PLAB 2 Personal Experience
You can listen to the following post in the form of audiobook. 
Firstly, I want to express my gratitude to Sam Hayes for creating such a perfect platform for PLAB aspirants. I stumbled upon this forum just a few days before my exam, and it helped me a lot, so I feel it’s time for me to give back to this wonderful community.
I passed PLAB 2 in February of this year without attending any academy. I arrived in the UK just two weeks before the exam to attend two mocks I had booked prior to my arrival.
Starting from scratch, after booking my PLAB 2 seat, I dove into researching different academies to see what they offered, all the while being mindful of the reviews I could find online. Eventually, I realized that none of the academies was a one-stop-shop, and none had a clear edge over the rest. Also, the class timings, even though online, were painstakingly long, almost 10 hours plus a day for two weeks. I, for one, didn’t have the time or mental attentiveness to do them, considering I already had a full-time job and coming home to kids wasn’t easy with the added stress of these classes.
A bit of browsing made me see that there was lots of free material on cases easily available online. So what more did I need? Practice, of course… again, this is where various Facebook pages came into help, and I easily connected with someone with an exam date closer to mine, and we decided to practice a few cases daily almost a month before the exam. This is when I made peace with myself and decided not to join any academy. Instead, I looked into which academy was offering the best mocks without having to forcefully book a whole package. Mind you, this is an expensive exam with the added expense of traveling, so I wanted to minimize spending a fortune.
Now, coming to the notes I followed… I initially followed Nwanneika’s notes, and just a couple of weeks before the exam, I went through Mo Shoby’s notes on examination, prescription, procedures, and teaching stations, and these were some of the best notes I realized.
Once I read the notes— which took me a month— I booked mocks, and again, I saw that Mo Shoby had one of the best reviews, so I booked two mocks from them along with a signature class. All of this cost me roughly 150 pounds, and that was fine.
So, whenever I went to the academy for mocks, I always made it a point to talk to other PLABers and practice a bit with them. You will find a lot of kind and helpful people ready to help.
I won’t delve too much into study routine and practice because it varies from person to person.
The whole motive behind this post is the fact that PLAB 2 is very doable without an academy.
I was able to pass on my first attempt with 13 stations and 119 marks… Not very stellar, but it did the job. Also, be mindful of the fact that I have been in a rigorous family medicine training program, so all of the counseling and IPS part has been drilled into me right from the start. So please be cognizant of your own capacity before making any decisions. But I can safely say, for practicing physicians, PLAB 2 is a fairly doable exam.
And groups like this are precious in terms of recall and help.
I will be happy to answer any queries.
Best of luck, everyone.
not to use such judgmental language again in future.
