Pharmacology Study Guide 2026
Everything you need to pass the Pharmacology exam in one place: the exam format, every topic to study, real practice questions with explanations, flashcards, and full-length practice tests. Free, no sign-up needed.
📋 Pharmacology Exam Format at a Glance
📚 Pharmacology Topics to Study (67)
✍️ Sample Pharmacology Questions & Answers
1. The concept of 'biased agonism' (functional selectivity) refers to:
Biased agonists stabilize distinct receptor conformations that preferentially couple to G-protein vs. beta-arrestin pathways, enabling therapeutic selectivity.
2. A patient has chronic kidney disease with a GFR of 20 mL/min. Which pharmacokinetic parameter is most directly affected?
Renal clearance is directly reduced in CKD as glomerular filtration rate declines, prolonging drug half-life.
3. Which drug class does warfarin belong to as its prototype anticoagulant?
Warfarin is the prototype vitamin K antagonist anticoagulant, inhibiting synthesis of clotting factors II, VII, IX, and X.
4. Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (TDM) is most clinically useful for drugs that exhibit which of the following characteristics?
TDM is most valuable for drugs where there is a small margin between the effective concentration and the toxic concentration (a narrow therapeutic range). It is also crucial when there is high inter-individual variability in how the drug is absorbed, distributed, metabolized, and excreted, making standardized dosing unreliable. [4, 8, 16]
5. A patient on warfarin begins taking amiodarone. What INR adjustment is expected?
Amiodarone inhibits CYP2C9, reducing warfarin metabolism and raising INR, so the warfarin dose must be reduced.
6. Digoxin toxicity is potentiated by hypokalemia because:
Potassium and digoxin compete for the same binding site on the Na/K-ATPase; low potassium means less competition and enhanced digoxin binding and toxicity.