Becoming a Pharmacy Technician - Part 5 - Workbook Practice Exam

I took the Practice Exam in The Pharmacy Technician Workbook & Certification Review book, and I did pretty bad. (Note: I finished within 1 hour, and did not use the second hour to go over all the questions and double check my answers like would be my normal practice. I wanted to see what my initial reactions were, and I know that I'll have the official PTCB practice exam to take later on.)

Most of the errors were due to simply not knowing details about specific drugs. I'm not quite sure where those questions fall into the three categories of:

I. Assisting the Pharmacist in Serving Patients - 66% of exam

II. Maintaining Medication and Inventory Control Systems - 22% of exam

III. Participating in the Administration and Management of Pharmacy Practice - 12% of exam

But I did expect some of those questions, and to not do that well with them. Something I still need to work on before taking the official exam. What I did want to take the practice exam for was to see how I'd do on the other types of questions.

Calculations - There were some stupid mistakes in the calculations questions because I missed converting units. That's inexcusable. Calculations is the majority of the exam, and is also the easiest part of the exam.

Abbreviations - I also forgot some of the abbreviations that I made flash cards for. It shouldn't be too hard to pick up again.

References - I also need to study all the different references again. Orange Book, Red Book, Merck Index, etc all are one thing in my head at the moment, and there were several questions regarding them in the practice exam.

Other - Some minor topics that I need to review more are the different Acts and what the different parts of the NDC mean.

Next - Callculations Practice Exam

The workbook also has a Calculations Practice Exam. It's half as long as the Practice Exam. I used to be a physics student and checking units used to be second nature to me. I like that the workbook has this second exam to take so I can retake the most important part of the exam. I should definitely do better with this second go at it.