How to prepare for GPAT?

How to prepare for GPAT?



  • If you are reading this article means you have decided to attempt the GPAT.

  • Well here I will be explaining step by step how to prepare for the same, so let's start.


1) Prepare your mindset:



  • Yes this is the most important step.

  • Tell your mind that "I am going to appear and crack GPAT no matter what?"

  • Keep yourself away from negative people.

  • Forget everything and concentrate only on the study now.

2) Procurement of Study Material:



  • Well without weapons how can you fight right?

  • Most of the students I have seen started this step by running behind seniors for the collection of so-called NOTES.

  • Well I am strictly against this, instead, I strongly recommend READING and Healthy GROUP DISCUSSION.

3) List of books:




  •   Pharmaceutics: Leon Lachman is the most widely used book and most referred for the exam.


  • Do all the chapters, starting from Milling, mixing to semisolid dosage forms. All the tables of Lachman are important.


  • Questions will be mostly from Lachman.

  • I suggest also read from "Ansel (Capsule)", "Aulton (Tablets)"



  • Chapters: Milling, Mixing, Size reduction and separation, Drying, Filtration, Aerosols, Sterilizations, Suspension, Emulsion, Parenterals, Micro-encapsulation, Semisolids, Suppositories, compression and Consolidation, Tablets, Capsules, Coating, Liquid dosage forms, Preformulation etc.



  • Martin/Subramanyam: Subramanyam should be referred for all chapters. However, States of matter and last 2 chapters should be referred from Martin.



  • Brahmankar: Very very important book Read this book very cautiously as there are many questions prone to come from this book



  • ADME chapters, Nonlinear Pharmacokinetics, Compartment modeling (all methods like Wegner Nelson, Residual method, Loo Reigelman, NDDS, All equation of AUC, Tmax, Cmax, Clearance etc.



  • Read all dose calculations formula from RM Mehta.



  • Cosmetics: Read essential ingredients of each cosmetic formulation and their use.  


    2.)  Pharmacology:


  • Rang and Dale

    -         Tables and boxes of each chapter, bold letter points from the book.


  • Initial chapters are very important from the book like receptors, signal transduction.


  • Everything should be known about receptors.


  • Mechanism of action of drugs, classification (Refer KDT also for this), adverse effects, Specific use, haematology, vaccines etc from K.D. Tripathi

    -         Receptor- theories, type: spare, silent, orphan, pre & post synaptic.

    -          Concept of CGMP, CAMP, desensitization, tachyphylaxis , drug dependence .drug interaction.

    -         . Detail study –antimalarial, anti TB, antileishmanial, anti-diabetic bioassay



  • For detailed study I strongly recommend GOODMAN & GILLMAN,

  • Also read from Barar, Satoskar.



  • 3) Organic Chemistry

    -Stereochemistry (from all 3 books – Brahmankar, Morrison and Jerry March)

    - Concepts like hybridization, inductive effect, hyper conjugation, resonance, acidity and basicity comparison between heterocyclic’s, aliphatic and aromatics.

    -         Name reactions (30-35)

    -         Bio-molecules from Morrison-Boyd

    -         Glossary from Mehta and Mehta

    -         Name and formula of all the catalysts used in chemical processes

    -          All the rules in chemistry (Markovnikov, Antimarkonikov, Bredt’s etc)

    -         SN1,SN2,E1,E2, Huckel’s rule,

    -         Ester Hydrolysis mechanism, tautomerism, pericyclic reactions, Diels Alder reaction.



  • For detailed study I strongly recommend Wilson & Grisvold.

  • Also read from Foye.



  •  4.     Analysis:


    • Ø NMR (Kemp and Pavia): NMR values, standards, solve simple spectra’s, and instrumentation etc.

    • Do read Ravishankar.

    • Mass Spectroscopy(Pavia)

    • Ø UV (Pavia)

    • Ø IR(Pavia)

    Do read Kasture, Ravishankar and Chatwal for all chapters.


    • Ø AAS, Fluorimetry, Flame photometry etc. (Kasture, Ravishanakar, Chatwal)

    • Ø Chromatography (Kasture, Ravishanakar, Chatwal)

    • Ø Karl-Fischer

    • Ø Titrations

    • Ø DSC, TGA, XRD, FTIR

    • Ø Stability studies and its conditions and zones of stability

    •  

    • 5.  Pharmacognosy: 

    • Kokate (all chapters including marine drugs)

    Evans: Marine drugs, Quality control, Flavanoids, Caretenoids etc

    Refer Khandelwal for tables of characteristics of imp drugs, chemical tests, and Microscopies (generally type of stomata, type of leaf is asked).

    Biosynthetic Pathways, primary and secondary metabolites, Nutraceuticals, Plant growth regulators from Wallace.

    6.     Biochemistry:


  • All important chapters like Carbohydrates, protein, lipids, cell structure, vitamins, enzymes, nucleic acids, PCR, Porphyrins, metabolism cycles, Lac operon, biochemical values,


  • Biochemical Tests, Fermentation etc, industrial enzymes, vaccines and other biotech products, Electrophoresis.

  • I recommend you to use Lippincott, Deb, Satyanarayan



  • 7.     Microbiology:


  • Bacterial cell wall, growth, Disease-causing organisms from fungi, bacteria, Rickettsiae etc, diagnostic tests, microbial assays, Hypersensitivity, Immunology, Virus, Industrially utilized organisms.

  • I recommend you to use Pelzar for microbiology.



  • 8.     IP: Blue pages in it, Solubility limits, temperature limits, Dissolution apparatus, limits of tablets, capsules, semisolids etc



  • Also refer BP, USP, NF.



  • What’s NEW????

     1.     General Knowledge: Read everyday news paper. Remember current happenings.

    2.     Pharmaceutical News: Subscribe to Fierce pharmaceutical mails, Read pharmaceutical news from Economic times or another site from web.

    3.     Nobel Prize winners: Name and his work. Recent award getters and all Indian Noble prize winners and their area.

    4.     New Drugs approvals: Read the drugs approved in last 3 months and their use from USFDA site.

    5.     Regulatory: Read some guidelines and like 505b2 (Hybrid NDA), 505b1 etc.

    6.     New Drug application (NDA), Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA), Supplementary NDA, Emergency NDA, Treatment NDA

    7.     Intellectual Property Rights: Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks etc. Fees for patents, duration, time for processing for patent, provisional patent, WIPO, TRIPS, Mail-box applications, Orange book, Hatch-Waxman Act, Para 1,2,3, 4 and what are they used for, compulsory licence, Transfer of Technology and Capture of Technology, TRIMS, Patent Organization Treaty etc.

    8.     Full forms

     9.     Synonyms/Antonyms/ Vocabulary

     10.   Biostatistics: Mean, Median, Mode, Standard deviation, Correlation coefficients, confidence intervals, Probability, Permutation and combination, ANOVA (use, definition, and formula), t-test (Use, definition and formula) etc.

    11.  Amorphous systems: Definition, methods for amorphous generation, Glass transition (Tg), vitrification, devitrification, Methods for Tg determination etc.

    12.  Jurisprudence: Schedules, Members in committee, places of institutes, important years related to Act and laws in pharmacy.

    13.  Bank: various banks in INDIA, their CEO’s, their year of establishment and other information

    14.  World Regulatory agencies of various countries: INDIA (CDCSCO), ANVISA (Brazil), TGA (Australia), FDA (USA), EMEA (Europe).

    15.  Gene sequencing, Alignment tools etc.

     16.  Stages of formulation development

    17.  Basic knowledge about NABARD, Planning commission etc.

    18.  Symbols for amino acids

    19.  Top 10 pharmaceutical companies in India and World

    20.  Softwares

    21. Refer all previous years papers

HOW TO STUDY:


how to prepare for GPAT

  • Most of the articles suggest you divide days as per subjects etc.

  • But here I will tell you to listen to your heart.

  • Open the book you wanted to read start reading it, get the content understood.

  • Correlate the content with other subjects.

  • e.g. Reading pharmacology of antimalarials. correlate it with chemistry, biochemistry, anatomy, clinical etc.

  • Get into a healthy group discussion every 4 hrs with your partner (for practice and to kill boredom).

  • Keep mind fresh by changing subjects, attempting online mock tests.

  • Keep the habit of daily reading at least 10 pages from random topics from book REMINGTON or SHARGEL.

  • Ensure you are done with the above-given list.

  • See 100% coverage is essential.

That's it for now, next article I well tell you how to write the paper. All the Best.

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