The Pharmacy Technician Certified Board (“PTCB”) exam can be one of the most significant obstacles preventing you from achieving your dream of becoming a certified pharmacy technician. While the exam is not in the walk in the park, it is passable. As with any exam, you will certainly want to invest time and effort into preparation so that you are fully ready to take it on when the time arrives.
With that said, it is not only important to prepare for the content of the exam, but you must also have a good understanding of the exam logistics. This is because the PTCB exam has undergone some changes starting on January 1, 2020. Even if this isn’t your first time hearing about the exam, it is worth your time to analyze some of the changes that have occurred.
On this front, we have your back. In this article, we will explore the updated PTCB exam and how it differs from the old exam. With this comparison in mind, you will be more relaxed and in a much better position before exam day.
The 2020 PTCB Exam
The 2020 PTCB exam contains several updates that are intended to reflect technician responsibilities in current pharmacy practice. Four years ago, the PTCB organized a profession-wide job analysis to better determine its role in better ensuring medication safety and patient care. As part of this analysis, the PTCB made a wide range of changes, including new certified pharmacy technician candidate eligibility requirements and PTCB recognition of education and training programs for the certified pharmacy technician candidate program.
“Students who complete a PTCB-recognized education/training program will be eligible to apply for, and earn, their CPhT credential starting in 2020.“
“As an alternative, PTCB will offer a second eligibility pathway based on work experience for technicians who have completed 500 work hours and attest to fulfilling specified knowledge requirements.“
While all of these changes are important, we want to further examine changes to the exam itself.
One of the more significant changes to the exam centers on the content tested. Specifically, the PTCB exam content is organized into four knowledge areas. This is much fewer than the number of knowledge areas (nine) in the prior exam version.
The four general areas covered on the 2020 PTCB exam include: medications, federal requirements, patient safety and quality assurance, and order entry and processing. Ultimately, the medications section counts for 40 percent of your score, federal requirements is 12.5 percent, patient safety and quality assurance is 26.25 percent, and order entry and processing is the rest (21.25 percent). While we won’t list out all of the subsections here, the PTCB does a fairly good job revealing the types of topics or issues that you must know in each overall section.
Generally speaking, it makes more sense to allocate your study time based on the proportion of each subject area of the exam. Intuitively, you would want to spend more time on the medications section compared to federal requirements. That said, there’s nothing stopping you from shifting your time allocation based on your needs.
Ultimately, this consolidation is one of the key differences between the new exam and the old exam. But along with this, some of the content from the older exam was removed. It was removed because the PTCB assumed that this content would be accounted for through new training requirements. Unfortunately, the PTCB doesn’t give much guidance on the specific topics that were removed. Because of this, if you have already taken the exam, you shouldn’t assume that the same content will be there if you are retaking it. It is absolutely worth your time to look at the content outline so you can better set your expectations.
To get a better sense of what the new exam is like, we encourage you to check out our PTCB Exam Prep, the only exam prep that can prepare you for the PTCB in 14 days. Modeled after the actual PTCB itself, our PTCB Exam Prep is 2020 compliant.
A Key Step on Your Journey
The PTCB exam is one of those things that can be stressful or anxiety-inducing—especially if you struggle with standardized tests. Nonetheless, it is an important step on your road to becoming a certified pharmacy technician. By understanding the key differences in this new exam and taking the time to prepare, you will be ready to take your career to the next level. Good luck!
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