How is the Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ) assessment structured?

There are 2 parts to the Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ) assessment; both are designed to assess some of the essential competencies outlined in the National Person Specification and are based around clinical scenarios.

If you are sitting the papers for the first time, you will first be asked to complete a Professional Dilemmas (PD) paper, followed by a Clinical Problem Solving (CPS) paper. If you are re-sitting the papers and previously failed only one of the papers (i.e. PD or CPS paper) you will only be required to sit that paper.

Your pass mark is valid for 12 calendar months from the date you receive the results, following which, to continue in the programme if a clinical placement has not already started, you may be required to re-sit the MCQ assessment.

The MCQ assessment is similar to the Multi-Specialty Recruitment Assessment, so further information about the content and types of questions can be found on the GP Recruitment webpage.

Professional Dilemmas (PD): 62 items, 124 min

The PD paper is a Situational Judgement Test (SJT). This part of the assessment focuses on a candidate’s approach to practising medicine. Specifically, the paper measures one’s understanding of situations that arise for doctors in the NHS, particularly in General Practice, judgement in differentiating between appropriate and inappropriate responses, and the ability to recognise the most important concerns in any situation. It focuses on appropriate behaviour with respect to interacting with patients and colleagues and in managing one’s own workload. It does not require specific knowledge of General Practice but does assume general familiarity with typical NHS primary and secondary care procedures.

The test covers three core domains:

• Professional integrity
• Coping with pressure
• Empathy and sensitivity

The PD paper consists of 62 items and there are 124 minutes in which to complete the test.

Clinical Problem Solving (CPS): 88 items, 67 min

In this part of the assessment, candidates are presented with clinical scenarios that require them to exercise judgement and problem-solving skills to determine appropriate diagnosis and management of patients. This is not a test of knowledge per se, but rather one’s ability to apply their knowledge appropriately. The topics are taken from areas with which a General Practitioner is expected to be familiar.

The CPS paper consists of 88 questions and there are 65 minutes in which to complete the test.

Best Practice Review & Updates

In early 2018, the PD and CPS papers underwent a thorough review by a team of clinician experts. The purpose of this review was to ensure that the content of the items was remain relevant in medicine, the content of the items was relevant for the candidate population and all responses were still relevant and appropriate. Based on this review, updates were made to a number of the items particularly in the PD papers to enhance the relevance to the candidate population and reduce the number of items within a hospital setting. A number of items were also removed from the operational tests. In the case of the PD papers, these items were replaced with recently piloted items that were developed specifically for the candidate population and have been trialled in the programme tests since September 2016 (n=290) and are psychometrically robust. These test versions are being implemented from the August 2018 sitting onwards.

Annual review of the assessments based on the latest available data from the cohort, and based on current clinical practice, is in line with best practice test development and evaluation.