South Dakota still sits its own state-specific edition of the MPJE. That means the exam you book covers federal pharmacy law and South Dakota’s own statutes and board rules — not a general exam, and not another state’s.
What is different about South Dakota
South Dakota registers pharmacists rather than licensing them. The statute, the rules chapter ('Registration by examination') and the board's own form all say registration, which is why searching for South Dakota pharmacist licensure turns up so little. The exam is the ordinary NAPLEX plus the MPJE, South Dakota edition, 75 to pass each.
What the exam looks like
Every figure above comes from NABP’s 2026 Candidate Application Bulletin, read 2026-10-01. Two things worth knowing that most prep sites still get wrong. There is no passing score to aim at any more: the Bulletin states plainly that “your exam results will be reported as either Pass or Fail – you will not receive a scaled score.” The scaled 75 you will find quoted elsewhere traces to a bulletin from 2020 and no longer appears. And answering at least 107 of the 120 questions is not optional — below that, no result is reported at all, and between 107 and 119 a penalty is applied for what you left unanswered.
What South Dakota tests that federal law does not
The federal layer is the same wherever you sit it: the Controlled Substances Act, the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, HIPAA, and the rest. What changes from one jurisdiction to the next is the part South Dakota writes for itself — the places where the state rule is tighter, slower, or simply different from the federal one. NABP makes no federal-versus-state split in the exam itself, so there is no fixed share to budget for; what there is, is state law you cannot guess from federal law.
That is where the questions come from, and it is where your study time earns the most:
- Licensing, renewal, continuing education and intern requirements
- Controlled substances — state schedules, the prescription monitoring program, partial fills and refill limits
- What a prescription must carry, how it must be labeled, and when substitution is allowed
- Who may work in the pharmacy, in what ratio, and under what supervision
- Record retention, inventory, and what happens when a pharmacy closes
- Grounds for discipline, and what you are obliged to report — and how fast
Where this came from. Every claim on this page traces to a source you can open yourself. This is the South Dakota page it came from:
South Dakota board of pharmacy — licensure and examination information
“The applicant must also complete the Multistate Pharmacy Jurisprudence Examination (MPJE), South Dakota edition.”
No South Dakota quick sheet yet — want one?
I build these in the order people ask for them, not by guesswork. Put your email in and South Dakota moves up the queue. You will also get a note the moment it is ready.
While you wait
Three things on this site are free and will help you whichever jurisdiction you are sitting:
- The federal pharmacy law guide — the part of the exam that is identical everywhere.
- A four-week study method — how to break a jurisdiction’s law into something you can actually revise.
- The exam-by-state map — which law exam each of the 54 jurisdictions requires, kept current.