orchidthief88

hi all. I had a score of 112 (range was 95-120) on the pre-test and passed the official FPGEE with 129. what was i so worried about? lol

Hello all. First off, I will have to agree with most of PharmNerd's advice on how to prepare for this test: http://www.www.urch.com/forums/fpgee/119201-all-april-19-test-takers-come-here-tell-us-your-advice.html I will also agree with Aleksandra that the test questions were on the whole more general than the ones in the CPR for the science questions. I took the pre-FPGEE a month before the exam and that was finally when I realized that the CPR was not as important as everyone makes it out to be. It is still the best reference book for the science section. If I was to study for this test again I would not go into so much detail during the preparation. I concentrated way too much on the pharmacology, and I regret listening to the forum rabble rather than going with my gut on what to study. I think there is way too much emphasis on "study CPR and you will do great. The exam questions are exactly like the CPR questions." That's a total crock. No they are not, the exam questions are like the pre-FPGEE questions and the ones on the NABP website that are included in the information about the exam. If you get an *overview* of the chapters in the CPR then you have covered most of the science related concepts you need to know. Many of the CPR questions were harder or more detailed than the ones on the exam. I'm not saying don't look at the questions, but I'm just saying people on this forum are waaaay too caught up in this "do all the questions and you will pass" mentality. In my opinion, just understand the concepts and you will pass the science section. For example, for pharmacology if you can summarize the mechanism of the most common drugs into one sentence, you will be able to answer or make an educated guess at most of the questions. That being said, there were still quite a few questions asking me very specific questions about drugs I had never heard of. You don't want to aim to be able to answer those questions. Your time is better spent being able to answer a lot of basic questions about a wide range of topics rather than specific questions about a small sliver (e.g. pharmacology) of topics. As for the rest of it, I regret not putting more time into Area 3 of the blueprint. In my opinion, these are easy points, the topics are not hard to understand, but you just have to look for it. Just follow the blueprint for this section line by line and look stuff up on the internet. Try not to skip it. As for the statistics questions, you should know what the different types of tests are (including ANOVA and T-tests), and what kind of clinical studies they apply to. You can find this info on the internet, it's not hard. You will also want to keep in mind Type I and Type II errors. Also if you are a practicing pharmacist in a westernized country, in my opinion you can skip OTC and rely on what you remember from practice. As for the difficulty of the exam itself, I found it to be in keeping with the pre-FPGEE, but with more emphasis on Area 3 than I had prepared for. I think that's what made Part II of the test difficult for a lot of people. On the Pre-FPGEE I would say I made wild guesses on 20% of the questions and got a 112 score on it. I would say the same for the actual exam.That's already 50 questions right there where I'm pretty sure I got them wrong... even so I do not think I failed the exam. No one knows how they grade these tests, so until we get them back, no one can really talk about how they did, they can only talk about how they felt. Many computerized tests are designed to have questions that are beyond the scope of most candidates so that the can stratify the test-takers. We also don't know if any of the questions were "test drive" questions for other exams. I remember taking my GRE, thinking I was failing in the middle of the exam, and almost walking out. But I didn't, and when I got my results, I found out I had scored in the 90th percentile. To be honest I would be totally shocked if Aleksandra or Torontopharmie failed this exam.

that is the US healthcare system for ya! I would say that question would be referring to a deductible. Not sure if this was clearly mentioned before, but the deductible is usually an annual or quarterly set amount that the patient must pay out of their own pocket before the insurance company begins to pay for them. For example, in Canada we have a class of government sponsored coverage called "high income seniors". Every August 1st, the seniors must pay full price for their drugs until they have paid out their $100 deductible. Some seniors would end up paying it all in one shot (getting a 90 day supply of lipitor is 100+ dollars) or they would end up coming to the pharmacy for four or five prescriptions paying full price until they met their deductible. After their deductible was paid the seniors would then pay $6.11 for every prescription - their copay - as the government would pay for the remainder of the cost of the prescription. That is of course until the next August 1st rolled around again. It's important to note that a deductible is typically paid at the time of service directly to the service providers and the amount paid out recorded by the insurance company until you have paid out that set amount. Don't let the fact that you are paying at the time of service confuse you into thinking it is a copay. Copays are generally begun after the deductible is paid off, when the insurance company is paying for part of the cost of the service. August was always a special month for me in Canada :)

can't help weighing in on this one...I think it makes a difference whether you are from an english speaking from the UK or from a commonwealth country (Australia, Canada, South Africa) vs. somewhere in asia. If you speak very clean english I think you have a much better chance of being hired as an intern. This is just the impression I'm getting. Also, interns are more likely to be hired in smaller towns rather than the big cities that are saturated already.

anyone taken this recently? I just flew through this ten minutes ago. I am only halfway through an initial review of all the study materials (I've gotten terribly behind) but still got a score of 112, the range was somewhere between 95 and 120 I think. I found the questions to be reasonable, some were very easy, some were very hard, but most of them made you think. I made educated guesses on about half of them, one quarter I didn't know, and one quarter I knew without blinking. This test has encouraged me to be a bit more general in my study strategy. Based on this exam I think I am not even going to study the management section...better to know the science and clinical stuff really well and guess on the random silly management questions, at least that is how I feel. I feel it's very important to refresh your clinical knowledge and know general mechanisms of how drugs work (don't get too hung up on details) as well as their key side effects. I think I will go through my notes again and just memorize one sentence about how all the most important drugs work. My strategy now is to review key principles in all subject areas now that the exam is less than a month away. Does anyone know how accurate the pre-fpgee is at predicting your final score? When I took my GRE the powerprep practice tests were extremely accurate at predicting my score.

Hello all, I just wanted to mention to all the fellow Canadians out there that I graduated after 2003 from a Canadian pharmacy program and I have been accepted to write the FPGEE. I thought that our program was considered a four year program and for years I believed I would not be able to get licensed in the States. However, after I finally called the NABP, they confirmed that the Canadian degree is considered a "four plus one" - four year degree plus one year foundational/prerequisites/whatcha-ma-call-it I submitted my ECE documentation in early April and received word within a couple of weeks. I sat on my documents for a while and then sent everything off to the NABP at the end of April and received word within four weeks, probably three, that everything had been approved and I am now signed up for certain for the September 30th exam. It all went surprisingly quick for me, though I guess I did obsessive-compulsively check everything multiple times. I'm just posting this so that other Canadian pharmacists curious about their equivalency eligibility will have a quick answer.

Hi guys, I've got a study schedule generally mapped out. I am going by the FPGEE blueprint and reading everything in the CPR that applies to each section. Right now I am on my second week of Area 4 (clinical sciences) in the blueprint, and could always use some more dedicated online study partners. Just scroll down near the bottom as there were a few different versions of it - the last one on the list is a very detailed version of a six week schedule according to Area 4 of the Blueprint. Study Schedule

Hey people. I've just started studying for the FPGEE and I'm looking for serious online study partners that are willing to help contribute to making summary notes and basically keeping me company online I've started a forum that has just a few active people, and I'm looking for a few more. The more motivated you are, and the more you are online, the better it will be. I have a study schedule for the Sep 30th exam set up and we are only a couple of weeks into it. People can jump in at any point that suits them. The forum is organized according to the FPGEE blueprint topics so that we can share our links and materials in an organized fashion. Please join me and let's ace this thing! Free forum : FPGEE Forum

mission 2010, have you got any idea what the market is like for interns in Maryland? Have you already begun looking for internships there??

this is news to me...where did you hear this? The only thing I can think of is that if you hold a Canadian pharmacy license, that you may be eligible in some states to go straight to an internship. Those states include Vermont, Michigan, Washington State, Maine, and maybe others that I can't think of off the top of my head.

here's a link to a short summary of the licensing process: Canadian Pharmacist License : Guidelines For Foreign Pharmacy Graduates | Pharmainfo.net You can see the process is similar to the U.S. process. Major differences are 1)internship is usually shorter than in U.S. but it depends on which state you are comparing it to 2)the PEBC licensing exam (equivalent to NAPLEX) is supposed to be much harder for foreign pharmacists to pass because it has an in-person role play component (OSCE) cases that you must solve by interacting with actors that are playing patients, nurses, and doctors. You are given a limited amount of time and resources and then must role play. It looks like the qualifying exam now ALSO has an OSCE component now as well... 3) you only get three chances at the qualifying exam. If you don't pass within three attempts, you will have to petition for a fourth. If you don't pass on the fourth try, you are done with being a pharmacist in Canada. Many pharmacists struggle with the role play in the exams. You must be very confident in your abiliy to communicate and assess patients in order to pass these exams. The interactions on the exams are not tricky, but for many people coming from different countries, pharmacy practice in Canada is much more involved than what they are used to at home, where they just dispense and don't really ask too many questions. The good thing is that I feel the Canadian provinces, at least Ontario, are quite serious about supporting foreign pharmacists by providing courses to help them with these skills. My recommendation is to take any course that is offered by the local pharmacy college. I feel the biggest thing that foreign pharmacists are unprepared for when they come to Canada is how harshly they will be judged for their english and interviewing skills. You need to be speaking university level English fluently before you come, or you will simply not be able to pass the OSCE's. I think overall the Canadian exam is not harder than the U.S. exam in that the material and science is pretty much all the same, it's just that you are tested in a different way because of the OSCE's. If you have been practicing in the West, you'll be fine. If you have been practicing somewhere in the middle east or china or something, then I think you will find the Canadian exam much harder to pass than the U.S. exam.

hi pharmies. for anyone interested in an online study group, I set up a little forum for the sep30th exam. I'm going to set up a study schedule real soon on it. Free forum : FPGEE Forum

Guys, I've recently started a forum specifically to form a study schedule and online group for the Sep 30th exam - Free forum : FPGEE Forum

hi pharmies. For those of you who are gearing up for the Sep 30 exam, I'd like to connect and come up with a schedule and plan for studying for the exam. This forum is already awesomely useful, but if anyone wants to join a smaller group with a forum for more personal use (e.g. posting notes) and threads that are a bit more specific, please visit the site I set up and consider joining me: Free forum : FPGEE Forum I don't care if it's just, like two of us, but if you're committed to doing well on the exam, are online a lot, and need a partner that will hold you accountable to your schedule, that's me! There's a calendar and a chat function that we can set up appointments to use. You have to register, but it doesn't take long. I really like the idea of going through this process with other people, as that's how I got by in pharmacy school. p.s. the site has no ads or anything, and I don't have an agenda, I am just craving some anonymous online solidarity and a place where I can set up a schedule to follow

Who the heck went and scanned these books?! AWESOME!!! Thanks for sharing - I think these are the best manon shroff books to have!

I was fiddling around on the internet last night and managed to set up a forum for us if you guys are interested in doing that. It is simple, but I think it might help keep our posts organized. Check it out and join if you're interested! Free forum : FPGEE Forum

Has everyone on this thread already applied and been approved to take the FPGEE? I'm just curious. I haven't applied yet, but I have all my materials tucked away, ready to be shipped off with a big fat money order. I didn't want to apply too early and be accepted into the April exam date. As for study strategy, I think I'm going to follow the blueprint pretty closely and use the CPR and supplement with Lippincott's illustrated reviews, my old textbooks and notes, and basically not use Q&A books. I didn't use them for my licensing exam in Canada, I just studied what I thought I should know, and I did fine. I read something about a blogger starting from therapeutics and working back to the basic sciences, so that she would remember more of the complex stuff. I think I'm going to order my studies in a similar fashion, as it makes sense. The thereapeutics will be easier to remember because I've been practicing for a while. Flocculation and pKa values on the other hand....ha ha...that stuff was always tougher to care about and remember. Hope you guys keep this thread active. I'd like to join a board or something, but I'm a bit hesitant to set up a fake anonymous Facebook account just to join the group!

Wrote my exam recently in Dubai. The exam center I went to was very professional and organized. Paranoid that I would get to the center late, I showed up an hour early. They had quite a few computers free at that point and I was allowed to sit for my test early, which was a big bonus for me because I didn't want to wait. They had oversize headphones (the kind you see at gun ranges) to block out the noise, which was awesome. I prepped for the exam for 2.5 months, my study sessions being very sporadic. The actual amount of time I spent could probably have been condensed to about 1.5 months if I had actually been studying regularly. I tapered off in the last month as my motivation to study dwindled. I started with Peterson's, which I don't recommend. Barron's was the most useful book that I came across. If there's one book you buy ( or download...ha ha) it should be that one if you want to score above average on your GRE's. Their high frequency word list is great. I also looked at Nova for math. And of course, the Powerprep software. I had problems getting a computer that would run it (mine is 64 bit Windows Vista), so I pulled in any favours I could in order to get an older XP computer. If you are in my position, or are part of the Apple wave, wondering if it's worth the effort to do that, the answer is that it most certainly is. Mind you, it's not that you can't score high without it, it will just help calm your anxiety a bit, giving you more of an idea of what to expect. I think if a native english speaker wants to score above 1400, six weeks is adequate to prepare for the GRE if you're an A student or pick up things pretty quick. I booked my exam to give myself plenty of time, but it was probably too much. I'm pretty sure my score would have been the same a month ago. My experience writing the exam itself was nerve wracking. Being a native english speaker and a fast typer, the essay and argument sections were not stressful (not saying I wrote a good essay though!)...I wasted the first five minutes quaffling between the two issues, exactly what all the books tell you not to do. The first section I wrote was verbal and it had a reading comprehension passage that seemed to go on forever. I recognized most of the words after studying Barron's, but obviously, I still got some stuff wrong even though I knew a lot of the words. If I had been motivated enough, I probably would have practiced the analogies a bit more, and learned the words in a more thorough manner. Oh well, boo hoo, I just got bored out of my mind with it! Anyhow, the next section was the quantitative, and boy oh boy did I ever get panicked on that. I went extremely slow for the first 10 questions or so. After that, I began to guess wildly on ones that I didn't know how to solve right away. Midway through, I felt like crying because I thought I had gotten so many of them wrong and time was running out. OMG! normal distributions! percentiles! Coordinate geometry! Where were the probability questions? Where in god's name were all the triangles?! Seriously, I don't think I saw one freaking triangle in those 28 questions LOL! Part of me wanted to stand up and walk out right then and there. I think by the time I hit the 5 minute mark I still had about 9 questions to go. The end was pretty blurry. When I finished the quant section I was ready to see my score, except I got another verbal section. Not sure which of the two was experimental and which was the real one. The second one 'felt' easier, and had shorter passages. After faring so miserably on the quants (or so I thought), I whipped through the section, angry that I had forgotten there would be an experimental section on the exam, cranky, hungry, and wishing the whole thing was over. Finally, I clicked through to my score and when it popped up I was shocked. Shocked that my quants was decent, and partly shocked that I had gotten so many verbal questions wrong. I am 99 percent sure that of the 28 quant questions I answered, I got at least 8 of them wrong, more likely 10 or 12. So if you're writing it and finding things difficult, just try not to panic. If I hadn't had my little freak out session in the middle of it cursing god for not giving me triangle questions, I might have been able to score a bit higher. If you are the calm even keeled sort, your state of mind will definitely help you on the exam. Good luck to all of you out there, and I hope this gives any of you neurotic ones out there some comfort!

3 possible faces are 8x6, 6x10 or 8x10. the area of each respective face would be 48, 60 and 80. The box has six faces: 48, 48, 60, 60, 80, 80 Addition two of the six faces will result in any of the numbers except for 180. 180 is not even possible, as the highest possible value for the areas for two faces is 160. 128 is the addition of 48+80, so it's possible.

how did you get this? I got 1/15 =(

I get -1/2 as the slope, so my answer would be B. Not sure I follow saubaer's post. Here's my reasoning: when y = 0, x = 2b. thus 0 = ax + b and -ax = b or substituting in, -a(2b) = b which simplifies to a = b/-2b or -1/2 What is the official answer???

Substituting numbers helps. I chose two sets. -4, -3, -2 and -2, -1, 0 I to check if -a 2 and 2 > 0 , so we know I is not true II -4*-3*-2 III any number times an even number will result in an even product. Because we are taking consecutive numbers, either one or two of the numbers must be even thus III is true. The answer is C

I approached the question differently... didn't really use math, just reasoning. If 4 machines did 4 letters in 4 minutes, then I pictured in my head each machine taking 4 minutes to produce a letter, because it said each machine was operating independently. Then I asked myself if I had 8 machines (random number) how long it would take to make 8 letters, and I just visualized it - each machine would still take 4 minutes to do a letter. If I had 8 minutes, then I would watch 16 letters come out of the machines. Then, when I picture 100 machines, it was easy for me to visualize all 100 letters being produced in 4 minutes. It sounds kind of silly but I think writing an equation would just confuse me...maybe I'm alone on that one!

yes, saint4life has the correct answer. if we add the rates of work, 1/4 + 1/6+ 1/8 = the combined rate of work = 13/24 thus it will take 24/13 hours to complete one unit of work. This makes sense, it will take about 2 hours or so for the work to be completed when all 3 machines are working. Of that amount of time, the fastest machine accounts for 1/4. So 1/4*24/13 = 6/13 hours.

hi I know this is 3 years later and all, but maybe someone will find this useful. The key to solving this involves figuring out the first handful of terms and looking for a pattern. a1=1 a2= a(1+1)=a1 +4 = 1+4 =5 a3= a(2+1)=a2 +4 = 5 +4 = 9 and so on, and so forth. a4=13 a5=17 When you look for a pattern, we can see from the answers that all of them involve the term 4n. When we multiply each n by, 4, we get a1= 1, 4n= 4 a2= 5, 4n= 8 a3= 9, 4n= 12 a4=13, 4n= 16 Now we can see a pattern developing. The terms are all 3 less than 4n! Hence the answer is 4n – 3