GPhC Registration Assessment: Format, Pass Mark, Dates and How to Prepare

What the registration assessment is and who sits it

The registration assessment is the final written hurdle between an MPharm degree and the register in Great Britain. The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) runs it for foundation trainee pharmacists, and it is delivered jointly with the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI) for Northern Ireland trainees. You will also see it called the Common Registration Assessment, or CRA, and trainees often call it the pre-reg exam. They are the same assessment.

Almost everyone who sits it has just finished a pharmacy degree and a foundation training year. The paper therefore tests the judgement of a pharmacist on day one: can you check a dose, spot an unsafe prescription, advise a patient on a device, work within the law and know when to refer. It is not a test of rare drug facts.

The GPhC maps every question to the learning outcomes of its initial education and training standards. Those outcomes are grouped as the expectations of a pharmacy professional and the skills required in practice, which cover health policy, validating therapeutic approaches and supplying medicines, managing risk, working with patients and the public, and maintaining professional performance. If you want the practical reading of that map, see our guide to high-yield topics.

This hub is written for trainees and for pharmacists qualified elsewhere who are following the same route. It was checked against GPhC documents on 25 October 2026. MedPass UK is an independent exam-preparation service. We are not the GPhC, we are not endorsed by it, and we do not reproduce or recall exam questions.

Eligibility and booking

You apply as an approved foundation trainee pharmacist. The exact timing rules depend on when your foundation training started and on the rules set by your Statutory Education Body. Northern Ireland trainees must have completed at least 39 weeks of training by the assessment date. The GPhC regulations list further registration criteria that apply to becoming a pharmacist, so read the current regulations rather than relying on a forum summary.

1. Confirm you are eligible for the sitting. Check your training start date and your 39-week milestone against the sitting rules on the GPhC site.
2. Request reasonable adjustments early. The adjustment deadline falls well before the application deadline. For June 2025 it was 24 February 2025, about ten weeks before the application deadline.
3. Apply through your myGPhC account. Northern Ireland candidates apply through the Society. For June 2025 the window opened on 3 March and closed at 5.00pm on 6 May.
4. Wait for approval. For June 2025, approval was notified through myGPhC by 13 May.
5. Check your test centre. You are allocated the closest available centre to the address on your myGPhC account, with a short window to change it in the scheduler.

A non-refundable application fee applies to each sitting. We have not stated the amount here because it was not confirmed on the pages we could read, so check the GPhC sitting page. Our booking and fees guide explains the deadlines, the dates we have verified and the ones we have not.

Format and scoring

The assessment is delivered on computer at Surpass-partnered test centres in the UK. There is no paper version and no remote option. The GPhC has a contract for test-centre delivery that runs to 2029, so plan on this format for the foreseeable future, and check the GPhC site before an exam in case it announces changes.

That gives 160 items and 270 minutes. Part 1 allows three minutes a question. Part 2 allows 75 seconds a question, which is the number that catches people out. A scheduled break separates the parts.

Each correct answer earns one mark. Nothing is deducted for a wrong or blank answer, so answer every item. Question order is randomised, within sections in Part 2. Calculators are allowed in both parts: an approved physical model or the on-screen calculator, which appears only on Part 2 questions that need one. Up to a quarter of questions may carry extra resources such as photographs, dosing information or Summaries of Product Characteristics.

The pass mark is not a fixed percentage. A Board of Assessors sets the standard for each sitting by judging the difficulty of the questions, and results are awarded using a published Mark Awarding Algorithm. You must reach the standard in both parts at the same sitting. One recent Part 1 pass score was reported as 25 out of 40, but that is a single data point and not a target. The full explanation is in pass mark and scoring.

Blueprint by domain

The GPhC publishes weightings by learning-outcome band, not by topic. High-weighted outcomes make up about 60 to 70% of questions, medium-weighted outcomes 25 to 35%, and low-weighted outcomes up to 10%. In summer 2025 the mapping was reported as 67% high, 27% medium and 6% low. High-weighted therapeutic areas are cardiovascular, nervous system, endocrine and infection. Around 20% of all questions relate to paediatric patients, so child dosing belongs in every topic you revise.

The GPhC does not publish topic percentages beyond those bands. The weights below are our editorial estimates for practice and revision planning. The item counts apply the weights to 160 items. They are not predictions of what you will see.

Two notes on reading this table. First, the real paper has 40 calculation items, which is 25% of the total. We set calculations at 20% because we write them as single best answer questions. Second, the law and professionalism weight is high because the GPhC outcomes on supplying medicines legally, analysing prescriptions and professional conduct recur in both parts. Therapeutic questions also hide law and calculation content inside them.

The framework also names high-risk drug groups. Each assessment is likely to include at least one question on each of antibiotics, anticoagulants, antihypertensives, chemotherapy, insulins, antidiabetic drugs, parenteral drugs, drugs with a narrow therapeutic index, NSAIDs, methotrexate, opiates and valproate. Treat that list as a checklist for revision.

Question types and how to approach them

Three item styles appear across the two parts, and each rewards a different habit.

• Free-entry calculations (Part 1). You type a number. There are no options to check against, so you need a method you trust and a habit of sense-checking the size of the answer. A paediatric dose that comes out larger than the adult dose is wrong before you look at the working. Follow the units and decimal places the stem asks for.
• Single best answer (Part 2, section 1). A short scenario from a pharmacy counter, ward, GP surgery or care home, followed by five options. More than one option may be defensible, so the task is to choose the best. Read the last line of the stem first so you know what is being asked, then read the scenario for the facts that change the answer: age, weight, renal function, pregnancy, interacting medicines, a legal detail.
• Extended matching questions (Part 2, section 2). Fifteen sets, each with a list of eight options and two questions that draw on the same list. The same option can be right for one question and wrong for another, and an option may be used once, more than once or not at all within a set. Read the list of options before the questions, and eliminate by first principles, not by guessing a pattern.

Up to a quarter of questions may bring extra resources: a photograph, a label, dosing information or part of a Summary of Product Characteristics. Skim the resource for what the question needs rather than reading all of it. The question usually points to a single table row or paragraph.

Because the paper is closed-book in practice and the questions that depend on drug data should supply it, the skill being tested is applying information, not recalling a monograph. That does not mean you can skip the BNF while revising. You still need to know the usual dose range, the cautions and the interactions well enough to notice when a prescription looks wrong.

Exam day in brief

You sit at the test centre allocated to you, with approved photo ID. Permitted items at the workstation include an approved calculator, a single highlighter pen, a ruler, glasses, water in a clear bottle, cough sweets, medication, unpackaged tissues and a plain cushion. Rough-working pen and paper are issued and must be returned. Approved calculator models in the 2026 specification include the Casio HS-8VA, Casio MX-8B, Casio SL-300SV and Aurora DT210, among others, so check the current list before you buy one. Our exam day guide covers timing, the break and a routine for each part.

How to prepare: a phased plan

Most trainees prepare while working a full training week, so the plan has to survive shift patterns. Our study plan guide gives 8-week, 12-week and 16-week versions. The structure is the same in each.

1. Phase 1: map and baseline. Read the GPhC framework and specification once. Sit a timed mixed set to find your weakest domains, and record your calculation accuracy separately.
2. Phase 2: calculations every day. Part 1 is a separate pass requirement and it rewards daily repetition. Work through the framework's calculation topics, then do mixed sets where you must choose the method yourself.
3. Phase 3: therapeutics by weighting. Cover cardiovascular, nervous system, endocrine and infection first, then the medium areas. Revise each from BNF, BNFc and NICE sources, with children and renal impairment attached to every topic.
4. Phase 4: law and professional practice. Controlled drugs, emergency supply, prescription validity, the responsible pharmacist regulations and the GPhC standards. Learn the numbers exactly.
5. Phase 5: timed mocks and error review. Sit full-length papers under exam timings with a calculator, and keep an error log sorted by cause, not by topic.
6. Phase 6: final week. Revisit the error log, high-risk drugs and conversions. Check your test centre route and permitted items. Sleep.

The calculations paper deserves its own routine, covered in the calculations paper guide. The lists of UK law and guidelines and high-yield topics help you prioritise within a domain.

Common reasons candidates lose marks

The GPhC does not publish a league table of mistakes, so this list is editorial. It draws on what the framework emphasises and on the points the regulator's feedback to candidates has repeatedly raised, such as missing rounding instructions.

• Calculation slips, not calculation ignorance. Wrong unit conversions between gram, milligram, microgram and nanogram, a missed step in a multi-step problem, or ignoring a rounding instruction in the stem.
• High-risk drug errors. Weekly methotrexate dosing, anticoagulant interactions, insulin and opioid doses, and valproate in people who could become pregnant.
• Paediatric dosing. About one question in five involves a child. Weight-based doses, age bands and maximum doses are easy to mis-apply under time pressure.
• Prescription validity. Controlled drug requirements, quantities in words and figures, validity periods and who may amend what.
• Referral judgement. Treating a red-flag symptom in the pharmacy when the safest answer is to refer.
• Running out of time in Part 2. At 75 seconds an item, long stems with attached resources punish slow reading.
• Treating the paper as a pass mark of 50%. The standard is set for each sitting, so a vague sense of being close is not evidence.

After the exam: results, resits and registration

The GPhC or the Society sends results to each candidate individually. They show the pass mark, your mark for each part and the overall outcome. For November 2024, results were issued on 16 December 2024, about five weeks after the sitting on 12 November. Published results are final: marks are not reviewable, there is no re-mark, and appeals are allowed only on procedural grounds or exceptional circumstances.

You may have up to three sittings within the registration time limit, and you are not guaranteed all three. Withdrawing from a sitting before it takes place does not count as an attempt. If you pass both parts, you can move to registration with the GPhC, which has its own requirements that we do not set out here. If you do not pass, read resits and what to do after the exam before you rebook.

Reported pass rates show how much the standard moves. November 2024 was 58% overall (667 of 1,146 candidates). Summer 2025 was reported at 77% (2,247 of 2,913), with first-time sitters at 80%. Autumn 2025 was reported at 61.5%, with first-time sitters at 60%. Since 2021 the November range has been 56 to 66%, against 72 to 82% for summer sittings over a longer run.

Where to go next

Use the pillar for orientation, then go deep. Pass mark and scoring and exam day cover the rules. The twelve domain pages break down each part of the blueprint, beginning with calculations and pharmacy law and ethics. For a wider view of UK health-professional exams, see the United Kingdom page, PLAB 1 for doctors and the NMC CBT for nurses.

If you only have time for three pages, read these in order. Start with pass mark and scoring so you understand what you are aiming at. Then read the calculations paper guide, because Part 1 is a separate gate that many strong clinical candidates underestimate. Finish with the study plan and pick the version that fits the weeks you have left.

Our question bank is original. We write items to the GPhC blueprint, with UK drug names, SI units and BNF-style data in the stem where a candidate would otherwise need the BNF. We do not use recalled questions, and we do not claim that any item will appear on the real paper.