There is no single best GPhC Common Registration Assessment (CRA) resource. There is only the right resource for your weeks to the exam, your budget and your learner profile. This hub gives you a decision tree rather than a ranking: work out which candidate you are, choose a minimum stack that covers both the calculations paper and the multiple-choice paper, and add resources only where a measured gap justifies the spend. It is the parent page for a set of narrower platform articles; where you need detailed evidence on one provider, follow the link to that child piece rather than expecting the full audit here.
This article maps the market to jobs, not to marketing. For side-by-side product facts, use the iatroX comparison hub; to read why a bank percentage is not a readiness score, see "Your Q-Bank Percentage Is Not Your Exam Score".
The exam you are choosing resources for
Anchor every decision to the official format, because the two components reward different preparation. The GPhC CRA is sat in one day in two parts, and you must reach the pass mark for both parts in the same sitting; the assessment can be attempted a maximum of three times within the period you are eligible to apply for registration (verified on pharmacyregulation.org, 20 July 2026).
- Part 1 — Calculations. 40 pharmacy and healthcare calculations, numerical free-entry (you type the number, no options to recognise), 120 minutes. This part rewards accurate method under time pressure: dosing, infusion rates, percentage and ratio strengths, displacement values, molar and millimolar conversions, creatinine clearance, paediatric weight-based regimens, dilutions, reconstitution and quantities to supply.
- Part 2 — Multiple choice. 120 questions in 150 minutes: Section 1 is 90 single-best-answer (SBA) questions with five options each; Section 2 is 15 extended-matching sets of two questions, sharing eight options per set, for 30 EMQ items. This part rewards clinical judgement, responding to symptoms, professional practice, and the law and ethics that sit around safe supply.
The GPhC publishes a registration assessment framework and official sample questions; treat those as the gold standard for format and standard, and treat any third-party question as practice scaffolding rather than a preview of the paper. Throughout your revision, take medicines facts from the SmPC/electronic medicines compendium (eMC), and take professional and legal standards from the GPhC standards and MEP (Medicines, Ethics and Practice), with NICE and CKS for management. No commercial bank is endorsed by the Board of Assessors, so no product can promise the content of your sitting.
Segment yourself first: six candidate profiles
The single most common mistake is buying resources before diagnosing the candidate. Read these six profiles and pick the one — or two — that fit you now. Your profile, not a review score, determines the branch you take.
- First attempt, on schedule. You have the standard training year runway and no failed sitting behind you. You need breadth across the framework, unseen volume, and honest calibration — not a rescue plan.
- Retake after a near miss. You have sat before and fallen short in one or both parts. Your priority is diagnosis: which part, which domains, and whether the failure was knowledge, pacing or calculation accuracy. Re-buying the same bank you already memorised will not move you.
- Pre-registration/trainee pharmacist mid-year. You are balancing the exam with a demanding placement. Time, not money, is your binding constraint; you need efficient retrieval and protected mock windows.
- Weak foundations. Whole domains feel unfamiliar — perhaps therapeutics, or law and ethics, or the calculation types you rarely meet on the shop floor. You need teaching before testing, then testing to prove the teaching stuck.
- Strong knowledge, poor pacing. You know the material in untimed conditions but run out of time or make careless errors under the clock. Your problem is exam-condition stamina and question triage, not content.
- Strong multiple choice, weak calculations. You pass Part 2 practice comfortably but the free-entry calculations paper frightens you. This is the most common single-component vulnerability, and it needs a dedicated calculations modality, not more clinical SBAs.
Most candidates are a blend — commonly "first attempt with weak calculations" or "retake with poor pacing." Name your blend explicitly, because the stack below is built from components, and you only buy the components your profile needs.
The minimum stack: four slots, fill only what you need
A defensible CRA stack has four slots. The discipline is to fill the first two for everyone, and the last two only when your profile demands them. Overloading — three overlapping banks and two courses — buys duplication, not coverage.
- One primary question bank that covers both parts (calculations plus SBA and EMQ). This is your daily retrieval engine. One good bank, worked properly, beats three worked shallowly.
- Official calibration material — the GPhC framework and sample questions. This is non-negotiable and free; it is the only material guaranteed to reflect the real standard. Ration it: use it to calibrate near the start and again near the end, not as day-to-day volume.
- One teaching or reference source — only where foundations are weak. A course, video series or structured notes to build knowledge you do not yet have. If your foundations are sound, skip this slot; passive input is where time quietly disappears.
- One modality tool — only where a component is weak. Most often a dedicated calculations trainer for the free-entry Part 1, or a law-and-ethics resource. Add it to fix a named weakness, not for completeness.
iatroX sits in slot one as an unseen-measurement bank and in the calibration workflow around slot two: it supplies fresh, timed, mixed CRA-style items so your accuracy reflects understanding rather than familiarity with questions you have already seen. It makes no proprietary-algorithm claims; you select the domains and run the timed blocks yourself.
Budget bands: what each tier buys
Prices change and are frequently undisclosed until checkout, so verify every figure on the provider's page on the day you buy — the bands below describe scope, not exact costs.
- Free / low-cost. The GPhC official sample material, free pharmacology quizzes (for the knowledge layer), and any free tier of a bank. This tier can build knowledge and calibrate format, but rarely gives enough unseen volume or full-length timed mocks. Adequate only for candidates with strong foundations and time to self-organise.
- One premium resource. A single paid bank or course chosen to match your profile — volume and mocks for the on-schedule first-timer, or a teaching course for weak foundations. For most candidates this is the sensible core spend; one resource used fully outperforms two used partly.
- Comprehensive stack. A primary bank plus a teaching source plus a dedicated calculations tool plus an unseen-measurement bank. Justified for retakers, for candidates with both weak calculations and weak foundations, or for anyone whose diagnostic shows two or more failing components. Buy it deliberately, not defensively.
Time bands: what to omit, not what to add
Time is the constraint that forces honesty. The rule for every band is to name what you will omit, because a plan that tries to do everything under-does the things that matter.
- Under four weeks. Omit new teaching and completeness. Spend the runway on timed, mixed retrieval and daily calculations reps; use the official sample paper once in week one to calibrate and once in the final week as a dress rehearsal. Do not start a new course now — you will not finish it, and the reading will crowd out testing.
- Four to twelve weeks. The workable middle. Run a learn-test-retest loop: fix identified gaps, test them within 24–48 hours, retest after a spacing interval, and fold everything into a weekly mixed block. Omit low-yield perfectionism; you do not need every question in the bank, you need every domain above its floor.
- More than twelve weeks. You can afford to build foundations first, but omit the temptation to defer testing until you "feel ready." Start retrieval early at low volume, and let unseen scores — not how much you have read — tell you when to escalate. The long runway fails candidates who spend it consuming rather than being tested.
Decision matrix: match each resource to its best job
The market splits cleanly by job. The table maps the principal GPhC resource types to the one thing each does best and the thing each does worst, so you buy for a role rather than a brand. Product facts are vendor-reported and last checked on 20 July 2026; confirm current counts, features and prices on each product page, and follow the child articles for the detailed evidence.
| Resource | Best job | Weakest for | Verify before you rely on it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official GPhC framework + sample questions | Calibrating format and standard | Volume — the set is finite by design | Current sample material on pharmacyregulation.org |
| Broad CRA bank (e.g. PreRegExamPrep) | Unseen volume across both parts + mocks | Teaching from a low base | "2,000+" question claim; mock count; price |
| Course + bank (e.g. Blackstone Tutors, Coditioning) | Teaching plus drilling for weak foundations | Adaptive analytics; independent-of-provider calibration | Question counts ("1000+"/"1,247"); price; whether mocks are timed |
| Pharmacology reference + quizzes (e.g. PharmaFactz) | Building drug/therapeutics knowledge | Calculations, EMQ mocks, law/ethics, full CRA format | That it does not claim to be a CRA bank |
| iatroX GPhC bank | Unseen, timed, mixed measurement of transfer | It is not a course or an OSCE/consultation simulator | That you are using it to measure, not to re-teach |
Read that matrix as a set of roles you can combine, not a league table. A first-timer with weak foundations might pair a course-plus-bank for teaching with an unseen bank for measurement; a strong-knowledge retaker might need only volume and mocks plus a calculations tool.
Cannibalisation guardrail: hub summarises, children prove
This page deliberately keeps platform descriptions short. The detailed, component-by-component evidence for each provider lives in its own child article — the Blackstone Tutors and Coditioning course-to-retrieval workflows, the PharmaFactz integrated-platform piece, and the PreRegExamPrep Q-bank workflow. Those children link up here for the decision framework and stay narrow on their own provider, so the same price table and "best bank" argument are not duplicated five times across the site. If you have arrived here from one of them, use this tree to decide; if you have arrived here first, follow the child link for the provider you are considering before you pay.
Three worked profiles with weekly allocations and exit criteria
Abstract advice is easy to nod along to and hard to act on. Here are three named profiles with a concrete weekly split and an explicit exit criterion — the measurable condition that tells you to change what you are doing.
Profile A — Amara, first attempt, ten weeks out, sound foundations, weak calculations. Amara does not need a course; she needs volume, calibration and a calculations fix. Her week: four 30-item timed Part 2 blocks (mixed SBA and EMQ) from her primary bank; five 20-minute calculations sessions covering a rotating set of calculation types; one unseen, timed mixed block on iatroX as the week's transfer score; and the official sample paper once in week one and again in week nine. Exit criterion: she stops adding calculation types when her free-entry accuracy is stable above her personal floor across all types under time — not when she "feels" numerate.
Profile B — Ben, retake, six weeks out, failed on pacing. Ben already has the knowledge; his failure was time and triage. He omits new content entirely. His week: three full-length timed Part 2 mocks with strict clock discipline; a daily 15-item "fast pass" drill to practise flagging and moving on; targeted review only of items he got wrong under time; and one unseen iatroX block to confirm accuracy holds at speed. Exit criterion: he is ready when his mock accuracy no longer drops between untimed and timed conditions — the gap between what he knows and what he scores has closed.
Profile C — Priya, first attempt, sixteen weeks out, weak foundations across therapeutics and law/ethics. Priya buys the teaching slot. Weeks one to eight: a course-plus-bank for structured learning, each topic immediately tested with fresh questions rather than re-read; medicines facts checked against the SmPC/eMC, professional standards against MEP and GPhC guidance. Weeks nine to sixteen: the balance shifts to unseen mixed blocks and mocks, with the course used only to repair specific misses. Exit criterion: she leaves the course behind when new topic blocks reveal few genuinely new gaps — the course has done its job, and continuing to watch is comfort, not progress.
Notice what every exit criterion has in common: it is a measured change in performance, never completion percentage and never the arrival of a new product.
Evidence hierarchy: whose word to trust
When claims conflict — and they will — rank your sources deliberately:
- Official material first, for format and standard. The GPhC framework and sample questions define the exam. Nothing a vendor says overrides them.
- Primary guidance for content. SmPC/eMC for medicines, MEP and GPhC standards for law and ethics, NICE and CKS for management. A bank's explanation is only as good as the guidance behind it.
- Vendor pages for product facts — counts, features, prices — treated as vendor-reported and dated, because they change without notice and are sometimes aspirational.
- Independent testing for user experience — how a bank actually feels under time, whether its calculations engine mirrors free-entry, whether its explanations teach. Your own timed session is better evidence than any testimonial.
Bottom line
Do not shop for the best GPhC bank; there isn't one. Diagnose your profile, fill the two core stack slots for everyone and the two optional slots only where a measured gap justifies them, size the plan to your weeks and budget, and let unseen, timed performance — not completion — tell you when to escalate or stop. Use the official material to calibrate, one primary bank to drill, a teaching source only if your foundations are weak, a calculations tool only if that component is weak, and an unseen bank such as iatroX to prove the learning transfers. Follow the child articles for the detailed evidence on any single provider.
Frequently asked questions
How do I know whether I have covered the full GPhC Common Registration Assessment blueprint? You cannot know it from a completion percentage, because a bank can be "90% complete" while three framework areas remain untested. Build a simple coverage matrix instead: one row per framework domain and per calculation type, with columns for questions attempted, first-pass accuracy under time, and date last reviewed. A domain you have never tested is a blank cell regardless of how many questions you have done elsewhere. The completion-is-not-coverage method sets this out, and a dedicated GPhC content-gap checklist in this series turns it into a tick-list; the point is to measure coverage against the official framework, not against a vendor's table of contents.
Can one question bank be enough for GPhC Common Registration Assessment? For some candidates, yes — a first-timer with sound foundations who works one broad bank properly, calibrates against the official sample material and protects timed mocks may need nothing else. The risk with a single bank is not breadth but familiarity: once you have seen its items, your rising percentage measures recognition, not understanding. The safeguard is to reserve a pool of unseen questions — from the official set and from a second, measurement-only bank — that you never study on, so that at least some of your practice always tests transfer. One bank to learn from and a small unseen pool to measure on is often the leanest defensible stack.
What should I measure instead of my overall Q-bank percentage for GPhC Common Registration Assessment? Measure first-pass accuracy on unseen, timed, mixed questions, tracked per domain and per calculation type, plus your Part 1 free-entry accuracy specifically, because that component behaves differently from multiple choice. A single headline percentage hides the two things that fail candidates: a weak domain averaged away by strong ones, and an accuracy that collapses when the clock starts. Watch the trend on fresh items and the size of the gap between untimed and timed performance. "Your Q-Bank Percentage Is Not Your Exam Score" explains why the aggregate number flatters you.
When should I stop doing new GPhC Common Registration Assessment questions? Stop adding new questions when fresh blocks stop revealing new gaps — when a new topic set produces few genuinely novel errors and your per-domain accuracy has stabilised above your floors under time. At that point your limiting factor is no longer knowledge but exam-condition stamina, pacing and calculation accuracy, which are trained by full timed mocks and targeted drills, not by more first-pass volume. Stopping is a data-driven decision: diminishing returns on unseen items, not a target number of questions completed.
Which GPhC Common Registration Assessment resource should I use for my weakest component? Match the resource to the component. For a weak Part 1, use a dedicated calculations tool that replicates free-entry answering and drills the specific types you avoid, and reserve a set of unseen calculations for timed measurement. For weak therapeutics or clinical judgement, use a teaching source to build knowledge and a broad SBA/EMQ bank to test it, checking facts against the SmPC/eMC and management against NICE/CKS. For weak law and ethics, work from MEP and GPhC standards and test with professional-practice items. The principle is to buy for the named weakness, then measure the fix on unseen items rather than assuming the purchase worked.
Editorial notes and references
Written by Dr Kolawole Tytler, NHS GP and founder of iatroX. Last checked 20 July 2026. Vendor figures (question counts, features, prices and access terms) are vendor-reported as of that date and change without notice — verify them on each provider's page before purchasing, and treat marketing pass-rate claims with caution, as the Board of Assessors does not endorse any commercial question bank. Disclosure: iatroX operates a competing UK question bank; its role in this article is confined to the unseen-MCQ measurement and knowledge layer that the courses and banks above do not claim to be, and this page ranks jobs, not brands. Corrections are welcome via the feedback route on iatrox.com.
References: GPhC Common Registration Assessment structure and framework — pharmacyregulation.org; product facts — preregexamprep.com, blackstonetutors.com, coditioning.com, pharmafactz.com; iatroX GPhC bank, the comparison hub, the two-Q-bank rule and "Your Q-Bank Percentage Is Not Your Exam Score".