Becoming a Pharmacy Technician - Part 13 - PTCB Certificate Arrived!

It finally arrived!  I passed the exam on Nov 19th, and my official certification date is Nov 30th, and it arrived in the mail on Dec 5th.  Keeping in mind that there was the Thanksgiving holiday during that time, it took sixteen days from passing the test to getting the certificate in my hands.

As soon as I got it, I took a shower, ate some lunch, and went back to that UPS Store where I got the Live Scan done, so I could get a notarized copy of the certificate, and retake my photo.  Unfortunately, (and I should have realized) they only take Polaroid photos there, and the application specifically states to not attach a Polaroid photo.

But I was there for two things.  The notary public made a copy, recorded it in his book, made me sign it and stamp my thumb print.  I had to swear that the contents of the document describing what was copied said was the truth, and paid my $10.33.

With that done, I went back to Costco to retake my photo.  But by the time I got it all finished, it was already too late in the day on a Saturday to make it before the last mail pick up at the post-office.  So I just decided to drop it off at later, and headed home.

I'm one step closer.

Oh yeah, here are the results.  They came with the certificate.  I'm surprised that my Admin. Mgmt. of Pharmacy Practice score was so low, especially since I got 100% on the practice exam.  But I passed.  And I'll master it all eventually.  I'm reading the Pocket Guide for Pharmacy Technicians, which has all the same stuff and more, and I'll be learning on the job once I get hired.  The learning doesn't stop because the exam is over.

Becoming a Pharmacy Technician - Part 10 - PTCE Passed!

You can "click to enlarge", but pretty much is says - Result: Pass!  This is the sheet they gave me as I walked out of the testing room and back into the reception area.  That was nice since I couldn't take a picture or a screen capture of the results page on the testing computer.

As you can see, I passed! But that's the end of the story. Back to the beginning...

Prepping

I got plenty of sleep, printed out directions, and the ATT (Authorization To Test) and Registration emails to make sure I didn't miss anything. Made sure I had my Driver's License for ID, and made sure I didn't need to bring a calculator or pen.

Arrival

The directions were pretty simple, I only missed the very last turn. What was unexpected was that the door was locked! I pulled out the emails to see if there were any instructions for getting into the building, but as I was doing that, a girl (who I assume just finished taking whatever exam she was there for) showed up, trying to get out. She tried opening the door and saw that it was locked. I gave her a shrug, she read the sign on the door that was facing her, then found the "exit button". She opened the door, and we smiled at each other and went our separate ways.

Checking In

I was given the testing rules to read over concerning not revealing details of the exam (which I'm taking to mean specific details, not broad strokes) and all that. When I finished, the receptionist asked for two forms of ID! The email just said to bring one!  My eyes widened, but of course the second ID could just be my debit card, so no worries there.  She confirmed my identity, scanned my finger and took my picture.

Then it was off to the other staff member that sat right by the door and monitored all the test takers.  He gave me a calculator, some laminated graph paper, and two marker to write with. He told me some additional rules and procedures, including telling me that I could not erase anything I wrote down. If I need more space to write on, then I would just have to raise my hand, and he'd give me more.  (But there were five sheets, and you could write on both sides.  I ended only using just one side of the first page.)  Then he asked me if I wanted earplugs or tissue, which was a pleasant surprise. For some reason, sometimes when I take exams, my nose starts to act up, so I took some tissue just in case.

Exam

I did sign that non-disclosure agreement, so there won't be much detail.  But I can tell you how I felt about it all.  It took 5 minutes to finish the tutorial, leaving me 115 minutes to take the exam.  I finished my first run through with 45 minutes left on the clock, then took 20 more minutes to go over the questions I wanted a second look at.  I was trying to take my time and I still had 25 minutes left.  I'm sure if I wanted I could have finished in under and hour.

There was one question that I just felt like I was missing something incredibly obvious. I also started to feel a bit tired towards the end. It could have been the turkey I ate before I left.

Overall I knew what I was doing.  There were some questions that I expected to not know, and some others where I could make some educated guesses.  A couple made me want to slap myself for going blank on a simple piece of info.  Pretty much it was like a reaction to many other multiple choice exams.  I was sort of nervous when I finally clicked "End Exam", but the results popped up, and I passed!

Next Step

Next up is waiting for the official results to arrive in the mail and then complete the registration paperwork to work in California.

But as of tonight, I'm Gerry, CPhT!

Becoming a Pharmacy Technician - Part 9 - Rescheduled Again

I rescheduled my exam one more time. I received an email letting me know that the Pre-Pharmacy Association was meeting tonight at 7pm, which would have overlapped with my PTCE taking time, so I pushed it back a day. (I did the actual rescheduling yesterday morning of course, since the rescheduling has to take place at least 24 hours prior the the scheduled time.)

A UCSF student came to answer any and every question, and there was a lot of info given out for the 2+ hours she was there. I'll go through that in more detail when I have more time to go through all the notes I took.

One thing that's relevant for the exam that I'll be taking tomorrow is that the way she became a pharm tech, is the same way I'll be doing it. But she wasn't as paranoid as me when it came to studying. She said she bought a book at Borders, studied for just a week, then took the test and passed.

I'm going to be spending some time looking over the material again, and I'll be ready to take the exam. I think I'm not going to stress over trying to learn the 200+ drugs. I'll look through it some, but it doesn't look like it's necessary to pass if you know everything else.

I'll learn about the drugs on the job, and have an easier time learning about them since they'll have some context for me. I just need the license to get to that point. So that's it. Good luck to me. I'll be back to report tomorrow on how I do.

Becoming a Pharmacy Technician - Part 8 - Practice Exam

Finally took the Official PTCE Practice Exam.  I was confused the first time I looked for into on the practice exam page.  The page does describe what the practice exams are all about (There are two general practice exams, a calculations exam, and a medication usage and administration exam.), but I couldn't find the link to press to pay for it and get it started!

It turned out the link was right in front of me, but in the form of a flashing banner.  I tend to ignore banners because they're usually ads, but it wasn't the case this time.

These are the various "slides" of the banner as they switch from one to another.

After following the link, you'll wind up having to register for a third time. (The other two times were back when I made my appointment to take the official exam.)  This registration gets you a Logon ID and Personal ID number. However unlike the other two registrations, there is no accompanying email, so be sure you really do print out the page or jot down the information somewhere. (If you forget, there still is a method to recover the info, but better to just keep note of it right away.)

That info allows you to see a dashboard that has all your testing info:

(Click to enlarge)

Just click on the link of the exam you want to pay for, then afterwards that exam becomes available to take.  I haven't taken a lot of online exams, but I was happy to see that you're able to apply normal Multiple Choice Test-taking strategies.  You're shown one question at a time, but you're allowed to "mark" questions.  This allows you to go through the entire exam, then you see a summary page.  That summary page let's you know which questions you marked, and you can easily jump back to those questions that you wanted to go back to.  I didn't realize what the "mark" feature was until I got there, so I didn't really need to use it, but that will be very helpful when it's time to go through the real process.

I took the exam, guessed on the questions that I didn't know the answers to(I need to really study that Top 200+ Drugs list), and still had about thirty minutes left of the hour that was allowed.  I passed with a score of 725.  I could not find on the PTCB website what the max score is, but if The Pharmacy Technician is right, it's out of a possible 900.  (The information on scoring can be found here.  It's important to know that each question is not weighed the same, like in traditional multiple choice tests.)

(Click to enlarge)

Besides the overall score, the results page gives you a breakdown of how well you did in the three different areas that the exams tests for.

(Click to enlarge)

Those scores aren't exactly the best scores to be proud of, but like I said earlier, I essentially spent no time studying the Top 200+ Drugs list.  The way the The Pharmacy Technician and The Pharmacy Technician Workbook and Certification Review are set up, the drugs list is in the Appendix and not part of the main 17 chapters.  With some studying, I'll do better on these drug specific questions and will also hopefully make less stupid mistakes.

This is a pass or fail exam, but I'd be nice to do better.  Should I fail, I have to wait two months before taking the exam again.  (Failure a second time means waiting two more months, and failure a third time and onward means waiting 6 months!  Although that's pretty understandable.  The exam really isn't that hard from what I've seen.  It takes some studying, but isn't that hard.)

So that's it.  The practice exam was certainly helpful.  Worth paying the $29.00.  And I'll be taking the exam on the 18th.  I could spend weeks studying to get as close to a perfect score as possible, but I'd really like to continue learning while working.  The exam isn't the goal, the certification is the goal.  I'll keep on studying after the 18th, but I'm ready to take the exam now.

Becoming a Pharmacy Technician - Part 7 - Rescheduling Exam

I just rescheduled my exam for 18th. I wanted to relax and enjoying listening to the live coverage of the World Series of Poker Main event that took place for 18 hours this past Saturday starting at Noon, then resumed Monday at 10pm for about three more hours.

While there wasn't any real pressure when taking the practice exams in The Pharmacy Technician Workbook & Certification Reveiw, the official practice exams will cost me $29 and I want to use it as a true gauge on how I'll do on the real thing, so I want to be fully rested, and I want to make sure I plug the tiny holes that still need fixing.  I'm fairly confident already that I'll pass, but I just want to be safe.  Failure means that I can't take the PTCE again for three more months.

Rescheduling has to take place longer than one business day before the exam, which I'm in time for. And the rescheduling itself is fairly straightforward. It just takes going to pearsonvue.com/ptcb, logging in, clicking on the reschedule button, and then following the same procedure in choose a location, date, and time.

And then there's a review details page, confirm rescheduling page, and done!  Exam rescheduled in less than a minute.

Becoming a Pharmacy Technician - Part 6 - Workbook Calculations Practice Exam

While the full practice exams is 100 questions, the calculations exam is only 50. But with that said, the question types within the calculations category feel more varied.

How did I do? I did ok. Not great though. There were three questions that I simply did not know what they were asking. I mixed up the equation in my head for converting degrees Celsius to Fahrenheit (the practice exam gave the equation, the calculations exam did not. I think it's safe to say I need to memorize the equation before I go into the exam.) There were two questions that I failed to catch the trick, and I forgot how to convert gallons to liters.

Seven questions wrong out of fifty is not good at all. But the reason I say I did ok, is that none of the mistakes will be hard to fix. The practice exam did what it was supposed to and show me where I need a little bit more work.  Conversions are easy to memorize, and once I understand what the three questions are asking, the math will be simple. I did not mess up on any of the math where I understood what the question was asking for. (Besides the degree conversion.) 

For anyone else that uses this book, even if you do well on the practice exam, the variety of questions in the calculations exam makes it worth taking.

Next... it's time to study for a couple more days to fix the holes in my ability, and then take the official practice exam.

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.

Becoming a Pharmacy Technician - Part 4 - PTCE Registration

Registering for the exam isn't the simplest of processes. First, you head on over to ptcb.org. In somewhat the middle of the homepage you'll see three buttons:

Obviously I'm not there for Recertification... but Register and Schedule?  On any other website, that'd usually mean the same thing.  Well, the correct button to push was the first button.  Under the Register for Your Exam button, it's about answering standard contact information, some basic questions about how you heard about and prepared for the exam, and payment information.

Email #1 was the Thank You for Submitting an Application email.  If the $129.00 payment was done by credit card, then you'll receive an Authorization to Test email (which is basically a confirmation email) right away, or if you paid by electronic check, the email will be received when the payment clears.

Email #2 was the ATT email, which had my PTCB ID# as well as all the standard information about how to schedule the exam, how to prepare, what to bring, and how to cancel or reschedule.

Email #3 informed me about the auto creation of an account with Pearson VUE, which is the website for the actual testing service.  They gave me an auto generated account name and temporary password.  There's a link in the email to go to their website, but I found it simpler to go back to the ptcb.org website and click on the Schedule Your Exam button.  (Which now makes sense that there are two buttons, since the two separate process of registering/payment and selecting the test date are handled by two different websites.)  The scheduling itself is very simple.  You click a button that searches for nearby test centers, choose the location you want to test at, choose a date, then choose a time, and submit!

Email #4 was the confirmation email about my scheduled test date with all important information repeated again and directions.  I selected my test date for next Thursday to give me time to take the practice exam in the workbook I have, take the official practice test if I feel like I need it, do some extra studying, and have some days for other things I need to take care of.  I can always reschedule the exam to be earlier (or later) if need be, as long as I take the exam within 90 of registration.  (The Register Your for Exam button stuff.)

Let me repeat that last part. Scheduling does not have to be on the same day as registering (and payment). Scheduling can take place at any time up to 90 days after registration. If you want to enforce a maximum deadline from when you get the books you want to study, and when you take the exam, you might want to do that.

And there it goes.  Registering for the exam through two websites and by receiving four emails.  Simple?  Not exactly.  Done?  Completely.

Becoming a Pharmacy Technician - Part 3 - PTCE Update

I've finished studying The Pharmacy Technician. It took a little bit longer than I wanted, due to moving out of my old place and everything that entails. The material isn't all that bad. It was mostly a lot of new terms and abbreviations that I had to learn, a lot of common sense and straightforward procedures, and some extremely simple math.

The only major difference, which I mentioned in an earlier post, is that is says the PTCE is 100 multiple choice questions long. This is wrong. It's actually only 90 questions long, with 10 of those questions (randomly placed throughout the exam) to be used for evaluation purposes for future exams, and will not count towards the final score. This change is likely due to the fact that that both books were published in 2007. While there's a format change to the exam, I doubt there are major changes to the content of the exam. To be safe however, I will take the official practice exam offered by the PTCG from their website for $29.

The breakdown of the exam is (direct from the PTCB website):

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

(I'd probably be a good idea to go through the Content Outline links at the bottom of that page so see what the official website says about the content of the exam.)

I'll be timing myself and taking the practice exam in the Workbook & Certification Review companion book tomorrow, and completing the online registration for the exam tomorrow.

Pharm Tech Prep

Good news. I received word last night that there might be an opening for a pharmacy technician nearby. When exactly? No idea. A position just possibly might open up in the near future. That just puts more pressure on me to finish studying even sooner, and hopefully the timing of it will all match.

Now for some short bullet points:

- My friend had taken the exam before, and she tells me it's easy. Not being able to retake the test for 90 days still makes me anxious, and I want to make sure I study pretty thoroughly.

- In the short time that I've been studying, I've come across a lot of abbreviations that I just have to get used to. The first one that tripped me up was the abbreviation for the exam! This is because it's referred to in two different ways. The PTCB Exam and PTCE. (Pharmacy Technician Certification Board Exam and Pharmacy Technician Certification Examination) The actual website where you sign up for it uses both and just assumes the reader knows the difference.

- While I want to study thoroughly, all you need a score of 650/900. That doesn't seem all that bad. Doesn't seem too bad at all.

- There are two sites nearby, and the website says continuous testing is available.

- The exam is $129.

- I've found a contradiction between my book and the PTCB website. The book says the exam is 100 multiple choice questions, the website says it's 90. It doesn't really make that much of a difference to me. Now I know there's a difference and won't be shocked when I see it.

- From the sounds of it, you fill out the online application, then you have 90 days to schedule and take the test, with the ability to reschedule at no charge as long as the rescheduling takes place at least 24 hours prior to the test. I will clarify that once I do that.

- The PTCB faq can be found here.

Becoming a Pharmacy Technician

There are courses to take to become a certified pharmacy technician, but I'm not taking that route.  I've been given the advice multiple times to just buy some books to help study for the exam, and work on it on my own.

The two greatest benefits would be the time and money saved, in taking this approach.  Admittedly though, I did not really do all that much research before deciding to just study on my own.  A quick google search shows me that CSU East Bay offers a course for $1,825, and the the course is self-paced.  So it looks like only one of my assumptions was right, although right by a large margin.

What book to buy?  I went to amazon.com and looked at some reviews, and settled on

- The Pharmacy Technician, 3rd Edition

- The Pharmacy Technician: Workbook & Certification Review, 3rd Edition.

Total cost was about $82.

The books are clearly approved of by the APhA, and have all excellent reviews of 4 and 5 stars.  The other book I considered buying was, Mostby's Review for the PTCB Certification Examination, for $36 dollars, but while the average score was 4 stars, the scores were across all levels.

Here's a quote from one of the 2 star reviews (source):

2). The biggest problem is the abundance of typographical errors. There was contradictory information (eg: a class a balance has a minimum accuracy at 6mg...then, a few dozen pages later it says it is accurate at 120mg.....then a few dozen pages after that it is explained that there are several types of class A balances with different accuracy ranges). Forget about scoring yourself on the practice tests.....answers are coded improperly (you selected B, the answer guide says C is correct but the explanation clearly indicates that B is the right choice). Well, if you only double check the answers you got wrong and found these errors, how do you know if you actually got all of the other ones correct without verifying all of them (there are apprx. 1200 questions in the book - pay me and I'll edit the answers). There were even questions asked in the practice tests that did not match the answers given at all (which drug would you use to treat chronic pain? the choices were all hypertension drugs). There was also a question on a practice test that in no way, shape or form matched these answer - it was an entirely different question.

That scared me away a bit, although there are enough good reviews that I may consider it later.  But first I'll finish going through the ones that I have before considering getting a second book to study from.

The books contain 17 chapters with the standard problem types of matching, multiple choice, true/false, and short answer for use in studying, as well as a practice exam.  I've only just gotten started with the book, but it seems pretty decent so far.

We'll see how fast I can get through this, because I want to be certified as soon as possible, which I have in my head at about a month.  Without knowing the material in the books, that's a very tentative date.