Thanks everyone for following my journey in being a licensed pharmacist here in CA.It is a great pleasure to have this blog wherein everybody shares their personal experience about the different tests. I have learned a lot by reading from the experiences of our fellow kabayans from my previous posts.
And now I am ready to share my personal experience with NAPLEX………
FIrst off as I mentioned before the study time will really depend from person to person. Some needed more time while others are better with cramming. My suggestion is that you set your study frame to 3 months, 4 months the most. As for me, I started in April and since I am at my own pace, I would study on and off 4-8 hours a day. That is one thing I had difficulty with, we set the date we want to take the test. Compared to FPGEE before, not sure how it is now, there is a set date for the exam so you have no choice but finish what you have to know before the test date. So if you are like me, I think the best first thing to do is your exam date. From there, make your study strategy, how many hours and what topics per day. The longer you take studying and the more you procrastinate the more chances that you have to keep going back to review what you have read and since you did it a long time ago the more likely you’ll forget it. Another thing that I had difficulty with is, most of my friends who took it keeps saying it is easy. So my mind set is very lax and that scares me since I was not as motivated as the FPGEE which is a lot harder.
Next off is study material:
APHA- this is the first material that I used, I had to read it several times since it is so detailed it was hard to know which ones might be asked. I read in one forum that the first seven chapter is not important. Last minute before my test, I focused on this chapter and true enough no single question was asked. I should have focused more on math problems.
Prontopass- it is quite pricey but worth it. I still feel though that you would need other materials like APHA for some additional info.
KAPLAN- it is a good supplement and last minute guide
Appleton and Lange- I did not even finish the whole book. I focused on the profile questions and the first chapter questions. The kinetics and compounding part are hard and didn’t have much time so I skipped it. It was good that they didn’t ask any question from those topics.
Prontopass Math- this is enough to get you through the math problems. In my case even the statistics part was covered with this material.
Stoklosa and Shroff Math- I used both and the Protopass math but with just the Prontopass you will be able to answer the NAPLEX math problems.
Pre-Naplex- I think this more or less gives you an idea on how ready you are. I suggest you take it a month before so you can focus on what you may feel your weaknesses are. From my readings, it is accurate in giving the approximation of your score. I got an 85 from Pre-naplex and the range it gave me is 67-104. I got 97 in the test, surprisingly 
All of us face different challenges each day, one reason that it took me long to take this test is I kept getting sick. It maybe from stress or who knows but with all those trips to the clinics and ER specially after setting the exam date the more I get sick. Thanks to my husband who keeps encouraging me and my family who always prays and look after me, I did take the test on date I set it to. After taking the test, since I wasn’t confident enough I was praying so hard to get 75, usually I would set my bar high but not for this one. I kept praying that I would be happy as long as I passed. God is very good he answered my prayers and gave me more than what I prayed for. I feel that the test was not that hard cause unlike FPGEE that mostly I had to eliminate choices, the questions in NAPLEX is somewhat there in the materials that I used but I may have forgotten it but remembered having read it. The questions I got are mostly profile, maybe more than 15 and its mostly an application of what I read. There are some direct brand generic question but mostly application on which on the medicines given by the Dr. is not appropriate, which is good alternative for the patients case, what is causing a drug reaction, stuff like that. You really have to do math last, this is the best advised I can give. I did math 3 weeks before and did not listen to advise of people from the forum I go to. A day before the test, I browsed math again and I already forgot some of the formulas, the bad thing is it is hard to comprehend what you have learned when your mind is already drained and stressed out. SO, DO MATH LAST AND REST the DAY BEFORE your TEST.
I hope this will be of help to those taking the test in the future. As they say the odds of passing is high, 93% of the test takers pass the test so this is a high chance to get your license. I have to keep saying though that together with hard work, keep on praying that God will guide you in your study and on the day of your test and God will do miracles for you.
Now I hope people who have experience with CPJE will also guide me in my next journey. Best of luck to all of us. God bless us all !!!
