A unique piece of research on the revision behaviour of MRCS A candidates has shown that while practice doesn’t quite make perfect, it does significantly increase the likelihood of a pass. 

The study entitled ‘Online Revision Usage in MRCS Part A Candidates; The Road to Optimised Performance’ is led by Mr. Simon Fleming – an Orthopaedic Registrar at Queens Hospital in Romford as well as a PhD candidate in Medical Education at Barts and the London – and involves the analysis of the revision patterns of users of Pastest’s MRCS A online revision subscription. It demonstrated conclusively that successful candidates attempted more questions than those that failed.

Mr. Fleming, who presented his findings at the recent ASME (Association for the Study of Medical Education) conference in Edinburgh, said: “Both myself and Pastest are committed to driving forward innovation in medical exam preparation. This study shows that revision via answering a relatively high volume of quality exam format questions can bear fruit (p=<0.0001).

“This piece of research is just the beginning though, as we will look into further ways to improve exam outcomes through modeling effective revision techniques in an exam environment and improving the technology at candidates’ disposal.”  

Mr. Fleming has also been invited to share his work with delegates at the International Conference on Residency Education in Canada this October.

“I’m very excited to present this research more widely and get feedback from educators on a global level,” he added. “Studies into revision behaviours in surgeons are few and far between so hopefully what we are working on will help to inform candidates and enable them to astutely plot their way towards exam success.”

Mr. Fleming also presented a poster at the ASME conference on ‘Online Revision Course in MRCS Part A Candidates: Patterns of Usage in Repeat Subscriptions’, which revealed that successful candidates not only engaged more fully with the Pastest questions, but increased their engagement to a greater extent in repeat subscriptions; again demonstrating that by utilising a robust and well stocked question bank, a candidate is significantly more likely to pass the exam (p=<0.001)

Both research projects have also been analysed by Hannah Brown and Nigel Bird.