To whom this may concern,

This email is being written in response to the September 2016 pre-registration exam that I had to endure. This exam surpassed any concerns that students have in pharmacy as a profession and most importantly our governing body, the GPHC. The following points made are universal with those who sat the September 2016 sitting.

In the webinar certain points are made to allay the concerns of students in regards to this “new format”. It has been said both papers (June and September) are written at the same time and fellow professionals have their opinions before the exam is approved. If this is indeed the case why was there a vast difference in difficulty between the two sittings. As students we expect to be tested and for there to be a degree of difficulty not to the extent of not being able to sit unrealistic calculations which we will never encounter in practice and within the time allocated. The difference being in June people having enough time to go back and check their calculations whereas in September, most students barely being able to complete 30 calculations let alone the allocated 40. In response to this you may decide to lower the grade boundaries, but will that grade boundary account for the silly errors made in order to complete the paper in the unrealistic time limit set.

Within this new format, we were made aware of the new style questions (questions 90-120) and also the resource packs included to “aid” students. Again, the amount of SPC questions varied from both sets of papers and unrealistic within the time limits set. Also how relevant were the SPCs in helping students answer the questions correctly, they seemed more of a hindrance. We are being told continually by the GPHC that the exam needs to be more in touch with common practice and more clinical, what weight of the second paper aswell as the first paper is something a pharmacist will encounter on a day to day basis?

Secondly, in the webinar the GPHC clearly stress that “it’s a myth September is always harder”, if that indeed is the case, why the vast difference in opinion between the two sets of exams. Surely when writing both papers the degree of difficulty needs to be similar amongst all papers. Myself like others know the majority of students that passed the summer examination. Within this cohort there were students who struggled within their MPharm degree but passed the June examination on their first sitting. Surely the board of assessors must own up to the responsibility of when assembling the paper making sure the degree of difficulty is equal amongst every paper, not the scattergun approach taken to put the September 2016 paper together.

The GPHC try their utmost to be as transparent as possible but in truth this September 2016 showed that being a competent pharmacist is at the hands of the GPHC not the amount of level or hard work we put in as students throughout the year. Sample questions are released a few months before, but one has to ask why? It gives students the false hope that the exam is manageable when the realistic truth is the paper can change dramatically within a few months, as proved this year.

The final and most concerning point are those students that have had to sit this paper for a final time this September. Most of these students have had the unfortunate experience of sitting June 2015 along with September 2016. These students have agreed that this was a much more difficult experience as it was their last sitting and due to the difficulty of the paper. As a governing body what will be done for these students as a career in pharmacy is over? You may decide to lower the grade boundaries but how sufficient will that be. Grade boundaries were lowered in June 2016 thus resulting in a record pass rate for a much easier exam paper and the unfortunate truth is the grade boundaries will not be lowered sufficiently for the September cohort to see the same pass rates because the GPHC have already been vindicated for this new style paper as seen by the summer pass rate so an overall pass rate of 60% or more for the September examination will be deemed more than sufficient to the GPHC.

I will finish this email in regards to previous emails and complaints you have received in the past year of which you have totally disregarded or had the response, “we are testing the syllabus”. The GPHC released the syllabus during the year 2015 stating each chapter and its significance towards the papers. Was the September 2016 examination a fair reflection of this? Was there really a high weighting of the Central Nervous System, Endocrine and Cardiovascular chapter as clearly stated in the syllabus? From those who sat this paper there was a vast amount of respiratory and diabetes questions again as you may point out this is tying in with the syllabus, but in response how many of those situations will a pharmacist encounter on a day to day basis in both community and hospital? If your response is, they are common questions, then you have left many people dumfounded as to what you as a governing body expect a pre-registration trainee to know which is deemed relevant to sit this exam. If the GPHC want to continue to show transparency then I suggest both papers are released (June and September 2016) and these papers are then reviewed by an external body review. This will ensure there were no discrepancies in both papers and that the GPHC is indeed a respectful and co-operative governing body it presents itself to be. If in fact there is a vast difference between both papers as we expect, the GPHC need to accept its mistakes and to communicate with students more effectively in the near future and help those who are in the unfortunate position of September 2016 being their final sitting.