FPGEE® Test ©

I've literally only just taken the exam and already everything's changed! The registration was direct with NABP and now it's with a third party called ECE . I couldn't at this point comment on the veracity of their credential checking powers, but I would guess they were likely to be more stringent rather than less. And the NABP have changed the syllabus slightly, of the FPGEE exam itself. No doubt to cover broader subject areas and make the exam harder to pass. So anything I wrote later in this blog about my experiences of the paper and pencil exam will need to be considered as out of date now! Let me tell you about what I went through, starting with the madness I went through just to have my credentials verified! First of all I filled out the application form for the FPGEE. What you receive is daunting. I got a lovely yellow book explaining what I had to do, plus, at the back were some sample questions to look at. Now at this point I wasn't too concern

So I've told you about all the fun and hysterics of getting through the validity checking procedure for sitting the FPGEE exam. And now I was sitting back and waiting for the summer when I would receive the forms for applying to sit the December exam. In the meantime it just so happened that some close friends who live in New York announced their engagement. When? The first weekend of December. When is the FPGEE usually? Only the first weekend in December! So now I really needed the paperwork from the FPGEE so that I could confirm my registration in New York, and book flights and hotels accordingly. August, nothing comes. September, nothing. My wife's going mental. I phone the NABP. Sorry, we don't communicate by phone. I email, sorry we require a fax. I fax, sorry, you need to refer to the letter we sent. I didn't get the f letter. I go to the website, and spot an email link for the Executive Director/Secretary exec-office@nabp.net and I write a letter to them

What did I know about the FPGEE at the time I was accepted to sit it? Approximately nothing. All I had was the yellow information book that I had received from the NABP that listed the information (books) the American colleges used to teach their students, and the subject matters covered in the FPGEE with corresponding percentages in the exam. I also knew the exam was sat over two sessions (morning and afternoon) each for 3 hours, and was taking place on Saturday 2nd December 2006 (my friends Wedding day don't forget). So I did what every student would do these days - Google! Suddenly a wealth of information sources sprung up at me. Two I take the opportunity to share here, since these were the only two that saw me through to passing the exam. The first (and I wont be too specific as there are lots of options and I don't think it fair to prejudice your choice) was joining a Yahoo! Group . Just type in FPGEE and you'll see loads with good membership numbers that are ve

Flying to New York is always going to be fun. Flying in just before Christmas for the pre-Christmas shopping means its going to be fun, and hectic. Flying in to New York just before Christmas for a friends wedding means its going to be fun, hectic and socially busy. Very busy. If you've never been to New York expect to gain 30 pounds a day trying to spend $3,000 a day. Its a wonderful place. Just a shame I was supposed to be taking an exam. So, it gets to Friday night, and the pre-wedding party has subsided and I go back to my hotel room in the Inn at Great Neck a classy hotel in a beautiful idyllic suburb of New York about 45 minutes by train that runs direct to Pennsylvania Station in the heart of New York itself. It's 1 am and I am wide awake and I decide to do some last minute cramming. By 2.30am I'm bored and tired, and I need to get up at 5am to head in to New York. I wake up at 5am, have a shower, and get dressed. I can't take my book on the train becaus

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

So, you've sat the exam, you've chewed your nails off, you've worried yourself stupid waiting for the results, and now you hear they've been posted by the NABP, so you wait eagerly for the postman to come... I sat the December 2nd 2006 Exam and word filtered out from the NABP that the results had been posted on the 17th January 2007. People started commenting on the net about their results around the 20th, but here in the UK I think things took till the 25th or thereabouts, and some people in India were still waiting for their results over a week later than that. But they did arrive there eventually. The results for those that fail, or so I am led to believe, is in 2 pages. The first page says that you have failed and explains what your possible options are regarding re-sits and re-marking of the test (come on guys, its a computer sheet with pencil marks on - has ANYONE ever had a re-scored mark amended? Let me know if you have, but otherwise I'd be VERY surpr

I found the following information really interesting so I thought I would add it in. It's a shame the NABP don't tell us the pass rate or passing mark, but there you go, you can't have everything. On June 23, 2007, the Foreign Pharmacy Graduate Equivalency Examination® (FPGEE®) was administered to approximately 2,150 individuals, the largest number since 2003. In comparison, 1,865 individuals sat for the examination in June 2006 and 1,618 individuals in December 2006. Of the 2,150 individuals who tested in June, approximately half were repeat test takers. If you find any more useful (or more current) stats please email me with the URL and I'll add it to the site. OK, to read the next part of the story - how I got (by some miracle) an H1B sponsor, please CLICK HERE Farmacyst