AMC MCQ preparation - Part 1

AMC part 1 preparation guide, If you like my video please subscribe to my Channel.

I first registered for the exam end of 2015 and during that time I spoke to a friend who had recently given the exam and passed it. He told me that you can pass this exam by just doing recalls, he said ͚I did 6 months of recalls and easily passed it in the first go.͛ I had no doubt in believing him but boy that is the ͚worst piece of advice you can ever get.͛ I will tell you the reason why, based on my experience of doing this exam 3 times:

a. Getting recalls in the exam in like playing roulette / lotto, the odds of getting them is about 60-40 in my opinion. From what I have seen the passing ratio of AMC 1 is almost always around 60-65%, why is it not 70% or 40%? Surely the results are engineered, given the fact 250 is the passing score. My analysis so far is they give 60% of the candidates recalls + few new Qs and 40% get new Qs with a very small % of recalls. The candidates who are in the latter group and rely only on recalls are the ones who fail -unfortunately I was in that group.

b. Now what if you get recalls? One would pass right? Yes and No is my answer. Most re-callers, miss out on key aspects of the questions as they are not complete stems, so if you solve them
with missing info then you can answer incorrectly. Therefore, one has to understand the topic and the question and answer based on Australian guidelines.

c. AMC in my opinion has 5 variations of each question. These variations can range from diagnosis, investigations - best or initial, prognosis and clinical outcome etc. If you only do the recalls without understanding the topic in depth, you will struggle.

d. Point c leads to point d, which is true for someone coming from a long clinical gap over 5 years, like myself. In the time away from medicine, you get de-learning, which means your core
knowledge dissociates, you lose the sharpness to connect the pathophysiology and underlying mechanisms of a disease. So even if you solve recalls, a small variation will throw you off the
ball. Therefore, it is not a good idea to rely on recalls.

My 1st attempt:

I learnt this the hard way; my first attempt was in Nov 2016, I went into it after doing 3 months of recalls. I read all the recall topics from JM and did 60% of the handbook. In my exam I only got 5 recalls and failed it - result was around 220. I thought, well this was unlucky and maybe I didn͛t do enough recalls and perhaps I am coming after a long gap so next attempt will keep the same strategy and I will pass it.

2nd Attempt:
This time I took a 6 month gap and appeared in July 2017, I did around 6 months recalls and did 75% Handbook. Guess what? I only got 8-10 recalls. I had people who prepared with me and got 50-60% recalls. I got less than 10%. The results came and no
surprises I failed it again with a score of around 230. I was devastated!

I picked up myself and analysed the whole situation. I figured, relying on recalls is a big gamble, so I started analysing the AMC pattern, I spoke to people who passed, but most importantly I spoke to people who failed. So I made myself a plan and wrote it on AMEDEX after my exam results:

See my post in July/Aug.

One person commented on my post, saying ͞AMC has beaten you but life cannot beat you.͟

After that comment, I gathered myself and prepared again. This time I had some advantages, I was more experienced, had more knowledge, more resilient and had a secret weapon up my sleeve, i.e. I understood how they write the exam. Essentially they use branching logic which means if you get a Q wrong, they will test you with a Q with similar difficulty and most likely a similar topic. Knowing that I intentionally makes Wong answers in the exam in areas where I was strong. But, I flagged them and at the end of the exam corrected them. This way I got a few more questions on areas of my strength and
this helped me cross the line.

In summary, never give up and persevere. If I can beat this exam, so can you.