How to Study for the Naplex

RxPrep's High Score Pass on the NAPLEX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68-aSCKk3SY

Naplex Competency Statements (Study Guide): https://nabp.pharmacy/programs/examinations/naplex/competency-statements/ 

Speaking from my experience and skimming through YEARS of study posts for Naplex, I suggest going through the RxPrep book, focusing on the underlined/bolded parts, and then doing all the quizzes until you get at least 70% on each topic. I cannot emphasize how important it is to memorize every "key drugs guy/study tip gal" notes on RxPrep (there are also good quizlets for this). I recommend writing down all the acronyms from key drugs guy/study tip gal before starting the exam. I felt memorizing those really helps eliminate wrong answers on the Naplex enough that I passed despite not always being confident that I knew the answer. Most of the time they give you the lab values and ranges but knowing the “average” value goals for each by heart is a good thing. If there is something wrong with the labs, it should be a very outlandish value, so memorizing the actual range is a waste of mental space. Remember, a value may be slightly off based on the patient’s condition, age, etc. RxPrep does a good job summarizing what labs and tests to look for with the important disease states, so definitely know those (including specific tests, such as pregnancy). Definitely know your  foundations 1 & 2 chapters, calculations (all chapters), biostatistics, hypertension/cardiovascular diseases, cough/cold/allergy (you will need to know dosing of APAP and IBU for adult vs. pediatric), diabetes, liver/renal diseases, infectious disease (main and alternative treatment), DDIs/major common drug interactions (only the ones in RxPrep chapter), immunizations, OTC drugs (only those on RxPrep), side effects for all drugs mentioned in the RxPrep book, GI diseases, respiratory diseases, Chemo man (for oncology), Antidotes, Pharmacogenomics, HIV (know the brand/generic/class names of each drug, MOA/common side effect of each class, max doses, and the tests associated with diagnosis/regimen choice).

Now this DOES NOT mean the above topics are the ones that will occur the most in your exam (although it is for most people), because the exam can really ask you about any topic. The topics above are simply the ones that happen to appear in most people's exam and are typically the ones that require more time to study for. Please understand the difference. There is a line between studying a topic well, and over studying for it. You don't want to focus too hard on a few topics and ignore/not study the other topics enough. So, I still recommend that you still review EVERY topic until you get > 70% on the quiz. If you do not reach that threshold, please wait a couple days before taking the quiz again. You do not want to get in the habit of just memorizing the question/answer because the exam WILL NOT ask you the exact same question. It is more important for you to understand what the question is asking, AND why each individual answer choice is correct/incorrect.

ABSOLUTELY MUST KNOW CHAPTERS/TOPICS: Foundations chapters (both), Calculations/PK/Biostats (obviously), Compounding (mostly the points that I mentioned below), Pharmacogenomics, DDIs, Antidotes, OTC, Labs, and Key drugs guy/Study tip gal (Often taken for granted but can help answer/narrow down a lot of answer choices. Can mean the difference between pass/fail, so please memorize these!). These chapters are the very core as they will allow you to eliminate a lot of answers. This is crucial because there will be questions that you will not know well, and you will need to do your best to eliminate as many answer choices as possible based on those chapters, along with what you know from the disease state chapter. Notice how many of these are all MED SAFETY-related chapters (the biggest purpose of the Naplex to begin with). These are also the chapters that a lot of people might brush over and think they are not important, so they under-utilize them, but from observation, they are the ones that can make a difference between a pass or fail for the majority of people.

MED SAFETY CHAPTERS/TOPICS - MUST know this info well! I recommend fill out the following information in the Pharmacology Tables and Pharmacology Summary of All Drugs (2022) provided in the guide under Naplex Resources by Topic section for each disease state: Foundations chapters (both), Pharmacogenomics, DDIs, Antidotes, OTC, Labs, Key drugs guy/Study tip gal, contraindications, black box warnings, teratogenicity, max dosing, side effects.

For the clinical cases, my biggest suggestion I have for you is to READ THE QUESTION FIRST before reading through the case, and SCAN ENTIRE SCENARIO carefully!! Reading the question first should give you a hint on what you are looking for so that reading the scenario is more effective. You shouldn't have to reread the scenario over and over again, because you should already have an idea of what you are looking for after reading the question itself. Also, there are questions that don't even require you to read the case to answer because the question itself is not scenario specific, so those ones trick people into wasting their time reading the entire scenario for nothing.

When you read the scenario, really read through the questions and all the information, INCLUDING LABS, carefully! The exam doesn't let you move on unless it senses you physically scrolled through everything with your mouse/cursor first anyways, so there is no point freaking out and skipping stuff. The question itself or info/labs/tests should give you some sort of red flag to watch out for. I will reiterate, most of the time the question wants to ask you about identifying safety/side effects and how to minimize/eliminate them (depending on what it is), so keep that in mind! Big things to look for in scenarios are often related to MOA (MUST KNOW), Black box warnings/Contraindications (NEVER SKIP THIS!!), teratogens/pregnancy risk (mostly pay attention if patient is female, but in reality there are some drugs that have this problem in males too), other REMS (know drugs on RxPrep that require that), allergies (NEVER SKIP THIS!!), other side effects, duplicate/antagonistic therapy (Top 300/RxPrep. Make sure to compare home medication list with discharge medication list, and to check if they are getting medications from different pharmacies).