You will have 40 questions that need to be completed in 2 hours. A lot of students will believe they need to dedicate 3 minutes per question, though this is not necessarily true. Some questions may be completed within less than a minute, while other calculations will be a little more challenging, with various steps involved hence, require some more time.
You should have come across the different elements in the assessment during your university years. It is wise to refer back to your MPharm material during your revision. The following indicates majority of the topics that you should expect in the examination.
- Doses and dose regimens
- Dosage and unit conversions e.g. converting from mg to ml in a bottle
- Estimations of kidney function e.g. Cockcroft-Gault equation
- Displacement volumes and values e.g. reconstitution of antibiotic suspensions
- Concentrations e.g. % w/v, % v/v
- Dilutions e.g. c1v1 = c2v2
- Molecular weight e.g. calculating the weight of an element in a solution
- Using provided formulae e.g. body surface area, body max index
- Infusion rates
- Pharmacokinetics e.g. half-life, loading dose, maintenance dose.
- Health economics e.g. number needed to treat, benefit-to-cost ratio
- Quantities to supply e.g. number of tablets needed to sync items on a prescription
Although the calculations assessment is separate to Part 2 of the exam, remember that the second assessment may have a/some question(s) that will require some form of calculation.