GPhC Revision Plan: A 12-Week Timetable Around Your Foundation Year
· 4 min read
A good GPhC revision plan starts with a timed mock, not a textbook. Find out where you are losing marks, then spend most of your time there: calculations every day, clinical areas in the order the GPhC says they appear most, and full timed papers in the final month. This 12-week timetable shows exactly how to split that time alongside a full-time foundation year.
It is built around the GPhC's Common Registration Assessment framework, which lists every calculation area and clinical area the assessment draws from. If you have fewer than 12 weeks, keep the same order and shorten each phase. If you have more, start with the same baseline and spread the middle phase out.
Before you start: three things to set up
- Download the current framework and specification from the GPhC website for your sitting. They tell you what can be tested, and the framework lists the fifteen clinical areas in order of how often they appear.
- Sit a full timed mock. Part 1 is 40 calculations in 120 minutes and Part 2 is 120 questions in 150 minutes. Do both, under time, and keep the score. It will feel uncomfortable. That is the point.
- Agree study time with your designated supervisor. You are revising around full-time work. Five focused sessions a week that actually happen beat a perfect plan that falls apart by week three.
The 12-week timetable at a glance
| Weeks | Focus | Calculations | Clinical and law | Timed papers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 2 | Baseline and gaps | 10 questions a day, all nine areas | Audit the framework, rate each area | One full mock in week 1 |
| 3 to 5 | High-yield systems | 10 a day, weakest areas first | Cardiovascular, central nervous, endocrine, infection | One Part 1 paper a week |
| 6 to 8 | Remaining systems | 10 a day, mixed | Gastro-intestinal, respiratory, musculoskeletal, nutrition and blood, malignancy, then the rest | One mixed paper a week |
| 9 to 11 | Exam conditions | Timed sets only | Law, high-risk drugs, MHRA safety advice, weak areas | Two full papers a week |
| 12 | Taper | Light daily set | Review your error log | One final paper early in the week |
Weeks 1 and 2: find your real gaps
After your baseline mock, go through every wrong answer and write down why you got it wrong. Most errors fall into four types: did not know it, misread the question, ran out of time, or made a calculation slip. Each type needs a different fix, and this error log will drive the rest of your plan.
Then go through the framework and rate each clinical area and each of the nine calculation areas (concentrations, dilutions, displacement volumes, dose and dosage regimens, infusion rates, medical statistics, pharmacoeconomics, pharmacokinetics and quantities to supply) as confident, shaky or not started.
Weeks 3 to 8: work through the clinical areas in order
The framework orders the fifteen clinical areas from most to least frequently assessed, starting with cardiovascular and ending with drug toxicity and obstetrics, gynaecology and genito-urinary. Follow that order. It is the closest thing to an official weighting you will get.
For each area, a good weekly pattern is:
- Read the relevant BNF chapter summaries and the main NICE guidance for the common conditions.
- Do 30 to 50 questions on that area only.
- Add anything you got wrong to your error log, with the source that corrects it.
- Revisit the previous week's area for 20 minutes, so it does not fade.
Keep calculations going every single day, even when you are focused on clinical topics. Ten questions takes about 30 minutes at exam pace, and daily practice is what makes the method automatic.
Weeks 9 to 11: practise under exam conditions
Now switch from learning to performing. Sit two full papers a week, timed, in one sitting where you can. The GPhC suggests about 3 minutes per Part 1 question, 1 minute per single best answer question and 2 minutes per extended matching question, so practise at that pace.
Use these weeks for the areas that cut across everything:
- Law, governance and regulation. These questions appear in both parts and are often embedded inside clinical or calculation scenarios.
- High-risk drug classes. The framework names classes including anticoagulants and antiplatelets, insulins, opioids, immunosuppressants, teratogenic medicines and narrow therapeutic index drugs.
- Safety alerts. You are expected to know current MHRA and Commission on Human Medicines advice. Skim the last year of the MHRA Drug Safety Update.
- Normal ranges. Laboratory reference ranges are provided in the exam, but normal ranges for common physiological parameters such as blood pressure and heart rate are not.
Week 12: taper, don't cram
Sit your last full paper early in the week, then stop doing full papers. Spend the remaining days on your error log and short calculation sets. Check the permitted item list on the GPhC website, confirm your calculator is an approved model, and plan your journey to the test centre.
Remember two rules on the day: there is no negative marking, so never leave a question blank, and you must pass both parts in the same sitting, so do not write off Part 2 if Part 1 felt hard.
Keep the plan realistic
A plan you follow at 80% beats a perfect one you abandon. If you miss a week, do not try to catch up by doubling the next one. Drop the lowest-priority area and keep moving. Protect sleep in the final fortnight; tired trainees make calculation slips they would never make otherwise.
Start this week
Block out time this week and sit your baseline paper. You can sit a free GPhC-style mock paper on PassPharma, which ranks your weakest and strongest topics for you so your plan starts from real data. For the full breakdown of both papers, read our guide to the GPhC registration assessment format.