GPhC Past Papers: Do They Exist, and What to Use Instead

No, there are no official GPhC past papers. The GPhC does not publish the papers from past sittings of the registration assessment, now called the Common Registration Assessment (CRA), and its rules forbid anyone who sits it from copying or sharing the questions.

What the GPhC does publish is free, and more useful than most people realise: example questions for both parts, from the body that sets the real papers; the framework every question is drawn from; and feedback after each sitting on where candidates struggled, which has included the passing score for each part. Anything sold as a "GPhC past paper" is a set of questions that someone else wrote.

Here is what each official resource gives you, why the "past papers" on sale are not what they claim, and what to use instead.

Why there are no GPhC past papers

The questions in each sitting are the GPhC's, and its regulations for sittings in 2026 say so plainly:

"Assessment content is the copyright property of the GPhC. Copying, saving, or recording of content in any format is prohibited."
"Questions and/or information about questions must not be shared or distributed to any person or organisation by any means."

Breaking either rule can be treated as alleged misconduct. Nothing leaves the room either: the paper you are given for rough working is collected at the end of each part and must not be taken out of the test centre. And your result gives you the pass mark and your own mark for each part, and your overall outcome: marks, not questions.

So no paper from a real sitting is ever made public, and anything offered as one should make you wary.

What the GPhC does publish

All of it is free on the GPhC's website, most of it on its Sitting the Common Registration Assessment page.

1. Example questions for both parts

These are the nearest thing to a past paper that exists. They are provided by the Board of Assessors, the body that sets and moderates the real assessment, and they are mapped to the framework and cover a range of difficulty.

Part 1 has 15 calculations, including an example of each calculation type in the framework.
Part 2 has 20 single best answer questions and 5 extended matching sets of two.
They run in Surpass, the system you sit the real assessment in, and the GPhC says their functionality directly replicates what you get on the day.
They do not time out, nothing you answer is recorded, and you can work through them as many times as you like.
The answers are in the CRA example questions guide, which also explains the on-screen tools.

The GPhC is clear about what they are for: getting to know the platform and the style, format and level of challenge of the questions. In its words, they "are not intended to be used as a mock assessment", and they are meant to complement the workplace-based learning of your foundation training year.

2. The framework

The framework for sittings in 2026 sets out the topics, skills and knowledge that may be assessed, and the GPhC says all assessment content is "directly derived from it". It names the nine calculation types that every Part 1 includes, the fifteen clinical areas in the order they are most often assessed, the twelve high-risk drug classes, and the kinds of supplied material a question can include, from BNF extracts to MAR charts. We summarise it in what changed in the GPhC assessment in 2026.

3. Feedback after each sitting

After every sitting the Board of Assessors publishes feedback on the areas candidates found hardest. This is as close as you can get to knowing what tripped people up on a real paper.

After June 2026, its key insights named four calculation types (displacement volumes, infusion rates, medical statistics and pharmacokinetics), alongside clinical areas such as antiplatelet and anticoagulant therapy, antimicrobial choice, asthma and COPD, menopause and contraception, and the law on controlled drugs and emergency supply. We work through the calculations in the four calculations the June 2026 cohort found hardest.
After November 2025, the feedback also gave the passing scores: 25 out of 40 for Part 1 and 77 out of 120 for Part 2. We collect every passing score the GPhC has published in how the GPhC assessment is marked.

The November 2025 report notes that many of its points had come up in earlier feedback too, so reading the last few reports together shows you which mistakes keep recurring. The Board says its June 2026 list is not exhaustive and does not mean those topics are more likely to appear next time.

4. The rule book

The regulations, the specification and permitted items, the guide to sitting each assessment and the GPhC's CRA FAQ cover the format, the calculator and what happens on the day. For 2027, we keep the dates, format and pass marks in one place in GPhC exam 2027: dates, format and pass marks. The GPhC also publishes the question writing manual its question writers follow, which shows how a question is built, from the scenario to the options, and the house style for things like medicine names and units.

Why the "past papers" on sale are someone else's questions

Since no real paper is ever released, anything sold as a GPhC past paper has to be one of three things:

Questions the seller wrote, in the style of the assessment. That can be good practice, but it is not a past paper, and it is only as good as the people who wrote and checked it.
Questions "remembered" by candidates after a sitting. Memory of a question under exam conditions is unreliable, nobody can check the answer attached to it against the real one, and sharing it breaks the rules every candidate agrees to.
Material written for an older version of the assessment, before the current format, with questions that no longer match how the paper is set.

The Board of Assessors does not endorse any external revision or preparation materials, because they "may be of a different content and style to actual assessment content". That includes ours. So the question to ask of any paid resource is not whether it is "real", but whether it was written to the current framework and checked by pharmacists. Our checklist for choosing a GPhC question bank or mock paper sets out eight things to look for.

What to use instead

In roughly this order:

The GPhC's example questions, first. Do them early to learn the platform and the style, then again near the end. They are the only practice questions that come from the body that sets your paper.
The framework and the latest feedback, to plan what to revise and to spot the areas candidates keep getting wrong.
A question bank checked against the framework, for daily practice. Look for numeric-entry calculations covering all nine types, single best answer questions with five options, extended matching questions in pairs, and explanations for every answer.
Full mock papers under the real timings in the final weeks: a Part 1 of 40 calculations in two hours and a Part 2 of 120 questions in two and a half hours, ideally on the same day. Practising one question at a time does not show you where your time goes.

Several providers sell full timed mocks, and we compare them side by side, with prices, in the best GPhC revision resources. We make some too, so weigh that when you read this: our GPhC mock papers are full Part 1 and Part 2 papers in the 2026 format, under the real timings, with worked answers and results broken down by area. Every question is written to the GPhC framework and checked by a pharmacist before it goes in a paper, and every Part 2 question by two. You can judge the style with ten free GPhC practice questions first, with no account, or download the same ten as a PDF to work through on paper.

The GPhC's own view is worth keeping in mind too: it says the best preparation comes from the experience gained in your foundation training year, with the example questions there to complement it. Questions help you practise applying what you know; your training is where most of that knowledge comes from.

From the GPhC's Sitting the Common Registration Assessment page, its regulations and framework for sittings in 2026, the CRA example questions guide, the CRA FAQ (May 2026), the question writing manual, the feedback from the November 2025 sitting and the key insights from the June 2026 sitting, all read on 28 October 2026. Dose Up is independent and is not endorsed by the GPhC.