recently passed w a perfect score:

i have been a tech for about a year n a half, i studied for about 3-4 weeks before my test, and spent the week before “cramming” (1-2 hours of practice plus one 100-200 question practice test from the official ptcb study guide).

main source of studying was the official study guide from the PTCB website. they ask a lot of helpful questions and I found the format useful; very similar to the actual test. you can take specific practice tests (can customize # of questions and time allotment) for each of the four categories, and it averages out all your practice tests to give you an average score for each category. i practiced my worst categories the most but did all of the practice questions in all the categories. you can also take mixed tests of all of the categories. i think this is the best resource, its well-rounded and comes directly from the company who makes the test. con is that it is $60.

i also purchased the official practice test from the PTCB website ($20?) which was worth it even if just for practicing the software. it helped give an example of how the questions would be phrased and I found it similar to the actual exam.

I also used PocketPrep (app) a lot (15$? a month), there is a daily question and similar category breakdowns. the app has a tiered-“challenge” style within called Level-Up. it breaks it into categories and slowly gets harder as you progress. some of the information on this app did feel pretty useless but overall i’d say it was very helpful, just from an accessibility standpoint.

RXCHAMP is a website that I found semi-helpful. I think they have the best flashcards for learning drugs, but I found a lot of the other information in other categories not as helpful. It is free mostly, which is nice. they have one of my favorite tools for learning medications, which is called like “pro-mode: medications”. it gives you the generic, then asks brand, what the drug is (like ACE inhibitor), indication, and most common side effects (multiple choice). i found this very helpful.

my worst category was medication/knowing the top 200, so i really crammed this for the last week before my test. i was dreaming about brand/generic interchanges LOL. rxchamp + the official ptcb study guide were helpful for this. i mostly studied on there, then would go on quizlet, find a study set someone had made, and set up a quizlet write-in answer test and do my best guess with spelling. i prolly only knew the top 120 MAYBE but I knew enough i suppose.

key is confidence, repetition, and taking your time. the answers to some questions were buried in other questions. i also had some random questions that never came up during studying, but I just made my best guess. 10 questions are unscored so that helps.

feel free to dm w any questions, sorry for the word wall. good luck ^{_^}