What is a good score on the MRCP Part 1?
The MRCP people now give your score as a scaled number from 0 to 999, where 521 is the pass mark. They have stopped giving the exact number of questions you have got right.
Instead, the MRCP examination uses a method called equating (as seen in the USMLE). This is supposed to make it easier to compare scores across the diets. Previously, 60% in a 2008/2 paper could not be said to be better than 59% in the 2008/3 paper, because the exam difficulty could vary. Now the Royal Colleges say that a score of 600 is definitely better than a score of 590, whichever tests you are comparing.
What is the pass mark for MRCP Part 1?
We know that pass mark was less than 67.5% in 2009/1, as this scored a scaled score of 545, and 521 is the pass mark. 70% scored 545 in 2008/3, so there is a lot of variation year to year. In general, a raw score over 70% seems to be safe.
What is the pass rate for MRCP Part 1?
All candidates – around 44%
UK Graduates on their 1st attempt: 63%
Any tips for how to pass MRCP Part 1?
I’ll cover this more fully in a separate post. There are some comments at the bottom of this post with some tips for passing the MRCP Part I.
How did the author of this blog do?
Here’s my results for the Sept 2013 exam 🙂
How did you revise for part 1? Did you find any particular revision website(s) good? I’d really appreciate your advice.
Hi Simon,
Thanks for reading 🙂 I found one of the most time saving tricks was to go through each SBA and really squeeze everything I could out of each one. For example:
‘A 43 year old woman presents to A&E with sweating, tremor, palpitations and headache lasting an hour. She has had similar episodes lasting 2-3 minutes before for the past month, but never lasting this long before. A CV exam is normal apart from a BP of 190/110. FBC and U&Es are normal. Which of the following tests is most useful for confirming the likely diagnosis?’
A 24-hour urinary 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA)
B 24 hour ECG
C Overnight dexamethasone suppression test
D 24 hour urinary creatinine
E 24 hour urinary metanephrines
The stem is leading you towards phaeochromocytoma, and the correct answer is E. To get the most from this question however, you should go through all the other options until you could confidently explain to someone else what exactly that test would look for and its indications. More often than not, by doing this I found myself able to answer all sorts of seemingly ‘random’ questions. This method works because all the other answer options generally have to come from the same core syllabus. In other words, each answer option has to be pitched at the right level too.
I would also check the history given in the question stem, and compare it to Patient UK/eMedicine to see which features were most consistently important. BMJ Best Practice is pretty good at walking you through the important parts of the history as well as what differentials to consider.
Another trick is to go through the MRCP syllabus from the website and cover it line by line, like I started over here: http://drcrunch.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/complete-run-through-of-the-mrcp-part-i-day-1-of-40/ If you work through it yourself that should cover it.
Websites wise, I used onexamination but I found myself disagreeing with the answers quite frequently. This probably helped, in that I doubled checked everything afterwards and learnt a lot in doing so. I used a lot of MRCP books from our hospital library, including the Pocket books and this BOFs book which both did the job nicely. Oh, and I found the famous Kalra book to be especially disastrous apart from the cellular signalling and gene bits which were quite useful.
Try explaining what you’ve learnt to someone else. That’s the way to prove you’ve understood it properly. Also make really visual explanations for things – I’ve made a 100% free iPhone app for some common questions where I’ve tried to do just that. It’s aimed at a mix of MRCP and real life – https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/medical-sba-questions-finals/id733555093?ls=1&mt=8
Hope that helps! Let me know how your revision goes; would love to help in any way possible.
Firstly, congratulations for the pass, pretty good marks.
Secondly, thank you for your efforts, I’ve found the info here quite useful.
good luck with part 2.
Thanks very much AOA 🙂 I’ll be putting my Part 2 revision on the blog as I go along and would love to hear revision ideas and pearls from everyone. Good luck with your exams too.
First of all congats on your excellent success , 2ndly i got your advices and i found it very helpful , plan to take the test in september ,, if i pass i’ll be here for part 2 advices ,, coz i am pretty sure you will do it ,,,thanx and please if you remember any valuable tip tell us ,,
congratulations on your good marks. May be you can give out some tips how you are doing your studies?
Thanks! I’m putting up random facts I keep forgetting for part 2 – see the latest posts!
Thankyou!
is ur appl available for android??
Not yet – I’m now working on redesigning drcrunch.co.uk for all mobile devices. Please have a look there
Excellent! All the best for part 2 🙂
Thanks so much 🙂
answer is E
Is there any other text book other than kalra as you said that it isnt much useful or only the mcq books which you have mentioned above would be enough….really appreciate your advice!
I do think most of my learning came from question banks, but I think what was key was reading around the subject. Don’t leave a topic until you can explain it to someone else 🙂
HI , while doing pastest, what score while studying would tell us we are ready for the exam?
Hi -> I think once you are in the high 70s consistently you are generally doing well.
can someone let me know if there is a negative marking or not
i am nervous sitting the exam on this sept 15
Hi, there is no negative marking