My PLAB 1 Experience

July 24, 2019

My PLAB 1 Experience

* Follow 'PLAB Made Easy', an online platform on Instagram where I post information on important topics asked in the exam. You can DM me if you have doubts regarding the questions or the pathway to get a residency post in the UK.

I passed my PLAB 1 exam on 1st November 2018 with a score of 145/180.

Photo by Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu on Unsplash

Material needed for preparation ( most important to least important )
1. PLABable / PLABdoable

Take a subscription and solve it as many times as you can.

I didn't buy it and relied on the offline version of PLABable which is known as PLABdoable . But, I recommend you to take the subscription considering the difficulty of the recent exams.

2. Dr. Khalid's 1700 questions

They are available free of cost in the files section of PLAB group on Facebook.

You can also buy the official book to support Dr. Khalid, from the link below -

https://www.amazon.in/PLAB-1700-MCQs-TOPIC-WISE-ebook/dp/B07LC274X8

3. Mocks

I had a lot of questions repeated exactly from the mocks. Please go through them twice or thrice.

https://www.intjmedsc.com/plab/mocks/

https://mega.nz/#F!53B3DJQC!Dn9AUy1_8MXP94AH5BSXGA

4. Clinchers

Prepare your own clinchers to revise on the last day before the exam.

Pre-made clinchers can be found on - https://mega.nz/#F!RmgGwZgJ!mzWprEj3A08vCt8W-q6HMA

5. Samson's PLAB 1 notes

I read the notes in a month's time. They differs slightly from the NICE guidelines and they might things confusing for you . I advise you not to go through them.

* I never used other questions banks or study material apart from those mentioned above either because of a lot of irrelevant information in them or due the wrong keys with wrong explanations.

Time taken for Preparation

1.5 months - Samson's PLAB 1 notes ( NOT RECOMMENDED )

2 months - PLABdoable + Dr. Khalid's 1700 questions (both repeated twice)

1 month - Mocks (repeated twice) + Clinchers

Valuable tips

1. Do not waste your time reading notes and Oxford handbooks. Solving questions and reading explanations multiple times, is the key to success.

2. Do not collect a lot of information that is irrelevant in terms of what is asked in the exam.

3. Give value to Ethics based questions. They are asked a lot in the exam.

4. Consider reading Pharmacology ( for a few 'out of the syllabus' questions)

5. Do not take the examination too lightly. Many people end up failing the exam in over-confidence.