Question 1
A patient taking sertraline asks about buying St. John's wort for low mood. Which risk makes this a question for the pharmacist?
How hard is the PTCB exam?
Most candidates pass, but not all: PTCB reports a 69% pass rate for 2025, so about 3 in 10 did not pass. The exam rewards steady recall of drug facts and accurate calculations.
| 2025 pass rate | 69% |
|---|---|
| Exams given in 2025 | 49,253 |
| Passing score | 1,400 on a scale of 1,000 to 1,600 |
| Pace | About 73 seconds a question |
Where the marks are
Medications is the biggest domain, at 35% of the exam: brand and generic names, classes, indications, side effects, interactions, dosage forms and storage. That is a lot to recall without a prompt.
- Medications: 35%
- Patient Safety and Quality Assurance: 23.75%
- Order Entry and Processing: 22.5%
- Federal Requirements: 18.75%
What makes it hard
- Drug names: you need brand to generic, generic to brand and the class, for many common drugs.
- Calculations: days supply, doses by weight, concentrations, dilutions and flow rates, where one slip gives a wrong option that is also on the screen.
- Federal law details: schedules, refills, DEA forms and inventory rules, with numbers that are easy to mix up.
- Pace: 90 questions in 110 minutes, so a long calculation has to be quick.
How to check you are ready
Take a timed practice test and look at your score by domain, not just the total. Fix the weakest domain first, then sit a full 90-question practice exam on the real clock.
Try 3 questions
Question 2
A child weighs 44 lb. The dose ordered is 15 mg/kg. How many mg is one dose?
Question 3
During the biennial inventory, how must a technician count an opened bottle of morphine sulfate extended-release tablets?
Next step
Questions people ask
What percentage of people pass the PTCB exam?
69% in 2025, according to PTCB.
What is the hardest part of the PTCB exam?
It depends on the person, but Medications is the largest domain at 35%, and calculations sit inside Order Entry and Processing at 22.5%.
Is the PTCB exam multiple choice?
Yes. All 90 questions are multiple choice.