In order to gauge the competency of applicant and pharmacist hopefuls to practice pharmacy in various states, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) has developed the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination, or as it's more popularly known, the NAPLEX.
For pharmacy majors, taking the Naplex exam is the last hurdle of their labors, the culmination of the years they spent in college. Once successful in this exam, a candidate is given license to practice as a pharmacist.
But what does the NAPLEX exam look like? How are the questions formulated? Is it a multiple-choice test? Or does it involve essay writing?
Here is an overview of the NAPLEX to help you get a feel for it.
NAPLEX questions are endorsed and reviewed by boards of pharmacy, practitioners, and educators from around the United States through their service as NAPLEX Review Committee members, item writers, and board of pharmacy representatives. The exam is developed and administered under policies and procedures outlined by NABP’s Advisory Committee on Examination and concurred by NABP’s Executive Committee.
In other words – this exam is set by the peers and experts of the field. It's going to be tough and you need to prepare for it as thoroughly as possible. If you haven't already, look to get yourself the best Naplex study guides you can – it will pay huge dividends when you sit the exam. Also, try and get yourself a set of Naplex flash cards which many students find to be the best possible way of revising / learning! Seriously – flash cards DO work, trust me!
The NAPLEX is a four-hour computer-adaptive examination which means that it adapts itself to the aptitude level of the examinees. The exam is designed to be linear in such a way that examinees cannot backtrack on questions and they must answer each entry in order to continue with the exam.
The exam design allows the computer to pinpoint incorrect answers and rehash these questions for presentation later in the exam. The design allows the examiner to analyze the examinees skill level across performance categories.
There are no written essays or fill-in-the-blank questions in the NAPLEX. The examinee is made to answer185 multiple-choice test questions, most of which consist of two kinds - a question with five individual strategies, or the K-Type, which is made up of a question and three choices numbered I, II and III, then five combinations of these choices. One K-Type sample question appears below:
Which of these agents demonstrates beta-adrenergic receptor selectivity?
I) Propranolol
II) Metoprolol
III) Atenolol
A) I only
B) III only
C) I and II
D) II and III
E) I, II, and III
Of the 185 questions, 150 are used to evaluate an examinee’s score. The rest serve as pretest questions which do not affect an examinee’s NAPLEX score. These pretest questions, spread out in the entire exam, are given in order to find out the item’s difficulty level for possible inclusion in future NAPLEX tests. There is no way an examinee can distinguish these pretest questions from regular questions and they have no bearing on your final score whether you answer them correctly or incorrectly.
Most of the questions on the NAPLEX are scenario-based, which means that patient profiles are discussed and then followed by accompanying test questions.
To effectively analyze and solve the questions, the examinee must study the information provided in the patient profile. The other questions, meanwhile, are answered only from the details provided in the question.
In order to take the NAPLEX, a potential examinee needs to contact a testing facility to schedule a testing appointment. He or she needs to do these at lease two days prior to exam testing.
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