How to prep for amk's at peninsula

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(edited 9 years ago)

I keep finding this exam a pain! I have just been through first year and struggled so badly through each and every one of them getting borderlines and an unsatisfactory! I use the oxford handbook and sometimes patient.co.uk to learn- search up a disease and write notes on pathology, signs and symptoms, treatment etc. how can i boost my scores? What other resources can help me? I heard passmedicine is good. Can anyone, who is familiar with this exam give me some tips please, thanks :smile:

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Is this the test where they give first years finals-standard clinical vignettes and hope you to pull one out of the bag? I'm pretty sure every single person in first year no matter the medical school would get an unsatisfactory if given a final year exam paper, and borderline is a pretty good result!

OHCM and patient.co.uk are good. There's an oxford handbook called 'clinical diagnosis' that is also good but I'm not sure how much of it will be OTT until you're in clinical years (but I suppose the whole exam is OTT until you are in clinical years...)

BMJ Onexamination years 2-3 question bank I've been using for my 3rd year exams has a lot of clinical vignettes that may be useful.

Reply 2

ilovehotchocolate

In my early years I used to read as much of Crash Course General Medicine as I could. The first chapters are "patient presents with chest pain, patient presents with shortness of breath etc" and it goes through questions to ask, possible diagnosis, tests to do and treatment plans which is perfect when you're early in Peninsula as that's all you need to get good marks. Go to the AMK prep extra lectures the older years put on just before the sessions. Learn your cranial nerves, headaches, the signs of blood loss so you can work out how much blood has been lost by symptoms they present with, heart murmurs (classic descriptions and where they radiate to for the big four of atrial stenosis and regurgitation and mitral stenosis and regurgitation), how to recognise ST elevation, first degree, second degree and complete heart block on an ECG, interpreting arterial blood gas results, and the nerve roots and areas of the body the cover and you'll get some marks in the bag every time. At this stage, the things you can learn yourself that you haven't covered yet will get you marks your friends won't get and help you immensely. I've built up a folder of things that come up every time that I read through before an AMK.

Secondly, don't stress, don't worry, it's a chance to show what you know and repeating the year is not the end of the world, lots of us do it. If you build the AMK up to be big and scary and unbeatable, you've beaten yourself before you've even started. I always try and answer if I can get it to a choice of three, and I go with my gut, but I don't guess, because then I'll never know if it's a true reflection of my knowledge. I always just try and answer a few more than I did last time. I'm in fourth year, and I'm still not answering all of them. Second year AMKs are easier, because you know more and you do more clinical PBLs. Assuming you still have your free BMA membership, if you have a poke around their website you can get them to send you books from their library for free. Get the Crash Course and if you like the look of it, buy it. It was amazing for me. I haven't found any question bank or book that has the same sort of questions as the AMK so I wouldn't recommend any. Podmedics is very good though, I would recommend subscribing to that, and almostadoctor.com.

Reply 3

Ciaran88

Passmedicine

That is all.

Reply 4

alicexelizabeth

The thing with the AMK is that different things work for different people.

Personally, I have never revised for an AMK but have done well. In pre-clinical years I just went to every teaching session (including plenaries) and wrote very thorough notes (even for clinical skills just learning the physiology behind certain signs is useful). I read around very broadly for each PBL case and made sure I went over everything in LSRC.

You are still early days so you have probably not found what works best for you yet. My suggestion is make sure you do all the study as I suggested and then do the extra stuff like Passmedicine and clinical revision notes on top.

Once you get to third year you will recognise the answer for the majority of the questions as they are either the same or a slight variation. And, most importantly, you will have done some clinical medicine by this point!

Good luck, let me know if you need any help!

Reply 5

navarre

I just go over the topics they've asked in previous exams. Eventually, stuff begins to stick. It also gets harder each year to fail an AMK, as fewer will fail.

Reply 6

Hanz_a93

I heard USMLE is good for amk prep? Is that true?

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Reply 7

carcinoma

Original post by Hanz_a93

I heard USMLE is good for amk prep? Is that true?

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No, especially not part 1.

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Reply 8

alicexelizabeth

Original post by Hanz_a93

I heard USMLE is good for amk prep? Is that true?

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It is important to remember that Peninsula aren't trying to trick you with random questions you might find in USMLE or something similar. There will be questions in the AMK that have come up in PBL, LSRC, Clinical Skills that you can/should answer. It will get easier as you do clinical work. Don't obsess over doing random questions, just learn as you go along. Do they still have those practice questions after each PBL case on Emily? Those were quite useful as they directly link in to what you've been doing for that case study.