I took the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination (NAPLEX) in the summer of 2021 and passed on my first attempt. I studied for 9 straight weeks up until my NAPLEX, but I began studying (on and off) for it since the beginning of my P3 final year. My school’s first time pass rate for 2021 graduates was 85% (so I guess I have to thank them for preparing me early).
If you’re planning to take the CPJE, check out my post here. Because I took the CPJE first, I had to prepare myself to be clinically strong. I was also well prepared for Top 400 brand/generic.
When I finished my exam, I had about 20 minutes left on the clock. I was physically exhausted as much as I was mentally drained. During my whole exam, I took one break. I wanted to take a second break, but I was raising my hand for at least 3 minutes with no one noticing me, so I decided to just continue on until I was done.
The NAPLEX is a 6-hour exam with 225 questions. Here is the content breakdown.
I won’t go over how much time you should spend studying or what clinical areas to focus on. If you saw the Reddit or FB posts, the weight of various clinical topics were different for everyone.
General Tips:
Read the question first. Patient cases will provide more information than what is required to answer the question. So read the question first and you’ll know what to focus on, rather than spending time looking at patient history, lab values, medication list, etc.
When answering the “select all that apply” questions, go through each answer choice and treat each answer individually as a true or false statement. Those questions will have more than one correct answer.
If you are weak in any area of calculations, make sure you practice them until you are comfortable. Calculations can take up more time than you think, especially if you’re not used to using the on-screen or basic calculator, so practice doing them with speed. While the types of math questions are spread out, you might encounter some types more than others.
Most math questions are going to require you to type in your answer. Pay attention to what they ask for when rounding. In a practice question, I misread the word “tens place” as “tenths place,” so that was something I paid extra attention to when I took the NAPLEX.
My resources:
RxPrep – NAPLEX book & practice questions
I studied on and off with this book during my last year of school. I watched most of the videos at 2x speed, but the information doesn’t go as in depth as the book (and sometimes the presenters go off tangent). I studied most topics at least twice, mainly focusing on the underlined information. Most of my percentage scores were 85 and above for the practice questions. When it came to calculations, I went through the book and online practice 3 times. I also made sure to memorize all the formulas.
This is how my topics were broken down when I studied throughout my final year:
| 6-Week Block | Chapters |
| 8/17 – 9/25 | calculations/biostats/compounding |
| 9/28 – 11/6 | renal & liver disease/immunization & travelers/infectious disease |
| 11/9 – 12/18 | cardiovascular disease/anticoag & blood disorders/EENT & skin |
| 1/14 – 2/12 | pulmonary & smoking cessation/endocrine/female & male health |
| 2/15 – 3/26 | special populations/pain/oncology |
| 3/29 – 5/7 | psych/neurologic/GI |
I started studying the remaining chapters after graduation. Overall, the contents in the book prepared me well. However, the Medication Safety & Quality Improvement chapter did not prepare me for the types of questions I got on the NAPLEX. (If you know a good resource for med safety, share it in the comments.) I think the RxPrep practice questions were about the same as the NAPLEX in terms of difficulty.
RxPrep – Guideline/Drug Updates & Errata
If you are using RxPrep, check this page to see if there are any mistakes in your book. Look out for guideline updates even if you are using the current version of the book.
NABP Pre-Naplex
I was required to take this for my school, but it gave me a good overview of how the questions are formatted. I recommend trying out the on-screen calculator and looking at what lab values or formulas are provided.
I hope this provides some helpful information in preparing for the NAPLEX. Good luck with studying!