My Background
I have never prepared for any postgraduate medical exams before. I initially booked MRCP Part 1 exam in January 2025 and did not study anything (literally) until the first week of January. I thought I can cram everything within the last two weeks before the exam. So I took some leave, hoping to go all in. But instead, I found myself unable to concentrate for more than 15 minutes at a time—my attention span was destroyed, and my ability to focus deeply had disappeared. As a result, I solved only around 5% of all the Passmed questions, studied roughly for 13 hours in total, sat for the exam hoping for a miracle… and failed.
That failure was a turning point. I realised I needed a complete lifestyle reset. I tackled my social media addiction, cut down on endless scrolling, and began preparing for the May attempt starting in March. March was slow—I only managed to finish two systems—but things picked up in early April when my serious preparation began. I was working full time, but a mix of annual leave, study leave, and a few in-lieu days gave me the breathing room to focus. What follows is a combination of what I did, and what I would have done if I had more time. If you are aiming to pass with focused, efficient effort in a short time, keep reading!
Materials:
- Passmedicine subscription
- System-wise Pastpapers subscription from MRCP Updates
- Pastest subscription
- ChatGPT or any other AI of your choice
- Flashcards
Step 1: Laying the Groundwork
This is the core of your preparation. I used Passmedicine as the backbone of my entire strategy. You have to believe that you can pass the exam without the need for any textbook and most local grads pass the exam without one. But you do need to use your resources smartly.
A. Using Passmedicine Effectively
1. Set Up Your Study Station:
Open three tabs in your web browser
- Passmedicine question bank
- Passmedicine high-yield textbook
- ChatGPT (or similar AI)
2. Choose a System to Start:
- Don’t start with small or easy topics. I highly recommend tackling the harder/larger systems first—get the “frogs” out of the way early (read Eat That Frog to see what I mean) and leave the small (and ?easy) ones for later, close to exam date.
- For example, begin with Cardiology or Neurology, not ophthalmology or psychiatry.
3. Solve Questions Directly
- No pre-reading. Just dive in. Start solving questions directly, without reading any theory from any text-book.
- Turn AI mode on before starting to solve questions. Thank me later.
- Read the question and try to answer. If you don’t know the answer, try to eliminate some of the options (method of exclusion) and see if you can find a possible answer. If you still don’t know the answer, just answer randomly.
- Once you have answered, read the whole explanation. It does not matter if your answer is correct or not, you MUST go through the explanation. You need to realize why the correct answer is indeed the correct answer and why the rest of the options are incorrect.
- Then read the the high yield textbook for that topic. Focus Your Memory on High-Yield Facts, which includes:
- Mechanism of action of drugs
- Site of drug action
- Adverse effects
- First-line drugs
- Screening and first lineinvestigations
- Gold standard investigations
- Confirmatory investigations
- Stepwise investigations
- Stepwise management (eg: Heart Failure, Angina, Diabetes etc)
- Good and poor prognostic factors
- Genetic patterns (e.g. inheritance pattern, recurrence risk)
- Associated antigens/antibodies/diseases
- Highlight important areas of the high-yield textbook. Don’t highlight all the information, highlight the information that you may struggle memorizing.
- Have a look at the comment section. The comments below questions can be unexpectedly helpful—many learners post clever mnemonics or explanations.
- If you have any confusion with anything, instead of checking textbooks and watching youtube videos, use chatgpt. They’re insanely helpful. For example, I could never remember PSC and PBC, so I asked chatgpt and it me made a very nice chart which made the memorization way easier.
4. Make Flashcards:
Don’t trust your memory. If something’s difficult to remember, convert it into a flashcard immediately. You can use flashcard apps ie Anki/Quizlet/Brainscape or use physical cards. I am a pen and paper person and I prefer physical flashcards.
5. (Optional) Use AI-Generated Questions: Passmedicine offers AI-generated questions for extra practice. Once you have read a topic from the high-yield textbook, if you want to check how well you have memorized the information, you can solve the AI questions. Bear in mind, these don’t affect your main score, but they’re useful for checking recall after reading a topic.
6. Read all the Relevant Topics:
After you’ve attempted 1 question + explanation + high yield textbook and also the comment section, go to the other tab of high-yield textbook. Read all the relevant textbook topics. For example, if the first question was related to hypothyroidism, read all the high-yield textbook topics related to hypothyroidim eg: Hashimoto, De-quervan, Subclinical hypothyroidism etc.
7. Go to the Next Question:
Once you have read all the relevant topics from the high-yield textbook, go back to question bank, go to the next question and follow the steps mentioned above.
B. Active Recall with flashcards:
Active recall is the cornerstone of memory. It is a learning technique that involves repeatedly testing yourself on previously learned material. Instead of passively reviewing notes, active recall requires you to actively retrieve information from your memory, which strengthens neural connections and improves long-term retention. The concept is- You remember information by trying to retrieve it, not by re-reading it.
You need to revise the information that you are strugling to memorize. But reading them again and again is not going to do any good, you have to try to check if you can remember them. That is where flashcards work like magic. Make loads of flashcards and use them daily. Do not just revise/re-read the flashcards, try to answer the question. You can use popular flashcard apps ie Anki, Quizlet or Brainscape or make physical flashcards using pen and paper, like I did.
I bought the following items to make flashcards:
- https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B07X7LLV2Z?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
- https://www.amazon.co.uk/your-orders/pop?ref=ppx_yo2ov_mob_b_pop&orderId=205-0616826-7006761&lineItemId=moqiqwqnqqptooy&shipmentId=U6yw03Lkm&packageId=1&asin=B07JBCG9FJ
C. Spaced Repetition:
I first heard about Spaced Repetition from the following video of famous youtuber Ali Abdaal. If you have time, watch these videos:
- https://youtu.be/Lt54CX9DmS4?si=IfPJzkzIOfB73IUC
- https://youtu.be/fDbxPVn02VU?si=B7PWVeNr7MIoGgez
The summary is, we naturally forget new information quickly — a concept known as the Forgetting Curve, first described by Ebbinghaus. Without review, most of what we learn fades within days.
Spaced repetition is an evidence based technique that combats this normal physiology of forgetting by reviewing a topic at increasing intervals, just as we’re about to forget it. Each review strengthens the memory and slows down forgetting, making learning more efficient and long-lasting.
During my preparation, I used this technique during my daily commute to work — around 30–40 minutes in the morning and evening. I used to revise the flashcards that I have prepared. This small habit made a big difference in retaining key clinical knowledge.
For example, if I have read cardiology today, I would revise all the flashcards I made on cardiology on day 2, day 5, day 10 …..
You need to revise continuously as you progress through passmed. I used a combination of Spaced Repetition with Active Recalls to remember the information I have gathered by solving passmed qbank.
Step 2: Effective Revision:
After one full round of Passmedicine questions, it’s time to revise strategically.
1. Start Systemwise Revision
- Go through high yield textbook from passmed + your own notes/flashcards. While going through passmed, start with important topics, not in an alphabetical order. Read them all, but start with important topics.
- Review Flagged questions and questions you got wrong. Once you have finished going through the topics, go through the questions that you flagged + questions you got wrong in the first go. Unflag some of the questions that you think you won’t need to revise again before the exam.
2. Systemwise Pastpapers
Once you finish revising a system (your notes + high yield textbook + flagged and Then do systemwise pastpapers from mrcp updates. Then move to the next system. Finish revising all the systems in this way.
3. Simulate Exam Conditions with Pastpapers from Pastest:
Once you have completed your revision of all the systems as outlined above, begin working through Pastpapers from Pastest. Aim to complete as many pastpapers as possible. When attempting them, simulate exam conditions—sit down with a timer and approach each paper as if it’s the real exam. Keep a blank sheet of paper beside you to note down any topics you’ve forgotten or areas you feel require further review. Also, flag any questions you’re unsure about. After completing each paper, carefully review the explanations for all the questions you answered incorrectly as well as the ones you flagged for review.
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