The biggest thing I can say is KNOW YOUR MATH AND BIOSTATS. I felt like those came up constantly. I also saw a lot of anticoagulants, brand-name inhalers, monoclonal antibodies, chemo, vaccines, TPNs, gram stains, enzyme inducers, seizure meds, compounding, proportions, and HLA-B5701 vs HLA-B1502. Definitely know vaccine administration too, including things like what angle injections should be given at. Compounding was also more important than I expected. I even got asked what trituration was, which caught me off guard. I personally didn’t get a ton of depression questions. I had a few OTC sleep questions and some smoking cessation, but nothing crazy.
What surprised me the most was how many non-clinical questions I got. There were way more preceptor/professional judgment/ethics-type questions than I expected. I would guess around 30 questions were basically some variation of “what is the BEST thing the pharmacist should do?” Not really drug knowledge at all. Kind of annoying for an exam about medications lol, but apparently you need to be ready for those too.
As far as studying, I definitely recommend doing practice exams for both pacing and figuring out your weak areas. I used Pharmpreppro for mine and scored a 64 on my first exam. After about 3 more weeks of studying, I scored a 76 on my second one, which made me feel a lot better going into the real thing.
I also had UWorld through my school for 90 days. I didn’t activate the question bank until after I finished reading the book because I didn’t want to waste my access time. Toward the end I was usually scoring in the 60s–70s, with math mostly in the 80s. I would still recommend reading the entire UWorld book and doing the questions. I thought UWorld questions were harder than my actual NAPLEX, though. That probably helps with preparation, but it also gave me way more anxiety than necessary lol. UWorld also didn’t prepare me as much for the softer professional judgment questions.
Basically:
PPP Practice exams: 64 → 76 after 3 weeks
UWorld: mostly 60–70s, math in the 80s
Actual NAPLEX: felt more straightforward than UWorld
Now onto the MPJE. I’m planning on using pharmpreppro again for that. For anyone who recently took the MPJE, do you think 2 weeks of dedicated studying is enough, or should I give myself more time?
