[.ca] Complete Review for the Pharmacy Technician (ISBN 1582120099)

Far too generalized to prepare an individual for the exam...:
I am preparing to take the National Pharmacy Technician test. I have sought adequate test preparation materials recently and acquired this book. One would think that a text published by the American Pharmaceutical Association (APhA) would most certainly be a great choice for study preparation. But in my opinion, it's not - it is too general to be useful. Perhaps I am somewhat biased due to my previous pharmacy experience, but I do not need a book that takes entire chapters to generalize how a pharmacy operates. This book makes generalized statements such as, "Regardless of the role you play in a pharmacy and the type of pharmacy you work in, you will be called on to interact with other people." Well, that's a no-brainer Sherlock. In that particular chapter, 8, the author continues to talk about communication 101 - about encoding and decoding messages and other obvious information. Out of approximately 200 pages of text, I highlighted perhaps a mere two-dozen sentences. This book, to me, is far to philosophical to be useful. You will learn the philosophy of pharmacy on the job as you learn and do according to the buisiness of which you are a part. This book is even more disappointing when compared to its counterpart, APhA's Complete MATH Review for the Pharmacy Technician (ISBN 1-58212-012-9), which focuses specifically on pharmacy math while leaving the philosophy out of the equation. That book, the APhA MATH Review, is an excellent preparation tool, focused and simplified for even the most math-phobic individuals. And I have reviewed (am studying) another text of which I would actually recommend - Delmar's Pharmacy Technician Certification Exam Review (ISBN 0-7668-0743-6). It omits the generalization and philosophy and even provides helpful "quick study" pages that summarize the most important details of each chapter - something very helpful for those of us who are better at concise memorization. These are all just my opinions, but I approached each book excited and with an open mind. This book just left me wishing I had spent all of my time in the other books instead. I gave it 2 stars because the nature of this topic is extensive and deserves points for effort. For what it's worth to you....