just my information as a study guide (125+!). They found it "really easy" and I honestly wished I my friends that took the test before me broke it down for me this way. Like I was genuinely upset with my friends that passed before me agreeing with my study guide for my other friends. So, this is just my "opinion" on how I would have spent much less time, and done much better. Remember n=4, so it could just be random luck.

So some mistakes I made:
a) You're not a doctor. You don't diagnose. Spending any time learning patho-physiology was a complete waste of time. The big ole 1000 page RX prep or apha or other books, WAY too much time reading useless info about the disease states. My friends and I had ZERO questions related to understanding the disease states. Not how it starts, why it gets worst, progression end stage.. etc...
b) Understanding patient charts and making conclusions was a complete waste of time. Yes, the test does present questions in "patient chart" format, but it's not interpretation. It's more like "of the 4 drugs on april 1st, which medication can be simplified into a combination (i.e. using a patient chart to ask a simple brand/generic)" or "drug on 4/1 is used to treat the patient's : select all disease that apply" and the diseases are all listed for you on patient chart (i.e. just a simple drug and indication match). Think of the patient chart as a list of information and NOT a case for you to practice clinical skills on.

Study differences:
a) Most DEFINITELY do calculations well. It's supposedly worth 33% of your grade (no clue where they got that number but it's the gist based on multiple official study guides). I think 1-2 hours reviewing mEq (5 questions), mOsm (2 questions), and mMols (2 questions), and TPN (calorie calculations) should satisfy these needs. This forum has a nice guide. you can find many other free calculation prep. 30 minutes or more on refreshing your dimensional analysis skills. Very little effort for a significant chunk of your test!

b) BRAND - GENERIC - INDICATION. I have the top 200 drugs community and health systems known by heart. That WASN'T enough. Half of the drugs on there I went "What the f*** is that?" Not that I forgot, but I literally have never seen it in my studying. Some I barely recalled from mentioning in my school or rotations, but I didn't take the time to learn them. So pull up your oncology and HIV notes. Those drugs aren't generally top 200 anywhere. Some drugs I recognized as the "lesser known" brand name. So when the drug cards list 2-4 brand names for the drug, KNOW them all! My list for my friends was in total 420 drugs. With that list, they only said there were 1 or 2 drugs they didn't recognize. Flash card them. Very effective, and time well spent.

c) LEARN ALL COMBOS: About 20 of my questions were combinations: Diabetes, hypertension, and lipids. I was particularly stumped with the niacin combos.

d) make a list of disease states by name and first line. Such as Addisons, Graves, and Cushing.

e) I got lucky and know enoxaparin very well due to one of my rotation. I had 7 questions on that and my friends said they all had 4-5 each at least. Exact dosage/regimen (not sure if this is considered calculations). You don't need to diagnose. Chart says "PE" or "DVT." If not, then it's prophylaxis dose. Know all of them. Know WHERE you can give it. Know ClCr adjustments.

f) Finally, side effect and drug drug interaction. It is an important part of your test. Hopefully over time you know the major ones. However, this is a massive amount of information to be "complete." You can spend a lifetime studying this and still miss stuff. So, for the most bang for your time, I'd focus on the A-E, and then spend left over time on this topic. Maybe your test will have more on this topic than others, but honestly, you can study this forever and forget just as much as you learn. For the sake of time, if you already know brand/generic/indication from B, learn CLASS adverse effects interactions.

Hope this helps. It would have helped me immensely.

 

[fewaopi]

Hi, there

I just took the Naplex too and I barely passed because I studied all wrong. I coached four of my friends on how to pass and they did significantly better than I did with just my information as a study guide (125+!). They found it "really easy" and I honestly wished I my friends that took the test before me break it down for me this way. Like I was generally upset with my friends that passed before me agreeing with my study guide for my other friends. So, this is just my "opinion" on how I would have spent much less time, and done much better. Remember n=4, so it could just be random luck.

So some mistakes I made:
a) You're not a doctor. You don't diagnose. Spending any time learning patho-physiology was a complete waste of time. The big ole 1000 page RX prep or apha or other books, WAY too much time reading useless info about the disease states. My friends and I had ZERO questions related to understanding the disease states. Not how it starts, why it gets worst, progression end stage.. etc...
b) Understanding patient charts and making conclusions was a complete waste of time. Yes, the test does present questions in "patient chart" format, but it's not interpretation. It's more like "of the 4 drugs on april 1st, which medication can be simplified into a combination (i.e. using a patient chart to ask a simple brand/generic)" or "drug on 4/1 is used to treat the patient's : select all disease that apply" and the diseases are all listed for you on patient chart (i.e. just a simple drug and indication match). Think of the patient chart as a list of information and NOT a case for you to practice clinical skills on.

Study differences:
a) Most DEFINITELY do calculations well. It's supposedly worth 33% of your grade (no clue where they got that number but it's the gist based on multiple official study guides). I think 1-2 hours reviewing mEq (5 questions), mOsm (2 questions), and mMols (2 questions), and TPN (calorie calculations) should satisfy these needs. This forum has a nice guide. you can find many other free calculation prep. 30 minutes or more on refreshing your dimensional analysis skills. Very little effort for a significant chunk of your test!

b) BRAND - GENERIC - INDICATION. I have the top 200 drugs community and health systems known by heart. That WASN'T enough. Half of the drugs on there I went "What the f*** is that?" Not that I forgot, but I literally have never seen it in my studying. Some I barely recalled from mentioning in my school or rotations, but I didn't take the time to learn them. So pull up your oncology and HIV notes. Those drugs aren't generally top 200 anywhere. Some drugs I recognized as the "lesser known" brand name. So when the drug cards list 2-4 brand names for the drug, KNOW them all! My list for my friends was in total 420 drugs. With that list, they only said there were 1 or 2 drugs they didn't recognize. Flash card them. Very effective, and time well spent.

c) LEARN ALL COMBOS: About 20 of my questions were combinations: Diabetes, hypertension, and lipids. I was particularly stumped with the niacin combos.

d) make a list of disease states by name and first line. Such as Addisons, Graves, and Cushing.

e) I got lucky and know enoxaparin very well due to one of my rotation. I had 7 questions on that and my friends said they all had 4-5 each at least. Exact dosage/regimen (not sure if this is considered calculations). You don't need to diagnose. Chart says "PE" or "DVT." If not, then it's prophylaxis dose. Know all of them. Know WHERE you can give it. Know ClCr adjustments.

f) Finally, side effect and drug drug interaction. It is an important part of your test. Hopefully over time you know the major ones. However, this is a massive amount of information to be "complete." You can spend a lifetime studying this and still miss stuff. So, for the most bang for your time, I'd focus on the A-E, and then spend left over time on this topic. Maybe your test will have more on this topic than others, but honestly, you can study this forever and forget just as much as you learn. For the sake of time, if you already know brand/generic/indication from B, learn CLASS adverse effects interactions.

Hope this helps. It would have helped me immensely.

I largely agree, well i didn't have enoxaparin i think i don't remember.

what i do remember is i actually had diagnostics, and quite a few, but i was definitely the exception, not the norm. i had to know scales for diagnosing psych diseases and for a while i was wondering if i was taking a medical board exam and not the naplex but that was like 2 questions.

agree with combos. major ddis but honestly don't kill yourself over them, you should know the basics. class effects more important as mentioned. brand generic important and combos. i had a question on some weird ass htn combo drug, supposed to know components, got that question wrong when i looked back.

agree in general about disease. you don't need to know pathophys of disease, or stage I or II. importantly you don't really need to know treatment guidelines. so all them guidelines?! ID guidelines? dont need, trash it, you're drug expert not a doctor.

 

[pharm_fresh]

Hi, there

I just took the Naplex too and I barely passed because I studied all wrong. I coached four of my friends on how to pass and they did significantly better than I did with just my information as a study guide (125+!). They found it "really easy" and I honestly wished I my friends that took the test before me break it down for me this way. Like I was generally upset with my friends that passed before me agreeing with my study guide for my other friends. So, this is just my "opinion" on how I would have spent much less time, and done much better. Remember n=4, so it could just be random luck.

So some mistakes I made:
a) You're not a doctor. You don't diagnose. Spending any time learning patho-physiology was a complete waste of time. The big ole 1000 page RX prep or apha or other books, WAY too much time reading useless info about the disease states. My friends and I had ZERO questions related to understanding the disease states. Not how it starts, why it gets worst, progression end stage.. etc...
b) Understanding patient charts and making conclusions was a complete waste of time. Yes, the test does present questions in "patient chart" format, but it's not interpretation. It's more like "of the 4 drugs on april 1st, which medication can be simplified into a combination (i.e. using a patient chart to ask a simple brand/generic)" or "drug on 4/1 is used to treat the patient's : select all disease that apply" and the diseases are all listed for you on patient chart (i.e. just a simple drug and indication match). Think of the patient chart as a list of information and NOT a case for you to practice clinical skills on.

Study differences:
a) Most DEFINITELY do calculations well. It's supposedly worth 33% of your grade (no clue where they got that number but it's the gist based on multiple official study guides). I think 1-2 hours reviewing mEq (5 questions), mOsm (2 questions), and mMols (2 questions), and TPN (calorie calculations) should satisfy these needs. This forum has a nice guide. you can find many other free calculation prep. 30 minutes or more on refreshing your dimensional analysis skills. Very little effort for a significant chunk of your test!

b) BRAND - GENERIC - INDICATION. I have the top 200 drugs community and health systems known by heart. That WASN'T enough. Half of the drugs on there I went "What the f*** is that?" Not that I forgot, but I literally have never seen it in my studying. Some I barely recalled from mentioning in my school or rotations, but I didn't take the time to learn them. So pull up your oncology and HIV notes. Those drugs aren't generally top 200 anywhere. Some drugs I recognized as the "lesser known" brand name. So when the drug cards list 2-4 brand names for the drug, KNOW them all! My list for my friends was in total 420 drugs. With that list, they only said there were 1 or 2 drugs they didn't recognize. Flash card them. Very effective, and time well spent.

c) LEARN ALL COMBOS: About 20 of my questions were combinations: Diabetes, hypertension, and lipids. I was particularly stumped with the niacin combos.

d) make a list of disease states by name and first line. Such as Addisons, Graves, and Cushing.

e) I got lucky and know enoxaparin very well due to one of my rotation. I had 7 questions on that and my friends said they all had 4-5 each at least. Exact dosage/regimen (not sure if this is considered calculations). You don't need to diagnose. Chart says "PE" or "DVT." If not, then it's prophylaxis dose. Know all of them. Know WHERE you can give it. Know ClCr adjustments.

f) Finally, side effect and drug drug interaction. It is an important part of your test. Hopefully over time you know the major ones. However, this is a massive amount of information to be "complete." You can spend a lifetime studying this and still miss stuff. So, for the most bang for your time, I'd focus on the A-E, and then spend left over time on this topic. Maybe your test will have more on this topic than others, but honestly, you can study this forever and forget just as much as you learn. For the sake of time, if you already know brand/generic/indication from B, learn CLASS adverse effects interactions.

Hope this helps. It would have helped me immensely.

Hey!
Thank you so much for this immensely helpful guide. I'm going to focus on calculations now until I take the exam and then study the therapeutics/drugs exactly as you have laid out a couple weeks closer to the exam. Like I said, my issue was that I read RXPrep and freaked out about so many of the little therapeutic topics/drug-drug interaction details that I took calculations for granted and spent too much time on some calc questions & had almost 20 questions leftover. How long would u say is a good amount of time to effectively study for the exam? I spent 3 months studying the first time but I don't think I studied effectively (just read and re-read chapters of RXPrep everyday, the whole day and taking notes along the way) I feel like if i spend the same amount of time studying again, I might go crazy lol but of course I don't want to underestimate time considering my unsuccessful first attempt

 

[fewaopi]

i honestly spent 2 days studying for calculations and that was the 2 days right before the test with some general skimming and reading important parts of the RxPrep book. some seem to have real difficulty, best is practice and do the test bank for calculations, that really helps a lot.

 

[pharm_fresh]

i honestly spent 2 days studying for calculations and that was the 2 days right before the test with some general skimming and reading important parts of the RxPrep book. some seem to have real difficulty, best is practice and do the test bank for calculations, that really helps a lot.

Do u mean the RXPrep bank for the calculations? I'll b using the SDN calculations and some other practice questions ppl have sent over to me for the second time around. I never really had a problem with calc too much, I've always done well during calc exams in school, but I guess I needed more practice and just Started to forget stuff like the IBW formula while taking the exam lol I was in such a mess I thought I was gonna pass out while taking the test and I've r never felt that way about any exam during pharmacy school, idk what happened to me that day.

 

[fewaopi]

yeah the book and test bank questions. that was all i used. i already downloaded SDN 120 but ran out of time and similar to you was really nervous since i wasn't sure what to expect. i generally got 60-80% on test bank questions the first time after reading a section. just keep doing them to solidify what you've learned and it'll help. revisit after a couple days see if you forgot.

 

[cuddlezbear]

Hey!
Thank you so much for this immensely helpful guide. I'm going to focus on calculations now until I take the exam and then study the therapeutics/drugs exactly as you have laid out a couple weeks closer to the exam. Like I said, my issue was that I read RXPrep and freaked out about so many of the little therapeutic topics/drug-drug interaction details that I took calculations for granted and spent too much time on some calc questions & had almost 20 questions leftover. How long would u say is a good amount of time to effectively study for the exam? I spent 3 months studying the first time but I don't think I studied effectively (just read and re-read chapters of RXPrep everyday, the whole day and taking notes along the way) I feel like if i spend the same amount of time studying again, I might go crazy lol but of course I don't want to underestimate time considering my unsuccessful first attempt

I think you can effectively do it in 2 weeks. I spent 2 weeks and I was all over the place with "general advice" from friends such as "I used rxprep and I passed" "I took the class and studied the notes from the class."

Now, I'm not talking about studying 2 weeks like I did. TV on and taking 5 snack breaks every hour... But it really depends on your study habits. Some people sit for 8 hours but are only functional for 1-2 hours worth of study each day. If that is an honest representation of your study habits, then maybe a month might be necessary. My first week of studying was literally eating a lot... doing dishes.. laundry... napped here and there... Didn't matter where I went. Starbucks was the worst, but I already knew that going there. Library didn't help. I kept listening in to everyone's conversation... Not that I liked eavesdropping... ANYTHING (including the little ant crawling around on the table) was more entertaining than studying randomly in a huge book. But as the last few days came, I really focused down and covered the RX prep book in 15 hours a day for 2 days and spare time on calculations.

 

[pharm_fresh]

I think you can effectively do it in 2 weeks. I spent 2 weeks and I was all over the place with "general advice" from friends such as "I used rxprep and I passed" "I took the class and studied the notes from the class."

Now, I'm not talking about studying 2 weeks like I did. TV on and taking 5 snack breaks every hour... But it really depends on your study habits. Some people sit for 8 hours but are only functional for 1-2 hours worth of study each day. If that is an honest representation of your study habits, then maybe a month might be necessary. My first week of studying was literally eating a lot... doing dishes.. laundry... napped here and there... Didn't matter where I went. Starbucks was the worst, but I already knew that going there. Library didn't help. I kept listening in to everyone's conversation... Not that I liked eavesdropping... ANYTHING (including the little ant crawling around on the table) was more entertaining than studying randomly in a huge book. But as the last few days came, I really focused down and covered the RX prep book in 15 hours a day for 2 days and spare time on calculations.

Yea this sounds kind of like me, I guess, when I started studying 3 months earlier I was just studying so slowly and mostly getting distracted from other things. When I came a month closer to the exam, I started studying harder but it was an overkill because even though RXPrep is good, it is still extremely dense and I would forget very easily some of the details, esp the Drug-drug interactions, dosages, etc. I was getting 60-80% on the test bank as well but the test bank would sometimes focus on things like dosages, random drugs, etc. which I just could not get myself to remember no matter how much I studied. So this started to give me anxiety. And I would go back and feel like I just read something and forgot it. Idk, it was a bad cycle. I studied the night before and the day of the exam and almost threw up my breakfast and started shaking, lol, as you can tell, that was probably not the way to enter an exam.

With your plan, it sounds like a month will probably work best for me. I don't want to study way too ahead of time because when I do I forget just as quickly, but I don't want to cram either.

Anyway, thank you so much. I will definitely stick to this plan. I'm assuming what might be a good way to go about therapeutics this time around would be to study: diabetes, HTN, Lipids, HF, etc. focusing first on things like having generic/brand names down, then combos down, then drug details like DIs, etc. down. Maybe 3 days on these max. Then I'll move on to focusing on the ID, HIV, Onc, psych stuff in the similar way. 3 days max. Finally will spend no more than a day skimming vaccines, biostats and that kind of stuff. I really just want to focus on calculations and make sure I have those down solid.

 

[wishingiwasonabeach]

Hi, there


Study differences:
a) Most DEFINITELY do calculations well. It's supposedly worth 33% of your grade (no clue where they got that number but it's the gist based on multiple official study guides). I think 1-2 hours reviewing mEq (5 questions), mOsm (2 questions), and mMols (2 questions), and TPN (calorie calculations) should satisfy these needs. This forum has a nice guide. you can find many other free calculation prep. 30 minutes or more on refreshing your dimensional analysis skills. Very little effort for a significant chunk of your test!

b) BRAND - GENERIC - INDICATION. I have the top 200 drugs community and health systems known by heart. That WASN'T enough. Half of the drugs on there I went "What the f*** is that?" Not that I forgot, but I literally have never seen it in my studying. Some I barely recalled from mentioning in my school or rotations, but I didn't take the time to learn them. So pull up your oncology and HIV notes. Those drugs aren't generally top 200 anywhere. Some drugs I recognized as the "lesser known" brand name. So when the drug cards list 2-4 brand names for the drug, KNOW them all! My list for my friends was in total 420 drugs. With that list, they only said there were 1 or 2 drugs they didn't recognize. Flash card them. Very effective, and time well spent.

c) LEARN ALL COMBOS: About 20 of my questions were combinations: Diabetes, hypertension, and lipids. I was particularly stumped with the niacin combos.

That was very helpful. If you wouldn't mind me asking, what list did you go off of for brand/generics. I know there are so many lists out there.

Thanks

 

[wishingiwasonabeach]

Which top 200 (or in your case 420..?) list did you use. I know there are many lists out there.

Thank you, your post was helpful.

 

[cuddlezbear]

Sorry everyone, I just disappeared after I passed... and I have an inbox full of questions. Anyway, It's been a few months so those needing help back then... well this is too late. But for future answer seekers, I'll summarized the questions in my inbox.

MATH: Once again, this forum/web site has a free math review. Use it at the very least. In my school we're basically taught miscalculations = kills. I've also read (through my many naplex books that I have now collected) that calculation questions are weighted heavier. They say that you CANNOT pass the naplex even if you get 100% of the rest of the questions if you miss half your calculations. Some books say you need at least a 75%. Where they get these numbers, I don't know... but like I said... you can spend one measly day to do your calculations forwards, backwards, and in your sleep and successfully complete a huge chunk of your test.

DRUG LIST: My drug list was just a compilation of my top 200 community drug cards, top 200 institution(hospital), and class notes on HIV, oncology, combinations for HTN, DM2, and Lipids.