A revision timetable only works if it fits your actual life. The best plan on paper is useless if you abandon it after three days because it assumed you had eight free hours every day and the focus of a monk.
This guide builds a weekly structure around the Common Registration Assessment framework, so your time goes where the marks are.
Ground the timetable in the framework
Before filling in a single time slot, open the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) assessment framework. It shows you exactly which topic areas are assessed and how they are weighted.
High-weighted areas carry 60 to 70 percent of the assessment content. Medium-weighted areas carry 25 to 35 percent. Low-weighted areas carry up to 10 percent.
Your timetable should roughly mirror those proportions. If high-weighted topics are not taking up the majority of your study time, the plan is already off balance.
Work out your available hours first
Be honest about how much time you actually have. If you are working full-time during foundation training, you might realistically have 2 to 3 hours on weekday evenings and longer blocks on days off. If you are studying full-time, you have more — but not as much as you think once you account for rest, admin and the fact that nobody can concentrate productively for 10 hours straight.
Write down your fixed commitments for the week. Then fill in the gaps with study blocks. Leave at least one full day with no revision. Recovery is not a luxury — it protects the quality of every other session.
A template weekly structure
This is a starting point, not a rigid prescription. Adjust the hours and topic assignments to fit your circumstances.
Monday: Calculations — timed set of 10 questions plus error review. Then 45 minutes on a high-weighted Part 2 topic using questions, not just reading.
Tuesday: Different high-weighted Part 2 topic. Focus on Single Best Answer (SBA) and Extended Matching Question (EMQ) practice. Review every wrong answer and log the knowledge gap.
Wednesday: Lighter day. 30 minutes of calculation practice. Then revisit errors from Monday and Tuesday using your error log.
Thursday: Medium-weighted Part 2 topic. Same approach — questions with full review. 20 minutes of British National Formulary (BNF) navigation practice if your question bank includes reference-lookup questions.
Friday: Mixed session. Calculations plus a different high-weighted clinical area. This builds the habit of switching between question types, which mirrors the real assessment.
Saturday: Mock exam or long timed question set under real conditions. Sit it properly — timed, no interruptions, no looking things up. After finishing, do a full review of every wrong answer.
Sunday: Rest. Or light review of your error log if you feel like it, but no structured study.
Keep calculations in every week
Part 1 is 40 calculations in 2 hours. Calculation accuracy degrades without regular contact, so do at least a short timed set on most study days. Even 15 to 20 minutes of calculation practice is enough to maintain sharpness if you do it consistently.
Use your error log to steer the plan
After every practice session, note what you got wrong and why. After a week, review the log. If the same topics keep appearing, shift your timetable to give those areas more time. If a topic has stopped appearing in your errors, you can reduce its share and redirect that time elsewhere.
This makes the timetable responsive rather than rigid. A plan that adapts to your actual performance data is far more efficient than one that blindly marches through topics on a set schedule.
When to start mock exams
Most trainees benefit from starting full-length mocks around 4 to 6 weeks before the assessment. Before that point, focused topic sets are more useful because they let you isolate and fix specific weaknesses.
Once you start mocks, fit one into your week — typically on a day when you have a longer block available. The review afterwards matters as much as the mock itself.
What to do if you fall behind
It happens. The fix is not to panic and try to cram everything into fewer days. Instead, look at what you missed, decide what matters most based on the framework weightings and your error log, and adjust the next week accordingly.
Falling behind on a low-weighted topic is not a crisis. Falling behind on a high-weighted topic is — and that is where your catch-up time should go.
Quick FAQs
- How many hours per week do I need? There is no universal number. What matters is consistency and quality. A trainee doing 12 to 15 focused hours per week with proper error review will typically outperform someone doing 25 unfocused hours.
- Should I study the same topic all day? Not usually. Splitting a day between two topics — or between calculations and Part 2 content — keeps your attention sharper and builds the flexibility you need on exam day.
- When should I start this timetable? Ideally at least 8 to 12 weeks before the assessment. That gives you enough time to cover the framework properly and still have several weeks of mock exam practice at the end.
- What if I work shifts and my week is different every time? Plan week by week rather than using a fixed repeating template. Slot your study blocks into the gaps around your actual rota. The content principles — prioritise high-weighted areas, keep calculations regular, review errors — stay the same regardless of the schedule shape.