Passed plab 1 today Alhamdulillah.
I couldnt have done it without the help of these wonderful plab groups that offer a generous service free of charge.
Thanks to all the ex plabbers who shared their valuable experiences.
Study time:
2 months with a job
Material: 1700 Dr.Khalid (new Edition),Plabable with mocks,a few Swammy mocks downloaded from one of the plab groups and Samson Notes.
Study Method:
I first went through the everpopular 1700 and also went through the explanations.
This forms a good base roughly and gives you an idea as to what topics you should be reading.
I then went through Samson notes but couldn’t complete all.This is necessary to clear doubts and build concepts.Watched a few videos by dirty usmle which was fun as well as a very useful learning resource!
I did a few swammy mocks to assess my level.
Lastly I subscribed to Plabable and went through the explanations which was time consuming but this I believe was the most crucial step.The length of questions in plabable resembles closely to the actual test.
Finally,I took the 18 mocks available with Plabable subscription and went through my wrong answers.
Tips: What I really felt after taking the exam,was that ,it was a race against time.Apart from knowledge one strictly needs to follow time and please practise at home in a timed mode so that you know how many questions you would need to cover in a certain time period.Most of the candidates failed because of the lengthy questions and ofcourse no doubt the difficulty level for this exam was much more as compared to the previous ones.
The other thing that you really need to focus upon is concepts.Its not enough to read through the mcq’s.Its important to read the explanations and clarify the doubts if any.
There may be similar questions but not exact questions.
On the exam day,if you are not sure about any question,skip and attempt others.I would recommend marking answers simultaneously as it may be highly risky to leave it to the last minute.
You have to maintain a very fast pace while reading the questions and develop a habit of skimming through important facts rather than the unnecessary distracting info as given in the stem.Predict answers before you read the choices.
Best of luck