Designing appropriate assessments is essential in driving student learning. Building on previous Learning, Teaching and Assessment (LTA) Enhancement Funding, we explored the knowledge demands embedded in a pharmacology assessment. Using Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) (a toolkit for the analysis of different social practices, including the analysis of curriculum, assessments and teaching and learning practices) and using one of its dimensions i.e. Semantics, this study was the first to examine and make visible the knowledge demands in a pharmacology summative assessment. Assessment research is central to enhancing and transforming teaching and learning in Higher Education. This landscape is in constant flux, staff and student demographics are constantly changing. Thus, there is a growing need for inclusive assessment which underpins inclusive learning and teaching. LCT analysis can aid in highlighting both current and future plans for a range of coherent, integrative as well as diverse assessments to support students develop competencies for current academic and future work requirements. LCT assessment analysis importantly can provide a framework for shift(s) in assessments that can guide students incrementally from a pure disciplinary focus to one that may enable them to pursue employment in diverse workplaces. In summation, greater attention and awareness of assessment demands by examiners is warranted to enable students demonstrate varying levels of cognitive complexities.