Preparing for the GPhC Common Registration Assessment: six steps to help you effectively plan your revision

Introduction

In the run up to the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) Common Registration Assessment, it is normal for foundation trainees to feel overwhelmed by the scale of content that must be covered, but with good preparation, you can effectively take control and improve your chances of success. This article outlines six steps that can break the task down into manageable stages, using the various components of the GPhC Common Registration Assessment framework as your guide. It will also walk you through example questions, showing how the assessment framework can be applied to pharmacy practice, and provide tips and advice on the ‘single best answer’ question format used in the exam.

Step 1: Download, read and understand the GPhC assessment framework

If you have not done so already, your first step should be to download a copy of the GPhC common registration assessment (CRA) framework and the Standards for the initial education and training of pharmacists​[1]​. Both of these documents will be helpful to have to hand as you read through this article.

The GPhC exam consists of two papers: part 1, which focuses on calculations, and part 2, which covers the safe and effective pharmacy care of the public.

The GPhC Common Registration Assessment framework samples the learning from two specific domains set out in the GPHC Initial Education and training of pharmacists 2021 (Table 1).

Table 1

You should focus your revision in the context of the above topics.

Step 2: Make sure you understand how the Common Registration Assessment is designed

To assess your knowledge of these domains (table 1). The Common Registration Assessment organises questions into three core content areas. These are:

• clinical therapeutics;
• law, governance and regulation;
• pharmacy and healthcare calculations.

Some questions require you to apply knowledge from both domains at the same time and each question assesses a different element of competence.

Step 3: Prepare adequately for calculations questions

It is important to highlight learning outcome 32 ‘Accurately perform calculations’. Part 1 of the GPhC exam paper is designed to focus explicitly on this learning outcome and the calculation topics are highlighted in the box below.

Also note that learning outcome 37 ‘Prescribe effectively within the relevant systems and frameworks for medicines use’ is assessed separately from the Common Registration Assessment and is overseen by the educational bodies (e.g. your university) responsible for your foundation training year.

It is vital to practice samples of these questions from the GPhC website so that you are familiar with the format and the online platform you will be using on the day. Links to these are questions can be found at the end of this article. The calculations paper is not the focus of this series, but a range of useful resources from the Royal College of Pharmacy, The Pharmaceutical Journal and other organisations and training providers are listed at the end of this article.

Step 4: Create a plan for covering all clinical therapeutic areas

In addition to the 2 knowledge themes, there are 15 clinical therapeutic areas specified in the framework (Box 2). These are aligned with the British National Formulary (BNF) and British National Formulary for Children (BNFC) and ordered based on their prevalence in the assessment (i.e. there are likely to be more questions in the assessment about topics at the top of the list). This ordering aligns with real-world disease and prescribing prevalence in practice. All questions that relate to clinical care are mapped to these therapeutic areas. An individual question may map to multiple therapeutic areas; for example, a patient may be described as having both hypertension and type 2 diabetes.

While some knowledge can be applied in a generic way to all clinical therapeutic areas, others will require specific study. For example, when applying pharmaceutical knowledge to medicine formulations, you will need to understand how this differs between medicines used for cardiovascular disease compared with gastrointestinal problems. This requires you to process and absorb a large amount of information, but with adequate planning, it is possible to cover a lot of ground in the time available to you.

There is also a clinical section for high risk drugs in the Common Registration Assessment framework (Box 3). However, you should be able study these as part of your preparation for the therapeutic areas taking an integrated approach. There will almost certainly be questions from the high risk drug classes, so this section should be at the top of your priority list when planning your revision.

Step 5: Create a revision timetable

You should now create a weekly revision schedule (and stick to it!) to help you maximise the time available. There are many templates that you can use for this but the best approach is to find something that is simple to follow and allows you to effectively cover as many topics as possible. Having a daily plan makes it much easier to get started and helps to provide you with a clear focus.

Step 6: Think about the question formats used in the exam

It is also important to consider the format of questions that you will face in part 2 of the registration exam. Part 2 contains two sections. Section 1 is made up of 90 Single Best Answer (SBA) questions, each with five options. Section 2 contains 15 sets of Extended Matching Questions (EMQs), each set consists of two questions with the same eight options​[1]​. 

SBA questions test the candidates’ ability to apply knowledge and come up with a single answer that stands out above the other answer options. This is very different to questions designed to test knowledge recall of isolated facts​[2]​. All five answer options given for a scenario are likely to be correct in some way; however, one of the answers will stand out above the rest as the ‘best’ answer.

Another feature of SBA questions is that they should obey the ‘cover options’ rule, meaning that it should be possible for the candidate to be able to answer the question correctly even if the answer options were ‘covered’​[2]​. If you find yourself struggling to figure out the SBA from the five answer options, it may be that you have not understood the nuance within the scenario well enough, or you have not sufficiently prepared for the topic. To illustrate this, two worked examples are provided below showing a representative SBA question and how you might work through the options to identify the best answer.

Next, let us focus on extended matching questions (EMQs). According to Swanson and Case [4], when creating EMQs, the examiner will decide a theme, the answer options, and the lead in, and then the items are constructed, which you are required to match with one of the answer options (these can be used for several items)​[2]​. Examples of EMQs are shown below — both questions are based on the same list of options, but different scenarios.

Summary

This first article in the series has explored the GPhC Common Registration framework and highlighted how to use the assessment structure and topic lists to guide revision. It has also highlighted how question prevalence can be used to help allocate time strategically, but remember that you will gain a higher chance of success if you begin your revision early enough to allow all learning outcomes to be covered adequately. We have also highlighted the need to cover all 15 therapeutic areas and provided some advice on how to approach single best answer questions in the exam itself.

Acknowledgements: 

All practice questions were reproduced with kind permission provided by Focus Pre-Reg Revision