PEBC Qualifying Exam — Part I
Master what you’re getting wrong.
Don’t just answer more questions. PharmaQB finds the concepts you are actually getting wrong, and builds your practice around closing those gaps.
Free to start. Bring your own notes, a guideline, or a textbook page.
A 72-year-old on digoxin is started on clarithromycin. Which change is most appropriate?
Answering more questions is not the same as getting better
You can work through a thousand items and still walk into the exam weak in the same six concepts, because a percentage score tells you how much you got wrong and nothing about what you don’t understand. PharmaQB is built around the opposite idea: the score is a by-product, and the concept-level picture of your knowledge is the product.
3 testable concepts identified
Your source sequences the MRA first. Current Canadian guidance starts all four foundational agents early, at low dose, rather than in sequence.
Concept extraction
Start from what you're actually studying
Paste a section of your notes or upload a photo of a textbook page. PharmaQB breaks it into the distinct concepts a candidate can be right or wrong about — then checks each one against authoritative references before offering to test you on it.
Where your source disagrees with current guidance, you are shown the discrepancy — not quietly examined on something out of date.
Likely cause
a drug interaction that was not accounted for
Mastery
Scheduled to return tomorrow as a different scenario.
Post-answer diagnosis
A wrong answer is a diagnosis, not a verdict
Most question banks tell you the letter you should have picked. PharmaQB tells you why you missed it — a knowledge gap, a reasoning slip, a missed interaction, a misread stem — and moves the concept-level picture of your knowledge accordingly.
Answering confidently and incorrectly is treated differently from guessing. A misconception needs correcting sooner than a gap needs filling.
Spaced repetition
The concept comes back until it sticks
One question on a concept proves very little. Push on the same idea from a different clinical angle, at a different difficulty, with a different patient — then let it return on a schedule built from how you actually answered.
Every review is a new scenario. Passing by remembering last week's answer would not be evidence of anything.
The whole sequence
Six steps, in this order for a reason.
Start from what you're actually studying
Paste a section of your notes or upload a screenshot of a textbook page. PharmaQB reads it and breaks it into the distinct concepts a candidate can be right or wrong about.
Your source is checked before it is trusted
Each concept is compared against authoritative references first. Where your material disagrees with current guidance, you are shown the discrepancy rather than being quietly examined on something out of date.
Original clinical scenarios, not recall prompts
PEBC-style single-best-answer items: a real patient, real medications, real labs, and a judgment to make. The distractors are the answers a candidate reaches by making a specific, nameable error.
Every item is checked before you see it
An independent chain of checks: that it tests the concept it claims to, that every clinical claim is supported by a cited source, that a second model solving it cold reaches the same answer. Calculations are computed by a deterministic engine, never by a model.
A wrong answer is a diagnosis
You are told the likely cause — a knowledge gap, a reasoning slip, a missed interaction, a misread stem. Answering confidently and incorrectly is treated differently from guessing.
The concept comes back until it sticks
Weak concepts return as different clinical scenarios at spaced intervals. Passing by remembering last week's answer is not evidence of anything, so the patient is always new.
What PharmaQB will not do
- Generate a question it cannot support. If there is no authoritative evidence for a concept, PharmaQB refuses rather than writing something plausible. You will sometimes be told “not yet” — that is the feature working.
- Treat your uploaded material as automatically correct. A textbook page is a starting point, not the standard. Where it conflicts with current guidance, you are shown both.
- Claim to be error-free. Automated checks reduce the risk of a wrong item; they do not eliminate it. Every question can be reported, and reported items are pulled from the pool for review.
Bring the page you were about to read anyway
Upload one section of your notes and see what PharmaQB finds in it.