MRCPI GM Part I

From RCPI's own examination pages and regulations, not from third-party summaries. The RCPI page for this exam was unavailable at the time of writing, so this page deliberately quotes no figures. Treat any question count, time limit or pass mark you see elsewhere as unverified until you have checked it against the current RCPI documentation.

No examination regulations could be retrieved from the only permitted source, so every quantitative detail - item count, duration, pass standard, fee, retake rules, validity and specialty weightings - is flagged for review rather than stated. The domain list is a provisional syllabus map derived from general knowledge of internal medicine training, not a confirmed RCPI weighting.

The usual experience is that breadth, not depth, is the challenge. Most candidates know the common presentations well; marks are lost on the second- and third-line details - drug monitoring, electrolyte correction limits, rare but examinable associations, and interpretation of blood gases, ECG and haematology results. Time spent on accuracy across all domains pays better than deep reading in two or three.

Most doctors begin structured revision some months before sitting, layered on top of clinical work rather than instead of it. Start by matching your current post's specialty gaps against the syllabus, then build a repeating cycle so every domain is revisited more than once. Spaced repetition of short question sets beats a single pass through a large textbook.

Revise in the order that maximises overlap. Start with clinical pharmacology and the clinical sciences, since they recur inside every other domain, then move through the high-volume specialties - cardiology, respiratory, gastroenterology, endocrinology, nephrology - before the smaller but detail-dense areas such as rheumatology, haematology and neurology. Interleave rather than block.

Three recur: over-revision of favourite topics with whole domains left unvisited; passive reading that never tests recall under time pressure; and misreading single-best-answer stems, where two options are true but only one is the most appropriate next step. Practise answering the question asked, and review every wrong answer to identify whether the gap was knowledge or technique.

The number of permitted attempts, any mandatory interval between sittings, and the associated fees are set out in RCPI's examination regulations. No source text was available to confirm them here, so check the current regulations directly with RCPI before you rely on any assumed retake allowance or waiting period.

It is a distinct RCPI qualification with its own syllabus, regulations and standards, and it should be prepared for on its own terms. Question banks and study plans built for other colleges' membership exams may cover similar clinical content but will not match the RCPI syllabus or item style; verify what each resource actually claims to cover.

Use them as a diagnostic, not a scoreboard. Work in short timed blocks, mark every answer as certain, reasoned or guessed, and keep an error log categorised by domain and by cause. Revisit the log weekly. Original single-best-answer items written against the syllabus are more useful than memorised past questions, which test recall of the item rather than the medicine.

Go directly to RCPI: their examinations section, the published examination regulations and the contact address for examination enquiries, all linked from their main site navigation. Confirm format, timing, fees and pass standards there, and check the effective date on any regulation, since announced changes may not yet be in force.