This is for trainee pharmacists preparing for the GPhC Common Registration Assessment who are weighing Focus Pre-Reg before committing time or money. Focus Pre-Reg is a high-volume, low-cost resource that covers both papers. Its principal limitation is one shared by every large bank: raw question count is not the same as blueprint coverage or exam fidelity, and a monthly-subscription drill can quietly turn into recognition of familiar stems rather than transferable competence. This audit separates what transfers from what does not.
What Focus Pre-Reg offers right now
Last checked 19 July 2026; figures are vendor-reported — verify on the product page.
| Item | Vendor-reported position (19 July 2026) |
|---|---|
| Question volume | "Over 10,000" single-best-answer and extended-matching questions, plus "over 700" calculations |
| Structure | Part 1: 13 calculation topic areas with mixed mocks (vendor lists 17 mock sets of 40); Part 2: 20 therapeutic topic areas with three full mock papers of 120 |
| Content areas | Calculations; medicines organised by therapeutic chapter; responding to symptoms, OTC and POM-to-P switches; MEP and pharmacy practice |
| Support | Live Zoom sessions and recordings, summarised notes, tutor and peer support, instant feedback |
| Adaptive/AI engine | None advertised; no personalised analytics dashboard described |
| Price | Around £30 per month, no long-term commitment |
The volume and price are genuinely strong. The absence of an analytics engine is not a fault for a bank at this price — but it does mean you supply the coverage discipline yourself.
The exam you are being measured against
The GPhC Common Registration Assessment has two parts, both of which must be passed in the same sitting, with a maximum of three attempts. Part 1 is 40 pharmacy and healthcare calculations with numerical free-entry answers in 120 minutes — no options to reverse-engineer. Part 2 is 120 multiple-choice questions in 150 minutes, split into Section 1 (90 single-best-answer questions, five options each) and Section 2 (15 extended-matching sets of two questions, 30 EMQ items in total). The assessment framework tests the safe and effective, person-centred application of knowledge and skills — so medicines facts come from the SmPC/eMC, and law, ethics and professional practice from the GPhC standards and the MEP (Medicines, Ethics and Practice), with NICE and CKS for clinical management.
Question count broken down by domain, not headline total
The headline "over 10,000" is reassuring and nearly meaningless on its own. What matters is whether the bank's distribution matches the exam's shape. Two structural checks: first, the exam is only one-quarter calculations by paper but calculations are a common failure point, so confirm the 700-plus calculation items span all 13 topic areas — doses, conversions, dilutions, pharmacokinetics, health economics — not just the easy conversions. Second, Part 2 blends clinical management, responding to symptoms, and law and ethics; a bank heavy on therapeutics but light on MEP-based law and ethics will leave you exposed on questions that are reliably examined. Map the bank's tags to the framework yourself; do not assume the total covers the shape.
Sample the question style: recall versus application
Sit a stratified sample and grade the style, not just the score. The real papers reward application — a stem that gives a scenario and asks for the safest next step — over pure recall of a fact. Check Focus Pre-Reg on five style markers: are stems scenario-based or single-fact; is stem length realistic; are the distractors plausible (a clinically tempting wrong option, not an obvious throwaway); does the material include data and label interpretation; and does it test management sequencing ("what first?") rather than isolated facts? High-volume banks often skew toward recall because recall items are cheaper to write; where you find that, it transfers less well to an application-weighted exam.
Jurisdiction and recency
Pharmacy law, ethics and medicines guidance change, and an out-of-date item is worse than no item. Take a stratified sample and check it against current sources — the current MEP and GPhC standards for law and ethics, the SmPC/eMC for medicines, and NICE and CKS for management — and record the date you did it. A bank that quietly carries superseded legal classifications or old management thresholds will teach you to answer yesterday's exam. Because Focus Pre-Reg is subscription-updated, recency is plausible, but "plausible" is not "verified" — spot-check before you trust it, and re-check as your sitting approaches.
The format gap: what a standard Q-bank cannot fully prepare
Be honest about three things no standard MCQ bank fully reproduces. First, the calculation workflow under 120 minutes of free-entry answering: banks can drill the maths, but the real pressure is accurate, checkable working with no options to sanity-check against — that is a process skill you must rehearse under timed, free-entry conditions. Second, legal and ethical currency: static items date quickly, so any bank must be read alongside the live MEP and GPhC standards. Third, medicines optimisation reasoning — weighing benefit, risk and person-centred factors — which is judged in context and only partly captured by single-best-answer items. A bank is necessary but not sufficient for these three.
Duplication and contamination
At 10,000-plus items, some concepts will recur, and recurrence is not automatically bad — spaced re-exposure aids retention. The risk is contamination: once you have seen a stem and its answer, re-answering it measures memory of the item, not competence. Watch for near-duplicate stems where only a number changes, which can create false fluency in calculations especially. The practical guard is to keep one bank for learning and a separate, unseen bank for measurement, so your readiness score is never taken from questions you have already met.
Best-fit matrix: where Focus Pre-Reg is strongest
| Role in your prep | Fit for Focus Pre-Reg |
|---|---|
| Foundation building | Strong — breadth, notes and tutor support suit early learning |
| First full pass | Strong — volume supports wide first exposure across both papers |
| Second bank for calibration | Weak — you have already seen the items; use an unseen source |
| Retake preparation | Mixed — useful for targeted weak-area drilling, less so for a clean re-measure |
| Final unseen simulation | Weak once largely completed — switch to fresh, unseen mixed mocks |
A seven-day plan for a trainee pharmacist
Focus Pre-Reg does one job — breadth-building and calculation drilling with notes; iatroX does another — unseen transfer measurement. No proprietary-algorithm claims.
- Day 1: Focus Pre-Reg, one Part 1 calculation topic to floor, timed and free-entry.
- Day 2: Focus Pre-Reg, one Part 2 therapeutic area plus its responding-to-symptoms items; read the notes.
- Day 3: iatroX, an unseen mixed block on the same topics — transfer test, not a replay.
- Day 4: Focus Pre-Reg, MEP-based law and ethics; check against the current MEP and GPhC standards.
- Day 5: iatroX, a timed calculations block; record first-attempt accuracy and error type.
- Day 6: Short source reads (SmPC/eMC, NICE/CKS) on the week's errors; spaced retests.
- Day 7: Sit a mixed, unseen 60-item block; update your domain coverage map.
Decision checklist: continue, supplement, switch or stop
Continue while Focus Pre-Reg is still building breadth and your first-attempt accuracy on unseen blocks is rising. Supplement with an unseen bank once your in-bank percentage climbs but fresh-item accuracy stalls — that gap is recognition. Switch primary resource if a whole framework domain (commonly law and ethics, or the harder calculation topics) stays weak despite targeted work, or if spot-checks reveal dated content. Stop re-drilling items you have fully seen; at that point they measure memory of the bank, not readiness for the exam.
Three mistakes this audit is designed to stop
Three patterns undo well-resourced candidates on this exam, and each maps to a section above. The first is treating volume as coverage: 10,000-plus items feels like insurance, but a candidate who drills therapeutics comfortably while avoiding the harder calculation types and the applied law-and-ethics material walks in with a lopsided preparation the headline total conceals. A domain tally, built once and updated weekly, is the cheap insurance the big number is not. The second is scoring yourself on seen questions: after weeks in one bank, your rising percentage increasingly reflects familiarity with specific stems rather than transferable competence, and near-duplicate calculation items — where only a value changes — are especially good at manufacturing false fluency. An unseen measurement layer is the only honest read once a bank is largely worked through. The third is trusting static content on a moving target: pharmacy law, ethics and medicines guidance change, and an item that was correct a year ago can quietly mislead, so every legal, ethical or management point deserves a check against the live MEP, GPhC standards, SmPC/eMC and NICE or CKS, with the date recorded. None of these three is a criticism unique to Focus Pre-Reg — they are the failure modes of relying on any single high-volume bank as if completing it were the same as being ready. Building a coverage tally, measuring on unseen items, and verifying currency against primary sources are the three habits that convert a strong-value resource into a genuinely exam-ready preparation.
Bottom line
Focus Pre-Reg is a strong-value, high-volume resource that covers both parts of the assessment and is well suited to foundation building and a first pass. Its limits are the limits of any large bank: volume is not coverage, seen items stop measuring, and calculation workflow, legal currency and medicines-optimisation judgement need sources and rehearsal beyond MCQs. Use it to build, verify recency yourself, and measure readiness on unseen questions.
Frequently asked questions
Is Focus Pre-Reg enough for GPhC Common Registration Assessment on its own? For breadth and a first pass it can take you a long way, because it covers both parts at high volume with notes and tutor support. But "on its own" carries two risks: you end up measuring readiness on questions you have already seen, and the live legal, ethical and medicines guidance that the exam tests moves faster than any static item. Pair it with current sources and an unseen measurement layer and it becomes a solid backbone.
Which GPhC Common Registration Assessment component does Focus Pre-Reg not reproduce well? It reproduces the SBA and EMQ styles and drills calculations. What it cannot fully reproduce is the free-entry calculation workflow under exam timing, the currency of law and ethics (which must be read against the live MEP and GPhC standards), and the person-centred medicines-optimisation judgement that only partly fits a single-best-answer item. Treat those three as areas needing extra, source-based work.
How many Focus Pre-Reg questions should I complete per day for GPhC Common Registration Assessment? There is no official target, and volume is a weak proxy for progress. A sustainable pattern is a timed calculation set plus 30 to 50 Part 2 items daily, weighted toward weak domains and first-attempt items rather than easy repeats. Track coverage across all framework domains and calculation topics, not a raw daily count.
When should I stop using Focus Pre-Reg and move to mixed mocks? Move to predominantly mixed, timed, unseen mocks once your coverage is even across both papers and your first-attempt accuracy on fresh items has stabilised. If your in-bank percentage is high but new-item accuracy is volatile, keep learning but add unseen mixed blocks so recognition inflation stops masking your true standing.
How should I combine Focus Pre-Reg with iatroX without duplicating practice? Assign each a job: build breadth and drill calculations in Focus Pre-Reg, then measure transfer on fresh iatroX blocks you have never seen. Keeping the learning bank and the measurement bank separate is what stops you re-scoring recognised items and preserves an honest readiness signal across both parts of the assessment.
Editorial notes and references
Written by Dr Kolawole Tytler, NHS GP and founder of iatroX. Last checked 19 July 2026; vendor figures (question counts, price, features) are vendor-reported on that date and may change — verify on the product page. Disclosure: iatroX operates a GPhC Common Registration Assessment question bank that competes with Focus Pre-Reg; this article confines iatroX's role to unseen transfer measurement, a job Focus Pre-Reg does not claim to perform. Corrections are welcome via the feedback route on iatrox.com.
References: GPhC, Common Registration Assessment; Focus Pre-Reg Revision; iatroX, Your Q-Bank Percentage Is Not Your Exam Score and completion is not coverage.
Run a fresh, timed GPhC Common Registration Assessment block in iatroX →