PTCE Exam Content Outline 2026: Domains, Weights, Traps

It asks you to: Expect to match a brand name to its generic and drug class, spot a duplicate therapy on a patient profile, flag a dangerous interaction or allergy for the pharmacist, and work out how long a reconstituted suspension or opened insulin vial stays good and how it must be stored.

• Generic names, brand names, and classifications of medications
• Therapeutic duplications
• Common or life-threatening drug interactions and contraindications (drug-drug, drug-dietary supplement, drug-laboratory, drug-nutrient, drug-disease)
• Strengths/doses, dosage forms, routes of administration, special handling and administration instructions, duration of therapy (calculation-based)
• Common or severe side effects, adverse effects, and allergies
• Indications of medications
• Drug stability, e.g. oral suspensions, insulins, reconstitutables, injectables, vaccines (calculation-based)
• Proper storage: temperature ranges, light sensitivity, restricted access

It asks you to: Scenario items ask you to catch the error before it leaves the pharmacy: a dose written as .5 or 5.0 mg, a LASA pair shelved side by side, a patient asking which OTC product to take, or a vaccine reaction. You must decide whether to fix it, report it (and to which system), or escalate to the pharmacist.

• High-alert/high-risk and look-alike/sound-alike (LASA) medications
• Error prevention strategies: Tall Man lettering, separating inventory, leading and trailing zeros, bar code use, error-prone abbreviations
• Issues that require pharmacist intervention: DUR, adverse drug events, OTC recommendations, therapeutic substitution, misuse, adherence, post-immunization care, allergies, interactions (calculation-based)
• Event reporting: medication errors, MedWatch, VAERS, near misses, root-cause analysis, continuous quality improvement
• Types of prescription errors: wrong dose, quantity, patient, drug, or route (calculation-based)
• Infection prevention and cleaning standards: hand hygiene, PPE, cleaning counting trays and equipment

It asks you to: Mostly math and translation: turn a sig like 1 tab PO BID x 10d into a quantity and days supply, calculate a dilution or concentration, read the parts of an NDC, pick the right syringe or supply for a prescription, and decide whether an expired or returned item goes back to stock or to reverse distribution.

• Formulas, calculations, ratios, proportions, conversions, Sig codes, abbreviations, and medical terminology for days supply, quantity, dose, concentration, and dilutions (calculation-based)
• Equipment and supplies for drug administration: diabetic supplies, spacers, oral and injectable syringes, filters, nebulizers, immunization supplies (calculation-based)
• Lot numbers, expiration dates, and National Drug Code (NDC) numbers (calculation-based)
• Identifying and returning dispensable, non-dispensable, and expired medications (credit return, return to stock, reverse distribution)

It asks you to: Questions put you in a federal-law situation: how many refills or transfers a Schedule III-V prescription allows, which DEA form covers ordering C-II drugs or reporting a theft, how much pseudoephedrine a customer may buy, what a Class I recall requires, or what to do with a product that fails DSCSA verification.

• Federal rules for storage, handling, and disposal of non-hazardous, hazardous (e.g. P-list) and pharmacological wastes
• Controlled substance prescriptions (new, refill, transfer) and DEA schedules (calculation-based)
• Receiving, storing, ordering, labeling, dispensing, returning, take-back, loss/theft reporting, and destruction of controlled substances
• Restricted drug programs, e.g. pseudoephedrine limits and REMS (calculation-based)
• FDA medication recall requirements
• DSCSA product serialization, tracking, tracing, handling, and quarantine