Intern Written exam, bit by bit.
If you graduated from an Australian-accredited pharmacy program, this is your exam, not OPRA. It is short by the standards of this page at seventy-five questions, and that brevity is precisely why the published weightings matter so much: with so few items, a neglected competency can cost you a disproportionate share of the paper.
Intern Written at a glance
Intern Written Examination, set by the Australian Pharmacy Council (APC). Interns who graduated from an Australian-accredited pharmacy program, working towards general registration.
| Questions | 75 |
|---|---|
| Time | 120 minutes |
| Assesses | Domains 1 and 3 of the National Competency Standards Framework, 2016 |
| Who sits it | Interns from Australian-accredited programs |
Where pharmacology actually sits in the Intern Written
Standards 3.2 and 3.3 together take fifty-six percent of the paper, and both are pharmacology by another name. Implementing a medication plan means choosing and dosing drugs; monitoring one means predicting what will go wrong and recognising it when it does. Add the twenty percent on patient-centred planning and roughly three quarters of the exam rests on understanding what drugs do rather than on remembering rules.
Intern Written blueprint weightings
The exam draws on domains 1 and 3 of the National Competency Standards Framework for Pharmacists in Australia 2016. Six standards are assessed, weighted as below.
| Weight | Domain | What it asks of you |
|---|---|---|
| 28% | 3.2 Implement the medication management strategy or plan | Putting a plan into effect: selection, dosing, supply and the decisions around them. |
| 28% | 3.3 Monitor and evaluate medication management | Following therapy over time, spotting failure, adverse effects and interactions. |
| 20% | 3.1 Develop a patient centred, culturally responsive approach | Building the plan around the patient in front of you rather than the condition. |
| 8% | 1.3 Practise within applicable legal framework | Scheduling, supply rules and the legal boundaries of practice. |
| 8% | 3.4 Compound medicines | Preparation, calculation and compounding technique. |
| 8% | 3.6 Promote health and well-being | Prevention, screening and public-health pharmacy. |
Weight your revision the way the paper is weighted
Seventy-five questions across six standards means the eight-percent standards are worth about six questions each. That is not nothing, but it is not where a marginal pass is won either. Compounding and legal framework reward short, sharp revision blocks because their content is finite and rule-based; monitoring and implementation reward months of it because their content is judgement. Spend your time in proportion to both the weighting and how slowly the skill builds.
Monitoring is the standard most people under-prepare
Implementation feels like the harder skill and gets the attention, yet monitoring carries exactly the same weight and is easier to neglect because it is less visible in coursework. Monitoring questions ask what you would check, when, and what a bad result would mean. That is mechanism reasoning run forwards in time, and the way to build it is to ask, for every drug you revise, what this would do to a patient over six months rather than over six hours.
Compounding is eight percent that you can simply bank
Compounding calculations are the most predictable marks in the exam. The methods are fixed, the question shapes repeat, and unlike clinical judgement they do not degrade under exam nerves once they are automatic. Six questions is roughly the margin a borderline candidate fails by, so this is worth a fortnight of deliberate drilling well before the sitting.
A study plan shaped by the blueprint
Timings below assume you are revising alongside other commitments rather than full time. Shorten it if you have a clear run at the exam, but keep the order: the slowest skills to build belong at the front, where there is still time for them to settle.
| Months 1-2 | Implementation and monitoring by therapeutic area. The 56% block. |
|---|---|
| Month 3 | Patient-centred planning cases, culturally responsive practice. |
| Month 4 | Compounding calculations to automatic, plus scheduling and legal rules. |
| Month 5 | Timed 75-question papers, then weak-spot drilling. |
Calculations you should be able to do cold
These are the calculation types that turn up most often in Intern Written questions. Each one opens a free calculator with the formula, a worked example and the mistake that costs most people the mark.
- Alligation calculator — Alligation
- Dilution calculator (C1V1 = C2V2) — Dilution
- Ratio strength and percentage converter — Ratio strength
- Creatinine clearance calculator (Cockcroft-Gault) — Creatinine clearance
The full set lives in the pharmacy calculators hub, and every one of them is free with no sign-up.
Read next
Common questions about the Intern Written
Is the Intern Written Exam the same as OPRA?
No. The Intern Written Exam is sat by interns who graduated from an Australian-accredited pharmacy program. OPRA is the readiness assessment for overseas-qualified pharmacists. They are different exams for different candidates.
How many questions are in the Intern Written Exam?
The exam contains 75 questions and runs for 120 minutes.
Which competencies does the Intern Written Exam assess?
It assesses six standards drawn from domains 1 and 3 of the National Competency Standards Framework for Pharmacists in Australia 2016, with implementation and monitoring of medication management weighted at 28% each.
How much of the Intern Written Exam is pharmacology?
No standard is labelled pharmacology, but implementation, monitoring and patient-centred planning together account for around three quarters of the paper, and all three turn on knowing what a drug does.
Check the official source
Examination formats, eligibility rules and sitting dates change, and this page is a study-planning summary rather than a registration guide. The figures above were taken from material published by the Australian Pharmacy Council (APC), and you should confirm the current requirements there before you commit to a plan or pay a fee. Our study guide for Australia covers what the rest of the pathway looks like.
Preparing for a different exam?
One page per exam, because the papers genuinely differ. Our side-by-side comparison sets out how they diverge on format, calculations and clinical weighting.
NAPLEX (United States) · GPhC (United Kingdom) · PEBC (Canada) · OPRA (Australia) · PCN (Nigeria) · All exams
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