Passed plab1 with 147/180. Thanks a lot everyone who helped me.I have gained a lot from this group ,so here I am writing this to help the future plabbers. It’s a long post, so read it when you really have time.
A few points in a nutshell:
- Get your English test cleared asap. IELTS/OET, it’s your choice, choose one and move on.
- Book the plab1 as soon as you clear English test.
- Subscribe plabable immediately. If you want to be on the safer side , subscribe pass medicine also, it’s not a compulsion, it’s your decision.
- Get a got hold on theory, sources are Samson notes, OHCM, or any mrcp notes.
- Do theory and plabable simultaneously, take notes while solving mcq, these notes help a lot during revision.
- Revise plabable at least twice.
- 10-15 days before exam, start doing recent swammy/Samson mocks, don’t get bothered about scores, just do it for time management. Plabable mocks can be used as revision.
- Sleep well on the previous night of exam. Pray well and eat well before the exam. Enter the exam hall confidently and give your best, success will be yours.
Regarding passmedicine, I have seen people asking two common doubts.
- Why passmedicine? It is for mrcp only na?
Actually passmedicine is an online question bank which has subscriptions for many exams amongst which plab and mrcp are available. - Are passmedicine mrcp and passmedicine plab the same ?
No, they are totally different. Mrcp and plab have overlapping topics but still they both are two different exams with plab having a few additional topics, so the subscriptions are different for both exams and questions are also different.
I used to read the success/experience posts in this group and adapted the methods I found comfortable for me, so I would like to write about my experience. I hope it will be of help to the future plabbers. Firstly, it’s my IELTS journey. I took it twice and both times my score was the same L7.5, R8.5, W6.5 ,S8. I rectified my writing a lot after my first attempt, and I was sure I had written a better essay in my second attempt, so I went with re-evaluation and got it improved to 7. If anyone wants me to write about my IELTS experience in detail, please leave a comment, I will post it separately.
Take home point : If you are confident about it, go for re-evaluation, otherwise retake the exam . I would say it involves a little amount of luck as well. If it’s really frustrating, go for OET. It’s the way it is, no use brooding over it, so just choose one and move on.
I wanted to take November 2018 attempt but couldn’t book because of my IELTS delay. So I booked March exam as soon as I got my IELTS re-evaluation, and started my preparation. I had collected all the materials from Facebook and WhatsApp groups. I strongly felt that I didn’t have a good hold on theory, so I wanted to make it strong. I personally didn’t feel comfortable reading from OHCM , I felt Samson notes was too less, so I decided to give a rapid reading from mrcp notes and solved plabable simultaneously and took notes (It’s just my method, you can follow this only if it’s comfortable for you. I did a very superficial reading from notes, I didn’t go into too much details since plab is an easier exam) And then after this, I repeated the whole process again. Plabable had around 15 topics not covered by mrcp notes, so I read them from Samson notes and plabable links .I went through 500-600 questions from 1700 and found them not useful, so left it . And then 20 days before exam , I started doing plabable mocks, it was like a revision to me and I scored above 90% in all mocks and I used to finish them in 75-80 mins . That gave me the confidence to start the other mocks. I got the recent swammy mocks from my friend and found them really helpful. I heard from people that recent Samson mocks were also equally good. So you can use either. And I also went through 2-3 recalls and clinchers.
On the exam day : I was very confident when I started the test, but by the tenth question, I knew I was being screwed. By the end of first hour, I solved only 35 questions and literally felt like crying. I saw people around me and they were reaching near 100 in their answer sheet. And then I decided not to look around, made a 2 mins self-motivation talk inside my head and started doing the remaining questions with utmost concentration. There was one ethics question for every 5 questions , so I was very irritated at one point thinking too much for those questions . And then I just decided to answer the ethics question according to what I felt was correct . I finished exactly 4 mins before the time, and then I was asked to shade the boxes properly by the invigilator , so I did that in the last couple of minutes.
Take home point : Time management is very important in exam , aim for 70 questions each in the first two hours and the remaining in the last hour.
After the exam I felt devastated and felt that I was going to fail, because I could recall only the doubtful questions. I checked my answers in the recalls the following day and felt relieved and was confident that I would pass. Even then , nobody was sure about the ethics answers , I think it’s an unsolved mystery lol.
I can see a lot of posts by future plabbers asking queries on question banks : whether passmedicine is mandatory to pass. Again I would like to make it clear that it’s ultimately your choice. Read the success posts of everyone , grab the points most suitable to you and follow them. Keeping in mind the changing pattern of the exam, it would be safe if you did passmedicine along. There are people who pass with plabable alone, so decide for yourself. If passmedicine is too much, just try doing 100 questions from each topic which would suffice.
Another important advice : give equal weightage for all 25 topics in Plabable. In our paper more questions were asked from ethics and pharmacology. We never know how the forthcoming papers are going to be. So it’s wise to read all topics in depth.
Good luck to everyone who is taking their exams in June. Prepare well, success is all yours.