Key Points to Remember 

1. OPRA tests clinical thinking, not memorisation
2. 3–4 focused hours daily are enough
3. Therapeutics + reasoning carry the highest weight
4. Calculations are guaranteed scoring areas
5. Mocks reduce fear more than revision

AMH, eTG, APF are for intern exams not OPRA

Hey, future Australian pharmacist. If you’re reading this or chances are you’ve already taken the biggest step you’ve decided to prepare for the OPRA exam.

And if you’re feeling overwhelmed right now or let me reassure you: you’re not alone.

I still remember staring at the OPRA syllabus thinking,
“Where do I even start?”
“Am I supposed to remember everything?”
“What if I fail?”

The good news? OPRA is not a memorisation exam.
The better news? With the right structure or you can absolutely crack it.

This blog is your complete 8-week OPRA roadmap or created with guidance from Elite Expertise. One of Australia’s most trusted coaching platforms for overseas pharmacists. If you follow this plan with consistency, you’ll walk into the exam confident and not confused.

First Things First: What Makes OPRA Different?

When the Australian Pharmacy Council officially replaced the KAPS exam with OPRA. It wasn’t just a name change. The entire mindset of assessment shifted. Many students initially assume OPRA is just a tougher version of KAPS but that’s not true. It’s a different kind of exam altogether.

OPRA is designed to test how you think as a pharmacist or not how much information you can memorise the night before the exam.

Traditional exams often ask:

“Do you remember this fact?”

OPRA, on the other hand, asks:

“Can you apply this knowledge safely and logically in a real clinical situation?”

This single difference changes everything about how you should prepare.

In OPRA, you’ll often be given a patient scenario and asked to choose the most appropriate option and not the “technically correct” one. That means you must consider:

• Patient safety
• Clinical reasoning
• Risk vs benefit
• Context of practice in Australia

Because of this:

• Rote memorisation doesn’t work – knowing lists without understanding will confuse you.
• Random book reading doesn’t help – reading without direction wastes time and energy.
• Clinical reasoning becomes everything – your ability to think as a pharmacist matters more than perfect recall.

This is also why OPRA preparation is very different from Intern Written Exam preparation. OPRA is about readiness to enter practice. While the intern exams are about applying Australian references and guidelines. We’ll come back to this distinction later but for now or remember this: OPRA is a thinking exam. It’s not a reading exam.

Meet the Mentors Guiding This 8-Week Plan

Before we dive into the weekly study plan or it’s important to know who is guiding this approach and why their guidance matters.

At Elite Expertise, you are not taught by tutors who only know theory. You are trained by practising Australian pharmacists who face real clinical decisions every single day. This makes a huge difference in how concepts are explained and applied.

Mr. Arief Mohammad

Lead Trainer & Director – Elite Expertise
AACPA Accredited Consultant Pharmacist
Clinical Pharmacist at Northern Health Melbourne

Arief Sir is widely known among students for his “ward-level thinking.” His teaching style mirrors how decisions are made in Australian hospitals and community pharmacies. It is not how answers are memorised from books.

He doesn’t just explain what the correct answer is.
He explains:

• Why is that option safe
• Why are the other options risky?
• How would a pharmacist reason under pressure?

His core belief is simple but powerful:

“If you can explain your reasoning, you can answer any OPRA question.”

This approach builds confidence or not dependency and that’s exactly what OPRA demands.

Mrs. Harika Bheemavarapu

Lead Trainer & Director – Elite Expertise
AACPA Accredited Consultant Pharmacist
Clinical Pharmacist at Monash Health, Melbourne

Harika Ma’am is especially loved by students who struggle with pharmacology or feel overwhelmed by complex mechanisms. Her strength lies in breaking difficult concepts into relatable or memorable ideas.

Students appreciate her for:

• Simplifying complex pharmacology
• Using analogies that genuinely stick
• Training students to think like Australian interns or not overseas graduates

Her teaching mantra is:

“Once you understand the ‘why’, the answer becomes obvious.”

She also plays a key role in helping students shift their mindset from exam-focused thinking to patient-centred clinical reasoning or which OPRA strongly rewards.

Elite Expertise Coaching Philosophy (Very Important)

Elite Expertise follows one powerful principle:

“Smart Study Beats Hard Study.”

This philosophy exists because OPRA punishes unfocused hard work.

So what does smart study actually mean?

It means:

• No unnecessary textbook overload
• No irrelevant international guidelines
• No memorisation without understanding

Instead, OPRA preparation focuses on:

• Core concepts that appear repeatedly
• Clinical application over theory
• Logical elimination of options
• Pattern recognition in patient scenarios

Students are also trained to think in line with the Rasch methodology. Where the exam rewards accuracy or consistency and reasoning rather than blind guessing.

In simple words:
Elite Expertise doesn’t teach you to “study more.”
They teach you to think better and that’s exactly what OPRA is testing.

The 8-Week OPRA Study Plan (Weekly Targets)

Before we jump in or let me say this clearly: this plan is realistic.

It assumes 3–4 focused study hours per day, not 10–12 hour burnout sessions that leave you exhausted and confused. OPRA doesn’t reward overstudying. It rewards clear thinking. Consistency beats intensity every single time.

Think of these 8 weeks as training your clinical brain, not just finishing a syllabus.

Week 1: Building the Foundation (Biomedical Sciences)

Focus Areas

• Anatomy
• Physiology
• Pathophysiology

Many students want to rush past this part and jump straight into drugs. That’s a mistake.

Why start here?
Because you cannot understand how a drug works unless you understand what is going wrong in the body.

OPRA often gives you symptoms first, not the diagnosis. If you understand physiology and pathophysiology or you’ll spot the pattern immediately.

Priority Systems

• Cardiovascular system
• Renal system

These two systems appear again and again in OPRA scenarios hypertension, heart failure, electrolyte imbalances, kidney injury and dose adjustments. If these systems are weak, everything else becomes harder.

Study Strategy

• Focus on normal function first, then the disease
• Ask: What changes in disease states?
• Understand cause → effect → clinical outcome

Don’t waste time memorising anatomical diagrams. Instead, understand:

• Why BP rises
• Why fluid accumulates
• Why kidneys fail to excrete drugs

This week is about building a mental map of the human body so later drug decisions make sense.

Week 2: Pharmacology & Toxicology (The “How” of Drugs)

This week answers the big question:
“How do drugs actually create their effects?”

Core Focus

• Mechanism of action
• Receptors and pathways
• Side-effect logic

Instead of memorising:

“Drug A causes side effect X”

Train yourself to ask:

“Why does blocking or activating this receptor cause this effect?”

That single shift changes how confidently you answer OPRA questions.

Harika Ma’am often reminds students:

“If you can visualise the receptor, you won’t forget the side effect.”

How to Study This Week

• Group drugs by mechanism or not by name
• Learn class effects before individual drugs
• Understand predictable side effects

Use mnemonics only after you understand the logic. Mnemonics without understanding collapse under exam pressure.

This week builds pharmacological intuition, which OPRA tests heavily.

Week 3: PK/PD & Biopharmaceutics (Movement of Drugs)

Let’s be honest this week scares a lot of students.

But here’s the truth: OPRA doesn’t test PK/PD to trick you. It tests whether you understand how drugs behave in real patients.

Key Concepts

• Absorption
• Distribution
• Metabolism
• Excretion (ADME)

Plus clinically relevant ideas like:

• Bioavailability
• Half-life
• First-pass metabolism

You are not expected to do complex equations. You are expected to know:

• Why liver disease affects dosing
• Why renal impairment changes drug choice
• Why some drugs act faster than others

Medicinal Chemistry (OPRA-Relevant Only). This is not about synthesis or structures.

It’s about:

• Why pH affects absorption
• Why formulation matters
• Why does extended-release behave differently?

Elite Expertise simplifies this to only what appears clinically. So you don’t drown in unnecessary chemistry.

Week 4: Therapeutics – Part 1 (The Heavy Hitter Begins)

This is where OPRA really starts to feel like OPRA.

Therapeutics carries the largest weightage and demands the strongest clinical reasoning.

Focus Areas

• Cardiovascular disorders
• Respiratory conditions
• Endocrine disorders

High-Yield Topics

• Hypertension logic (not memorising numbers)
• Diabetes treatment flow
• Asthma vs COPD decision-making
  

OPRA rarely asks:

“Which drug treats this condition?”

Instead, it asks:

“Which option is the MOST appropriate for THIS patient?”

You must consider:

• Comorbidities
• Safety
• Contraindications
• Patient context

This week is when students start thinking like pharmacists instead of exam candidates.

Week 5: Therapeutics – Part 2 (Judgment Matters Here)

This week focuses on areas where clinical judgment and safety matter the most.

Focus Areas

• Infectious diseases
• Neurology
• Mental health

These questions are often subtle. Two options may seem correct but only one is safe.

What to Learn

• Why one option is safer than another
• When NOT to use a drug
• Red-flag symptoms that change decisions

Remember: OPRA is not testing guideline recall. It is testing whether your choice protects the patient.

If you think like a risk-aware clinician and you’ll score well here.

Week 6: Calculations + Pharmacy Law Basics

Good news. This week is your confidence booster. These are predictable or high-yield areas.

Calculations

• Dose conversions
• Creatinine clearance
• Infusion rates

Arief Sir’s golden advice:

“Solve 5–10 calculation questions every day.”

Why?
Because calculations become automatic with repetition and automatic skills don’t fail under pressure.

Pharmacy Law Basics
Focus on:

• Drug schedules (S2, S3, S4, S8)
• Professional responsibilities
• Safe supply principles

These topics are straightforward and score-friendly if studied calmly.

Week 7: Weak Area Surgery (Be Honest With Yourself)

This is the most important and most ignored week.

Ask yourself honestly:

• Where do I keep losing marks?
• Which topics make me panic?
• Which questions drain my time?

What to Do

• Use topic-wise tests
• Analyse errors and not just scores
• Seek mentor feedback
  

Do NOT spend this week revising what you already know well. Growth comes from discomfort.

This week transforms average scores into strong ones.

Week 8: Full Mock Simulation Week (Exam Mode)

Now, you stop “studying” and start performing.

OPRA Exam Format

• 120 questions
• 150 minutes
• About 75 seconds per question

That means:

• No overthinking
• No panic
• Confident decision-making

Practice This Week

• Full-length mock exams
• Sitting for 2.5 hours without distraction
• Time-based answering

Mocks do more than test knowledge. They train your brain to stay calm.

How to Study the “Elite” Way

Preparing for OPRA isn’t about studying more. It’s about studying smarter. Many students fail not because they lack knowledge but because they don’t train their brains the way OPRA demands. This is where the Elite Expertise method truly stands out.

The 3× Rule (Non-Negotiable)

Elite Expertise follows a simple but powerful system called the 3× Rule. It works because repetition builds clarity and confidence not confusion.

1st Watch: Understanding

This is your “big picture” phase. Don’t pause the video too much. Just focus on understanding the concept and flow. Ask yourself:

• What is happening clinically?
• Why does this matter for patient safety?

2nd Watch: Note-Making

Now you slow down. This is where structured notes come in:

• Key concepts
• Decision points
• Common traps OPRA might test

Keep notes short and logical OPRA rewards clarity, not bulky notebooks.

3rd Watch: Recall & Confidence

This is the magic layer. Close your notes and challenge yourself:

• Can I explain this without looking?
• Can I eliminate wrong options confidently?

If you can do this or you’re exam-ready for that topic.

Active Recall (Think Like a Pharmacist)

Passive reading doesn’t work for OPRA.

Instead, explain concepts out loud as if you’re teaching:

• An imaginary patient
• A junior intern
• Or even yourself in the mirror

If you can explain why a drug is chosen and why others are avoided. You’re thinking like an Australian pharmacist not a memoriser.

Elimination Strategy (Your OPRA Superpower)

OPRA questions often have two tempting options. The right answer usually comes from eliminating the unsafe ones.

Train yourself to ask:

• Why is this option wrong?
• Why is this option unsafe for this patient?
• What risk does this option carry?

OPRA rewards safe decision-making or not clever guessing.

Important Clarification: OPRA vs Intern Written Resources

This is critical and often misunderstood 

AMH, eTG, and APF are NOT OPRA study resources.

They are used for:

• Intern Written Exam
• Real-world internship practice

OPRA focuses on:

• Clinical reasoning
• Conceptual understanding
• Safe decision-making

Elite Expertise introduces these reference books after OPRA and during intern exam preparation or exactly when you actually need them. This prevents overload and keeps your OPRA prep clean and focused.

Common Student Struggles (And How to Handle Them)

Feeling lost?
You’re not alone. Join student communities Elite Expertise WhatsApp groups provide motivation or clarity and shared experiences.

Time pressure?
Use the 50-minute study + 10-minute break method. It keeps your brain fresh and focused.

Self-doubt?
Completely normal. Progress is not linear. Some days will feel slow trusting the process.

Final Thoughts: You’re Closer Than You Think

OPRA is challenging but it’s fair.

If you:

• Follow a structured plan
• Focus on reasoning
• Practice consistently

You will clear it.

With mentorship from Arief Sir and Harika Ma’am, and a clear 8-week roadmap. Thousands of overseas pharmacists have already done it and so can you.

Your Australian pharmacy journey doesn’t start on exam day.
It starts today.

Take a deep breath.
Trust the process.
And keep moving forward.