As I have taken so many post-graduate exams by this time so I have developed my own tried-and-successfully-tested technique. I will be sharing it here and I hope it helps others as well.
Prep time:
1.5 month. 1st read in 1 month and 2nd read in 15 days
Resources:
BMJ online subscription for MRCP part 2 exam
My notes from previous exams
Daily study routine:
I took this exam (held on 26th Oct 2023) right after MRCPI Part 1 exam (held on 24th Aug 2023). Thus, my knowledge about the basics like disease diagnoses was pretty fresh. However, I still revised up till the last day as this knowledge is highly volatile (aka forgettable).
Moreover, my life circumstances were pretty tough as I had two babies to take care of; household chores to do and almost no help during the day. So, I used to start studying after my husband finished his work and took over my duties. I was usually too exhausted by this time. Sometimes, I took power naps which occasionally ended in full sleep mode. At other times, I caffeinated myself heavily and kept chewing gums to keep myself awake. (These hacks actually work!).
Lastly, I tried to study full throttle on weekends. Even the full throttle had lunch and chores breaks. So, at best, I perhaps studied 5 or 6 hours in a day and at worst half an hour – 1 hour but I barely took any day completely off from studies. I suppose, people who are working full time would probably have the same time-frame as I did for studies.
BMJ question bank has almost 1800 questions. For the first month, I maintained an average of 60 questions/day and thus finished the first read in this way. Alongside, I kept revising my notes for each system. ( I have explained these notes in the blog on MRCPI part 1 prep. I only added a few notes from the part 2 prep on my ‘phone notes’ and a few more screenshots. But the fundamental notes were the same as for Part 1.)
Then, I finished second read in 15 days with an average of 120 questions/day. I also flagged some questions in this read but did not get a chance to read them for the selective 3rd read. And of course, notes revision was an essential part all along.
My preparation principles were the same as mentioned in the MRCPI Part 1 blog. Slow and steady. Consistency and perseverance. Revise, revise and revise!
I did not study any other books for ECG, radiology or data interpretation. None of my colleagues had recommended these. And neither did I feel the need for them when I was taking the exam. Thus the BMJ Qbank is sufficient in itself.
Exam day:
It was an online exam. I had followed the pre-test instructions received in email. So, I had my photo ID and had the Webcam switched on throughout the exam. The examiner was available via chat box.
There were 2 papers with each paper having 75 questions and 2.5 hrs per paper. Calculator and notepad were available online. In comparison with MRCP UK Part 2: UK exam was much more tough. There were extremely difficult radiology images that I had never seen in my life. I’d even studied extra books for radiology, ECG and data interpretation yet still found the exam very difficult to attempt. Whereas, the Irish exam was much more straightforward and there were at least 20 questions which were word-to-word from BMJ.
Just like Part 1, I attempted almost 40 questions per hour so was finished with the exam half hour before. Then I re-visited the ‘flagged’ questions again and submitted my exam after asking the examiner in the chat box. Phew!
The result:
I received the result about 2 weeks later and viola, I’d passed the exam with 73% marks, Alhamdulilah. The passing marks were 62.8% and the pass rate was 53.6%.
Magic with Action 
Leave a comment