Hi Carey,
Thank you for your note. I am sure you did all of the below, but for others out there reading your message and thinking of taking the exam I would like to point out some exam best practice to help anyone thinking of taking the RAC in the future:
Plan your time -
There are 100 questions and 120 minutes. A common tactic for candidates is to schedule roughly 1 minute for a question and allow 20 minutes at the end for review. If a question is taking significantly longer than 1 minute, make your best guess, flag the question for review if you have time later, and get to the next question.
Read the all of the question -
In exam review activities last year with some previous candidates I saw that sometimes candidates do not fully read the questions when under time pressure. For one question I was told that the question was 'wrong' and none of the answers were correct. When we reviewed the question afterwards it turned out that the majority had only read the first half of the question and assumed they knew the rest. When they looked at the second half of the question they realized that key information was included that ruled out three of the answer options, and made the correct answer clear.
Make sure you put an answer for every question -
Note that there is no deductions for wrong answers, so make sure at the end all 100 questions have an answer, even if you have to guess at some.
Narrow down the options -
If you do have to guess, try and narrow down the multiple choice options as much as you can. Often you will be able to spot one or two of the answer options as incorrect, giving better odds of getting it correct than the 25% of a blind guess.
Regards,
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Pete Etchells
Senior RAC Manager
Rockville MD
United States
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Original Message:
Sent: 21-Oct-2020 13:37
From: Carey Brett
Subject: My RAC (drugs) experience
Thank you, Alaa, it was a tough experience for me and I am a mature candidate with plenty of exam experience behind me!
Just some practical tips to add/emphasise. I think you are right on keeping going during the exam, even when you think all is lost. I ran out of time and had flagged many many questions to review, which I then did not have time to reconsider. You do need to keep an eye on the clock. I used my piece of scrap paper extensively to break down the questions and answer them as best I could. I felt surprised/unprepared at the number of detailed analytical and application questions and would not rely solely on the RAC practice test as a guide for the depth and complexity of questions that will be posed. There were not huge number of 'easy' recall questions, if I remember rightly. There were also some obscure recall questions on matters I had never faced in regulatory practice, such as numbers/content of specific regulations/ICH guidance that were fairly niche.
Thank you for sharing your experiences and I encourage others to read your overview paper!
Best,
Carey
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Carey Brett
Consultant
Austin TX
United States
Original Message:
Sent: 18-Oct-2020 00:11
From: Alaa El Kazak
Subject: My RAC (drugs) experience
Dear Vandana,
The table should be read horizontally where each row is independent. The focus in all exam window are the same as mentioned in the table but each row is independent.
Sorry for the confusion I may have caused to you.
All the best of luck.
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Alaa El Kazak
Jeddah
Saudi Arabia
Original Message:
Sent: 17-Oct-2020
From: Vandana Dole
Subject: RE: My RAC (drugs) experience
Dear Alaa
Can you please clarify if the exam focus is different in summer autumn and spring as mentioned in your article?
Is the upcoming autumn exam going to focus on EU and pre-marketing? or was the table just an example?
Thanks,
Vandana
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Vandana Dole
Andover MA
United States
Original Message:
Sent: 16-Oct-2020 10:53
From: Alaa El Kazak
Subject: My RAC (drugs) experience
@Vasundhara Pathak Thanks alot dear.
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Alaa El Kazak
Jeddah
Saudi Arabia
Original Message:
Sent: 16-Oct-2020
From: Vasundhara Pathak
Subject: RE: My RAC (drugs) experience
Thanks very much for very informative article. You have really summarized everything very nicely.
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Vasundhara Pathak
Warren NJ
United States
Original Message:
Sent: 13-Oct-2020 01:08
From: Alaa El Kazak
Subject: My RAC (drugs) experience
Dear Regex,
You may refer to a small article about my RAC (drugs) examination experience in summer window 2020 in the following link:
My RAC (drugs) exam experience
I hope you find it helpful. Please note that this is NOT an article on how to pass RAC exam; this article is about my own experience on studying for the exam and the exam experience itself. The objective is to make the colleague who want to sit for the exam more aware about the experience and be less surprised upon the examination. This is an opinion article of mine and does not represent RAPS or my company.
Aslo, If other RAC holders are happened to read this article, I highly encourage them to write back their opinions and their experience to be helpful to everyone.
All my best wishes.
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Alaa El Kazak, Msc., RAC (drugs)
Jeddah
Saudi Arabia
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