PLAB 2 Personal Experience
ALLHAMDULLILAH By the Grace of Almighty I passed my PLAB 2 exam in 3rd attempt recently with 14 stations passed, in previous 2 exams they were 6 and 8. I am sharing my experience of what mistakes I did and how I made Improvements
My first attempt
I booked my exam for 1st of sept in March 2023. I had no idea what this exam was about. Everyone who had appeared in PLAB 2 used to say to choose an academy take classes and practice for few weeks and you will pass. That was the game plan back then.
So I booked opted an academy took online classes in May 2023 which I couldn’t get anything because of long hours classes. I found a study partner in June and I started practicing going through nwannekas. We did nwannekas for a month and then I flew to Manchester by early august. There I kept practicing with my study partner practiced mannequins simman 20 scenarios a day, because we both were new I didn’t get to know what mistakes I was doing. Either I was doing right or wrong I didn’t know. I failed all my mocks. Went to the exam and I failed but my friend passed.
Assessment of my first attempt:
In my first attempt I had very little knowledge compared to my further attempts. After I got my result I compared it with those who had appeared on that day and discussed what they did different from what I did.
And following is the list of my mistakes which I did
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Never believe person who had appeared and passed in first attempt because they know very little about the exam because of luck or natural skills which contributes to their performance.
TRUST ME. Only those who have failed and assessed them, trust their evaluation. Because all the tutors in the academies were those who had passed first time either because of luck or natural skills, they were just spreading myths and rumors regarding exam without any knowledge -
Don’t do anything on exam day which you have not practiced earlier.
The second mistake was I deviated from the strength I had that was history taking, because they kept saying at the academy to take focused history, without knowing what is that and without any practice I did that so I messed up a lot of stations. -
Know all 3 components DATA GATHERING, MANAGEMENT ,INTERPERSONAL SKILLS thoroughly
I didn’t know what was required in all three, I was just following notes blindly -
Don’t go for the exam until you know all the scenarios
It is really important to memorize all the scenarios and how to perform them -
Know your history and differentials
Every section of PLAB 2 has a way to ask history and for clinical scenarios there are fixed differentials in PLAB 2.
Practice should be enough that you are able to short down list of your differentials. -
Practice with someone who knows about PLAB 2 and point out your mistakes
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If you didn’t take good history in clinical scenarios you will not score marks in other components as well
After comparing 6-7 results I noticed a pattern in 90% of the clinical scenarios unless one has scored good in history they have scored good overall. -
Every scenario has a specific approach
I didn’t know approaches to BBN, LGBTQ, problem colleague, medical error I thought they were just conversations however there is a fixed structure to counselling scenarios. -
Always check the scenarios you get in your mocks
Always check the stations you get in your mocks either you pass or you fail them, and check from multiple sources. Only I had done the scenarios of my mocks well I would have passed because 8-9 of them were in my mocks.
My second attempt
I booked my second attempt for January.
I started with the recalls and did recalls throughout, initially I started memorizing history part than management. I took a course but it was not helpful at all. I practiced it with people whom I met at the academy in my first attempt and they had offered their help they helped me a lot and gave me a lot of time I am indebted to them for all of my life.
A colleague of mine who had joined my department recently after I failed my first attempt, she had passed PLAB 2 with a very high score, I became friends with her very near to my exam almost 15-20 days before I flew to MAN for my exam. I kept practicing with her but it was very late and she pointed out a lot of my mistakes. She also told me to postpone my exam she said I was not prepared enough but it was too late and I went for the exam.
But failed again and exam was very difficult and to my assessment following were my mistakes
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The more you know more you are scared of this exam
I reached Manchester just 4 days before exam didn’t take any mocks neither went to academy and I was very nervous and was not confident enough while performing. -
Never be over confident
In my first attempt I was very well prepared with teaching stations and procedures, so for my 2nd attempt I practiced them very little and I failed a very easy procedure and teaching station. I would have passed if I had practiced them well. -
Very simple scenarios were very tricky
A friend of mine had emphasized a lot to take LOOVAN but he didn’t tell me what was good about him. Only If I had read notes of LOOVAN which was sent to me by a friend before my 2nd attempt I would have passed because 3 stations were very tricky and later when I read those notes after I failed my 2nd attempt I was depressed to see what I missed because scenarios had changed a lot in 4 months they had added new questions and also they had changed them to confuse the candidate and all those scenarios were in those LOOVAN notes exactly the same way they have presented in my second exam.
My 3rd attempt:
As soon as I heard about UKMLA I booked my exam just before UKMLA and I had 2.5 months to prepare. In my second attempt I had scored well in history taking part but very poorly in management and IPS, so I focused on them and kept revising data gathering.
This time I also had a friend who was also repeater and had exam on same date time venue as me and my colleague who I have mentioned earlier helped both of us and we practiced daily until we flew to MAN.
This time I didn’t leave anything practiced each and every thing and we practiced daily, and I tried to improve my IPS. For IPS along with practice I had listened to a lot of mocks and videos on youtube which i hadn’t watched before. I was so obsessed with my exam that I kept listening to videos whenever I had time. This was a very new thing to me as I hadn’t done this in past. This helped me get an idea where I was lacking in IPS. And helped me improve a lot not only in IPS but also in history and management part. And also a month before I read a very well prepared notes of LOOVANs classes which helped me a lot in my exam.
Before leaving for Manchester we had practiced everything and was prepared enough. This time I went 15 days before exam and I went to same academy because relatives with whom I stay in MAN, the academy is close to their residence. When I went to academy I was very nervous, I tried finding people with whom I could practice but no one cared everyone was busy practicing with their own groups.
After my first mock I started becoming confident and my fear of exam started to go away. Because when you practice with the people you know you start to become comfortable so it is better to practice with different people. As I was prepared well, I had enough knowledge and this time mocks were helpful as I could practice executing my knowledge. Unlike my 1st mock, in my 2nd and 3rd mock I had more control on my facial expressions. And in 3rd mock I was able to execute a better IPS which I had failed to do in my first 2 mocks. So by the end of my 3rd mock fear of exam had lessened a lot even though I failed all of them. But the good thing I did was I was able to analyze my own mistakes as I had almost 6 stations in those mocks which came in my PLAB 2 exam.
Key to passing this exam is to know your mistakes and right way to improve them with correct guidance because there are many people who are misguiding by taking large sum of fee for their courses.
