MRCP Part - 2

First of all congratulations on your Part 1 success. You are already one step forward than most of your colleagues on gaining MRCP (UK) qualification, and now you are aiming to go for Part 2. This is a big step forward on your career and you are reading this blog means you are pretty serious about it. Kudos to your effort. I passed my MRCP Part 2 Written Exam of the 2019/02 diet (July 2, 2019). Here, I have prepared my exam experiences and strategies on the question-answer format.

Disclaimer:

These are all my personal views, you listen to all other views, but take a decision yourself. That’s what I did too. All the contents here are my personal experiences and honest reviews and are not intended to promote or advertise any product here. If you find anything here objectionable do contact me so that I can review them from your perspective. Thank you.

What is the total duration of your preparation?

I started preparing for MRCP Part 2 Written Examination, from March 2019. My total duration for preparation was hence 4 months only. However, I still regret this, and feel that had I studied for 6 months, I would have performed even better. I studied for 3 months for my Part 1 exam, and never had such a feeling of inadequacies then.

What is the correct time for taking MRCP Part 2 written examination?

There is nothing as such called correct timing or wrong timing for this examination. You should take it whenever you feel you have the best chance of passing it.

I took my part 2 exam, very soon after passing part 1. I felt that the proximity of these two exams, also helped me a lot in passing part 2 in my first attempt. I got many suggestions from my colleagues, that I am rushing a lot, spending my money senselessly or just taking the exam for the sake of testing my luck, but I never listened to them. No one was in the point to believe me that I could get through it this early, except one person in the world, and that one person was me myself.

As part 1 exam mainly tests your medical knowledge and concepts, and part 2 tests your ability to apply those concepts in clinical settings, I believe that if you take part 2 very far from the part 1 exam, you have to work again on those concepts. Medical science has got a lot of facts, statistics, features, and guidelines to memorize and these are very volatile on memory and on top of that, gets updated frequently. So I thought, my best chance of passing it would be when I take it as close as possible to my part 1 exam. I took part 1 in Jan 2019, got the result on Feb 2019, applied for part 2 in Apr 2019, and sat on the exam in July 2019.

What are the materials available for the part 2 exam?

For any exam, as I have told in my previous blog for part 1, you need a good question bank and a good note to read, revise, and review. The choice of question bank this time will narrow down to mainly two options, Passmedicine and Pastest. Unlike part 1, I heard the name of BMJ On examination very less often this time.

Same goes to the notes as well, you have two choices. Either Magraby notes or Notes & Notes by Hamad. Suda medica (MRCP- The only notes you ever need), is way too less comprehensive for the exam of this depth and caliber.

Besides, there are :

‘Rapid Review of Clinical Medicine for MRCP part 2’ by Sanjay Sharma

‘Complete data interpretation for the MRCP’ by Steven Hughes

‘Radiology for MRCP’ by Dr. Assem Draz

‘Get Through MRCP Part 2: Radiology’ by Singh and Montgomery

‘150 ECG problems’ by John R. Hampton

And lots of google images.

There are also academies to help you prepare for part 2 exam.

What about for image-based questions?

Image based questions are another set of the entity, where most of us are worried a lot. Most of the questions covered in question banks are adequate for the images that appear in the MRCP part 2 exam. In the July diet, we had altogether 40 image-based questions. This image booklet comes separately in high-resolution paper with the question numbers only marked at the top. Images are mostly ECGs, CT Head, CT chest, CT abdomens, Chest X rays, Abdominal X rays, Pelvis X rays, KUB X rays, UGI endoscopic photographs, Humphrey’s visual field test report, Retinoscopic photographs, Dermatology images, Peripheral blood smears, Renal biopsy Histopaths, Thyroid scans, etc.

What are the materials you used for your preparation?

For question bank, I used Pastest. I felt questions in Pastest were more close to the real exam than Passmedicine. However, there are many who also felt Passmedicine to be more representative. So it's mainly up to you to choose any one of these two. If you would ask for my opinion, I would suggest that, if you studied passmedicine for part 1, go for pastest in part 2 and if you studied pastest in part 1, go for passmedicine in part 2. It is because I felt that both of these question banks are required in a journey of your MRCP at some point of time.

For images based questions, both of these question banks are almost adequate. I studied ‘150 ECG problems’ for ECGs, ‘Get through MRCP part 2: Radiology’ for X rays and CT scans, google images for dermatology and renal histopathology, youtube videos for Humphrey’s visual field interpretation, and ‘Interpretation of ABGs by David A Kaufman’ for ABGs.

For study notes, I used Magraby Notes. All the type of study notes for MRCP has its own pros and cons. If you want to know about them, I would like you to read my MRCP part 1 blog.

For MRCP 2, use the same study notes that you used during your part 1 studies. Always remember, revision is the key. I revised Magraby Notes at least 6 times in total, and that helped me a lot. Don’t forget to be updated in all NICE and SIGN guidelines from the official website. Guidelines in these books are all outdated.

What was the modality of your preparation?

My study table during MRCP Part 2 preparation days

Your preparation will fall apart if you don’t have a proper routine and time table. Create your own small targets and achieve those in every single day, this makes learning exciting and you are always motivated on your goal. When I started my preparation, I, first of all, analyzed the number of days I have left for the preparation. Then I divided that number of days with the number of topics I have to cover keeping in mind the number of questions asked from them in the exam. Then I used to study that particular topic quickly from Magraby notes and start solving pastest. At the end of each day, I used to discuss questions on our private Facebook study group. While solving pastest, I used to google images for better insights on that part. During the last 15 days before the exam, we started solving pastest past papers. 2 days before the exam, I did RCP mocks from the official website. Remember, this is the closest mock to the real exam.

Give us your exam day experience

I traveled to UAE a week earlier to sit for this exam (we don’t have MRCP part 2 center in Nepal). On the exam day, I woke up early, took breakfast, packed some fast foods, juices, and chocolates in my bag, took a taxi, and reached the center early. Once I reached the center, I started a brief glance at my Magraby notes. Then after, we were called for ID check to enter inside the hall. I took all my food along with my stationaries inside the hall. One small piece of advice here is, carry at least ten properly sharpened 2B pencils with yourself. Although they provide you with stationery, it will be too cumbersome to sharpen and use it frequently.

My MRCP Part 2 Exam Center, WTC, Dubai

Once you get the question paper, I would recommend you to follow two different strategies for solving problems. If the question is long, start from the last line of the question, then read the option and then only go to the main clinical scenario. This way you will not get carried away by less important facts in the stem. If the question is short, do not read the option first, that will only consume your time, rather just start from the first line of the question as you normally do.

One of the biggest challenges in this exam is time management. You have to maintain a proper pace throughout the examination. This comes with practice. So I always recommend practicing questions in timed mode and doing as many mocks as possible. Mark your answer sheet side by side (unlike my recommendations in part 1), because there are chances that you will never get time to come back to them later.

My first paper didn’t go as expected. I found questions very tough, time management very difficult, and stems very long. But I didn’t get carried away and gave up totally. I continued solving each question with a full concentration no matter whatever happened in the earlier one. At the end of my paper 1, I was almost sure that I am going to fail. On the break time, I rejuvenated myself with a cup of tea and some snacks and took a power nap of 20 mins. I knew I had to come back stronger for paper 2, or otherwise, I have to start everything all again from the beginning. Paper 2 begun, and by god’s grace, this time I found everything within my scope of preparation, most of the questions in this paper were from somewhere I already studied. At the end of the exam, I came out, took out my mobile phone, and texted my mom, “Success Guaranteed”.

No doubt, this is a tough exam, however, passing should not be that difficult, as the overall scaled score to pass is not as high as Part 1.

Before signing off from this post, I would like to remember a famous quote here:

A racing horse never knows the motive of running a race. It just runs harder because of the pain and beat given by its rider. Life is similar. You are a racing horse and god is your rider. So if you feel pain or get beaten, then it's just because God wants you to WIN.

Thank You.