Hi guys, just wanted to give back to the community after passing my November PLAB 1 (alhumdulillah) and let you know what I did.
Resources:
Plabable once
Medrevisions once
(I found PLAB 1 Keys too late and only read it the last 2 days)
I had approximately 5 weeks to study and had planned only to study Plabable. I broke down Plabable by subject and had given myself 2 days per subject - but wasn’t very strict with it. I’d do questions, read the description below regardless of whether I got the question right or wrong and follow on with the additional links. I made notes on whatever I felt I needed to understand better or if it included something specific in regards to the NICE/ SIGN/ BTS guidelines and protocols. The first few weeks passed by and I did a mock - scored 85% and thought “Oh I’ve got this”.
During that time, the September cohort results came out and had really frightened everyone including me due to their high failure results. Plabable definitely wasn’t enough and if it was, you had to do it at least 3x from what I gathered and should have been scoring >90-95% on Plabable.
I anxiously bought Medrevisions and planned to do 2 mocks a day plus review in order to finish their QBank of 4000+ questions (over 11-12 days as my exam was 2 weeks later). I honestly feel like that’s what made the difference - they repeat topics and questions in different ways that really solidify your knowledge. While Plabable made sure you know the bare minimum to pass the exam (and don’t get me wrong, it’s a great resource if you’ve done it multiple times) - Medrevisions ensures you’ve got updated knowledge and you understand it in the long run. I scored 63% in my first mock (the shock of that frightened me even more after doing so well on Plabable) and eventually was scoring a consistent 77-80% in my subsequent mocks with 40-60 minutes to spare. My true exam grade reflected that mark: 140 with 5 minutes to spare.
Good luck for those who are writing the exam!
Edit. I feel like I need to add I am affiliated with NONE of the above resources.