On 3 March 2015, Dr Parastou Donyai and Mr Dan Grant attended the London registration assessment briefing seminar run by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) to learn about the new-style registration assessment being introduced by the pharmacy regulator from June 2016 onwards. After an introduction by Damian Day, Dan and Parastou learnt in detail about the forthcoming changes as representatives of the GPhC Education team and Board of Assessors explained all. From 2016 onwards, candidates (the current cohort of Part 4 students and anyone retaking their registration assessment) will be required to sit two separate papers as follows. The first will contain 40 calculation questions – calculators allowed but importantly, answers are not from a multiple choice list! The second paper will contain 120 MCQ questions – 90 Single Best Answer questions and 30 Extended Matching Items. We were reassured by the fact that the more complex MCQs have now been removed. We look forward to supporting our students to prepare for the registration assessment through our normal processes which includes the use of virtual learning and a separate registration assessment training day for Reading graduates about to sit the exam. But one thing is for sure, nothing can replace the quality of the pre-registration training that candidates receive as the questions all focus on patient cases and application of knowledge.