You have to understand that almost everyone who said that (including me), worked 3 or 4 straight years as an intern and have more than 4,000 hours lifetime practice (I officially stopped declaring start of 3rd year at 2,000 non-school hours). I usually believe it, especially out of my generation who I knew had people drunk take the exam as a masochistic exercise and passed. The exam then and now is supposed to be set where a practicing pharmacist should be able to cold-turkey pass the exam. The calculations are bordering on that, but no, "they so happened to know" mostly comes down to enough practice experience that you know the situations where and where not to use them. I actually recommend if someone fails NAPLEX a second time to become an intern and work some hours (that hasn't happened in my alma mater for several years). I did overprepare for my NAPLEX, because I had that experience to go on. And yes, I haven't practiced standard pharmacy in several years, and took what you are going to take in November as a calibration measure for NABP, and handily passed without studying more than Ansel's calculations the night before as I never did aliquots or mOsm in practice. The questions you will face are actually less theoretical than the ones I did more than a decade ago. Whether it is harder or not does depend on some luck with what you are give.
But, life happens (
@KoreanPharmacist) and no level of preparation can always make up for life, so I'd say that it was a personal fluke, do a better job preparing in study as you self-admitted that you were underprepared, but also including some working as a graduate intern as it is very helpful to have tactile context for the drugs. I'd recommend you quickly scan PI's of anything you don't recognize the use, the MOA, or the dosing/contraindications in any standard retail or hospital pharmacy. And pick a better guy/gal next time
...
Again, please don't leave your preparation just to textbook study, work (it's called a practice for a reason) a bit to remember the context of what is being examined as well as why.
