Hello all! I posted another thread here after I took the NAPLEX in November 2017, convinced I had failed, but I passed with an 85! But I wanted to share my experience in this format, because I found some of these very helpful in my preparation.
Some background: I wasn't a great pharmacy student. I got many Cs with some Bs and the occasional A. I didn't always go to class, I pretty much never studied for exams until the night before, etc. I was in a straight 6 year program. I worked at a retail pharmacy for about a year in my 3rd year of school.
(As an aside - the pharmacy was super understaffed. I worked as a tech/cashier for the most part and they repeatedly scheduled me for 10-20 hours a week (and we never got out on time) despite me asking them not to. For me, and probably most people, that is too many hours on top of pharmacy school. It was nice to have the hands-on experience with the drugs, but if anyone tries to make you work more than 10 hours a week as a full time pharmacy student, tell them to suck it.)
I was supposed to graduate in the spring of 2015, but I was already pretty burnt out going into rotations. I made it half-way through before the school canceled the rest of my rotations due to concerns with my mental health. I pretty much slept for a year and then finally resumed and finished my rotations in the last half of 2016. Then I attempted to get through the RxPrep book for about a year.
I had only ever heard that the NAPLEX was impossibly hard - that people spent weeks with posted notes on every surface of their homes so that they could study at all waking hours, even while they ate or showered. I had been out of school and practice for a year and a half and had only recently done half as many rotations as everyone else. I never learned how to study by any method other than cramming, which is impossible for a test of this magnitude.
Basically, I had a kind of rough time in school, and I was terrified of taking the NAPLEX.
But.. it really wasn't that hard! I scheduled the exam so that I would have 4 more weeks to prepare from that point. I had gotten through about 80% of the RxPrep book, and was confident I could get through the rest in the next month. I didn't. I got through maybe 5% more of the book in the first 3 weeks (really not good at studying), then panicked with a week to go - I had flash cards, old notes, internet resources, just anything I could find strewn everywhere and was ineffectually shifting from one to another just trying to cram everything (was super not helpful). The one good thing I did do, the day before the exam, was find this website (SDN) and do the 120 math questions.
If I had to do it all again, I would...
99.8% of my non-calculation questions were straight multiple choice format. You've seen these drugs a million times over the last 6-8 years. Do not overthink it - gather the appropriate information from the charts for the question and then just go with your gut. I took that test assuming that I was not well enough prepared to pass, so I knew that agonizing over each question wasn't going to help. Because of this, I went with my gut on the majority of the non-math questions, finished 2 hours early, and passed! There will be questions that you need to think through, and questions that you just have to know the answer to. The majority of the questions you have to think through are math questions. So don't let your thoughts get in the way of what you know.
That said,
Some background: I wasn't a great pharmacy student. I got many Cs with some Bs and the occasional A. I didn't always go to class, I pretty much never studied for exams until the night before, etc. I was in a straight 6 year program. I worked at a retail pharmacy for about a year in my 3rd year of school.
(As an aside - the pharmacy was super understaffed. I worked as a tech/cashier for the most part and they repeatedly scheduled me for 10-20 hours a week (and we never got out on time) despite me asking them not to. For me, and probably most people, that is too many hours on top of pharmacy school. It was nice to have the hands-on experience with the drugs, but if anyone tries to make you work more than 10 hours a week as a full time pharmacy student, tell them to suck it.)
I was supposed to graduate in the spring of 2015, but I was already pretty burnt out going into rotations. I made it half-way through before the school canceled the rest of my rotations due to concerns with my mental health. I pretty much slept for a year and then finally resumed and finished my rotations in the last half of 2016. Then I attempted to get through the RxPrep book for about a year.
I had only ever heard that the NAPLEX was impossibly hard - that people spent weeks with posted notes on every surface of their homes so that they could study at all waking hours, even while they ate or showered. I had been out of school and practice for a year and a half and had only recently done half as many rotations as everyone else. I never learned how to study by any method other than cramming, which is impossible for a test of this magnitude.
Basically, I had a kind of rough time in school, and I was terrified of taking the NAPLEX.
But.. it really wasn't that hard! I scheduled the exam so that I would have 4 more weeks to prepare from that point. I had gotten through about 80% of the RxPrep book, and was confident I could get through the rest in the next month. I didn't. I got through maybe 5% more of the book in the first 3 weeks (really not good at studying), then panicked with a week to go - I had flash cards, old notes, internet resources, just anything I could find strewn everywhere and was ineffectually shifting from one to another just trying to cram everything (was super not helpful). The one good thing I did do, the day before the exam, was find this website (SDN) and do the 120 math questions.
If I had to do it all again, I would...
- Definitely schedule it right away and only give myself a few weeks to study for it. The longer I put it off (to give myself time to study) the more impossible it felt.
- I probably would not have bought the RxPrep book. It is definitely a good, somewhat condensed resource of a ton pharmacy information, but it is still LENGTHY - too lengthy for studying for the NAPLEX. It has way more information than you need, with too much highlighted as important, and doesn't really explain any concepts. (Plus, too many spelling/grammar mistakes, and too many references to information in other chapters of the book that just doesn't exist.) That said, I did like the math section of the RxPrep, and the chapters on compounding, sterility, and information resources were better than any notes I had, and turned out to be very useful for the exam.
- Instead, I would buy a practice exam or two as suggested on these forums (from MedEd101), using internet resources or old class notes to look up questions I missed. (While procrastinating studying during the few days before the exam, I found a TED Talk presenting years of research which showed that the people who got the best grades (in any/all subject areas) were the people who did practice exams.)
- I would also still do the SDN 120 math questions. (As mentioned, I did do the SDN math questions before my exam. They were far more complicated than anything I was asked on the NAPLEX, but they did get me really comfortable and quick with the math.)
99.8% of my non-calculation questions were straight multiple choice format. You've seen these drugs a million times over the last 6-8 years. Do not overthink it - gather the appropriate information from the charts for the question and then just go with your gut. I took that test assuming that I was not well enough prepared to pass, so I knew that agonizing over each question wasn't going to help. Because of this, I went with my gut on the majority of the non-math questions, finished 2 hours early, and passed! There will be questions that you need to think through, and questions that you just have to know the answer to. The majority of the questions you have to think through are math questions. So don't let your thoughts get in the way of what you know.
That said,
- KNOW HOW TO CALCULATE BSA! (I didn't
) Also, calculations having to do with calcium, phenytoin, insulin vials & pens, and RR/RRR/ARR/NNT.
- As others have said, I was asked a LOT of questions about compounding, sterility (USP), TPNs, and information resources.
- I also had quite a few questions about vaccines (things you would need to know as a community pharmacist recommending and administering vaccines to certain common populations) and anticoagulants/antiplatelets (appropriate use and dosage).
- Try to know the brand names of popular combos of HIV, DM, and Asthma/COPD meds.
- As for ID - try to know at least the most common bugs and treatments ( shape, drug coverage, etc).
- I had some questions about HIV, COPD, diabetes, parkinsons, alzheimers, BPH, oncology.. but not a ton. So if you are super weak in some of these areas, I would probably not invest a bunch of time studying here and try to strengthen your math and the areas from the points above instead.
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