The Exam - Part 2

On your marks, get set... Actually, I can't even open the bloody exam paper. Its got some kind of blue sticky thing holding it shut and I can't open it. I stick my pencil inside and open it like an envelope with a knife. Et Voila! Question 1. A picture and words. What does it all mean? I read the words, I look at the picture. I understand. I could do with a calculator though! If 1 is 100 then 2 is 50 so 3 is 25 and then 4 is 12.5 so 8 would be , err, about three quarters, so what the hell would 10 be. Look at the answers: not A or C, B is too small, must be D. Good. Question 2. Easy. Straightforward. Pharmacy. Question 3. Tricky. American non-specific post-modern surreal question. Could be anything, will go with the obvious. Question 4. Science - easy. Question 5. Hmmm....I'll come back to you. Question 6. Easy. Question 7. Must be b or c. Hmmm. Go with b. And so it goes on. I did my pharmacy degree between 1988 and 1991 and the science hasn't changed. I don't know all the formulae or all the standard blood levels without looking them up, but my science background is good. And it showed. I've had 15 years experience in retail pharmacy. I keep up to date. I go to meetings once a month on the latest scientific topics (I've been the chairman for 9 years) and I read my Pharmacy Journal more often than not. I know pharmacy and I know science. I didn't need to revise any of that - and I didn't! Everyone on the net groups talks about CPR, Morris Cody and Mannan Shroff. I think they're for people who want to LEARN pharmacy. If you KNOW your pharmacy already I really don't think you need these books. I didn't. (Well, I glanced at the Shroff 1000 Q and A's but I didn't read them all). I think a lot of applicants are learning pharmacy, they're not actually practicing pharmacists. There's a difference in my opinion. But if the NABP are happy with the system who am I to argue? Anyway thats a bit too political, so apologies, forgive me, I didn't mean it, OK! The only questions I was troubled by were the American system questions, which I should have known if I hadn't found the book so boring. And some of the science questions were a bit specific (you need to know what the letter R is in an unknown frickin equation - guessed that wrong! Or what the normal blood level for hormone F is, jeez louise, thats what reference books are for, not exam questions) I found the three hours flew by. I managed to finish the 150 questions and go through about 80 of them a second time. I may have changed 4 or 5 of my answers. I went to lunch. I got a salad and a coffee. Thank God for good, strong, American coffee. I started chatting with a few people. One girl had taken it in June, she said this exam was much easier, the June one had had a lot more chemistry, which she hadn't understood. She was German but working in a US pharmacy. She claimed it hadn't helped her at all working in the pharmacy. We spoke with a Frenchman, who was working in New Orleans. He had also failed in June. We spoke about property prices and imagined pharmacist incomes. I spoke with a girl from England. She was with Lloyds, near Cheshunt. It was her first try. I asked her about the one question I wasn't sure about and she told me I had got it wrong, which I had. Damn. It was time to go back in. We sit. We are familiar now with the experience. The lady at the front talks about the rules. If we leave with any of the exam questions we will be disqualified. The question papers will be collected and checked that every page is present. If any pages are missing you will be disqualified. And so she goes on. The preceptor asks if we need more pencils. He's no longer our enemy. We know him. We are given the second set of questions. Another 150 questions to answer in three hours. There is a huge clock at the front. I know how to open the question paper now. The second session I find easier. I don't know why. I finish very early. More than an hour to go. I debate leaving. I decide to go through my answers again. On one question I try all the answers before giving up and just guessing b. I re-check all 150 questions. I probably change 40. But are they the questions that matter? There are 300 questions but only 200 are "live". The other 100 are test questions to see if the questions are too easy, too hard or just right to be used in future exams. They should solicit the correct distribution of answers from a large field to produce the desired result. I presume they want about 25% to pass. So they don't want a question that everyone will get right, or maybe they'll be forced to pass everyone! Or conversely too hard and they have to fail everyone. The exam is a scaled score, which means it can be tweaked, but not by enormous measures. One question actually appeared twice. The exact same question. But only two of the answers were the same. A and b. I didn't know the answer, but I had two options: same or different. One way I'm guaranteeing one is right, the other I'm gambling all or nothing. I decided it couldn't possibly be a real question to appear twice, so I gambled on b in both, hoping I was right or that it wouldn't matter. Some people were leaving. It was hard to tell if they were fast finishers or were leaving frustrated. I was getting bored re-checking again. I missed my cell phone and my wife who was at the wedding party. And I missed my kids back home. Finally time was called. The papers were collected. I get my coat from near the toilet. I get a taxi back to Penn State and the train back to the hotel at Great Neck. I go to my hotel room and pick up my cell-phone. My wife has phoned me 10 times and left me a voice message. She is bored and misses me. I google that exam question that appeared twice - and I have got that one wrong too. I hope it wasn't in the "real" exam either! I go to the party and dance the night away. Perhaps a little more tired than I should have been for such a wonderful party, but it had been a long day. Next up, the results, or how to mess that up as well! Farmacyst