Questions about MRCS Part A

It is Part A of the Intercollegiate Membership of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons (MRCS) examination: a written examination of two single best answer papers sat on one day — Paper 1, Applied Basic Sciences, 180 questions in 3 hours, and Paper 2, Principles of Surgery in General, 120 questions in 2 hours. This platform is built specifically to prepare for it, with every question mapped to the ICBSE blueprint.

Core surgical trainees, foundation doctors sitting early, international medical graduates and trust-grade doctors applying to core training. It suits both long-game revision across a rotation and intensive final-run-in practice.

Before each answer you rate your confidence. We combine confidence with whether you were correct to place every question in a mastery quadrant, then derive a composite exam-readiness score. The exact logic is transparent and explained inside the app on the analytics page.

It distinguishes four states: mastery (confident and correct), underconfidence (correct but unsure), knowledge gaps (unsure and wrong) and dangerous misconceptions (confident but wrong). The last category is the most important to find and fix before the exam.

Sign in with Google in one click — no password to remember. Your progress is tied to your account, so you can revise on your phone, tablet and laptop and everything stays in step.

Yes. Every answer, mock exam, bookmark, Daily Five streak and setting is saved to your account the moment it happens. If your connection drops mid-session, answers are kept on the device and sent as soon as you're back online.

A free account opens a 20-question sample drawn from every domain of the blueprint, the Daily Five drill and Pearl of the Day, core analytics and a preview of the notes library — enough to judge the quality before you pay. No card is needed.

Essentials unlocks the full 3,000-question bank, all practice modes, Paper 1 and Paper 2 timed mocks, daily micro-cases and core analytics. Membership adds the adaptive engine, the full confidence-vs-competence analytics and readiness score, the complete notes library and the original diagram library. See the pricing page for a full comparison.

Monthly plans can be cancelled at any time from Settings → Manage billing and run to the end of the paid month. The 3- and 6-month blocks are one-off payments that never auto-renew. If a purchase isn't right for you, send us a message through the contact form within 14 days having attempted fewer than 20 questions and we'll refund it in full.

Questions are original items written to the structure of the ICBSE sample questions — lean clinical vignettes with same-category distractors and one planted discriminator — against current UK guidance (NICE, ATLS 10th edition, RCS England, the BNF) and standard texts (Last's Anatomy, Gray's Anatomy for Students, Ganong and Guyton & Hall, Robbins, Bailey & Love), and every explanation ends with its reference. Specialist review is ongoing; we publish which sections have had it rather than claiming sign-off. See our editorial standards.

No. The questions and notes are written for revision in the MRCS style and have not been through a formal standard-setting process. Always confirm against current evidence and guidelines.