PLAB preparation needs two kinds of practice: choosing the safest answer in a single-best-answer question, and carrying out a focused, structured consultation under observation. Both parts assess applied clinical knowledge and safe practice at the level expected of an FY1 doctor.
Use your own study material to build a small set of clinical-topic boards. For each topic, practise the facts you need to retrieve, the decisions you need to make, and the language you need to use with a patient. Then revisit weak areas instead of repeatedly reviewing material you already know.
Know what you are preparing for
PLAB is typically taken in two parts. PLAB 1 is a written single-best-answer paper. PLAB 2 is a practical clinical exam with OSCE-style stations. The assessment focuses on common UK presentations, safe initial management, communication and professional behaviours expected at FY1 level.
The practical consequences are straightforward: knowing a diagnosis is not enough if you miss an immediate threat, delay escalation or fail to explain your plan. In either part, practise prioritising patient safety, recognising red flags, communicating clearly and using pragmatic first-line management.
The catalogue facts here do not cover booking, eligibility or current exam-day arrangements. Check the official General Medical Council website for the latest requirements and details; do not rely on an old course handout for administrative information.
Set up a board for each clinical topic
Start with topics that occur across many presentations, such as acute breathlessness, chest pain, abdominal pain, fever, headache and mental health crises. Add other areas from your own question practice and study material. A useful board is not a textbook copied into a screen. It is a compact reference that helps you decide what to do first and what you must not miss.
For each topic, sort your notes into sections such as presentation and red flags, focused assessment, investigations, first-line management, escalation and safety-netting. Use short bullets for details that must be recalled accurately. Add a note about the source or local pathway when management depends on a current guideline.
For example, anaphylaxis is a high-stakes presentation where the first action matters. A board on this topic ends up looking like this:
- Suspect anaphylaxis with sudden illness and airway, breathing or circulation compromise after a likely trigger
- Skin or mucosal signs may be absent
- Look for stridor, wheeze, hypoxia, hypotension or collapse
- Antihistamines do not treat airway, breathing or circulation compromise
- Corticosteroids are not a substitute for IM adrenaline
- Do not wait for investigations before treating suspected anaphylaxis
- Call for help; use an ABCDE approach
- Remove the trigger if possible; lay the patient flat and do not let them stand or walk
- Give adrenaline 500 micrograms IM to an adult: 0.5 mL of 1 mg/mL (1:1000) solution into the anterolateral thigh
- Repeat IM adrenaline after 5 minutes if there is no improvement
Arrange appropriate observation, allergy assessment and advice on avoiding the suspected trigger. Provide an individualised discharge and recurrence plan in line with current local guidance.
- Give oxygen if needed; monitor observations and reassess after each intervention
- Obtain IV access and give IV crystalloid for shock, guided by response and local protocol
- Escalate urgently to the resuscitation team
This board is an illustrative view of an anaphylaxis topic divided into recognition, immediate care and follow-up.
Distil the actions you cannot afford to miss
Make a short core checklist from each board. It should be small enough to test quickly, but specific enough to catch dangerous omissions. For an emergency, put actions in the order you would take them, not in the order they appear in a textbook.
In MySummaries, the Must not miss core for this board could look like this:
This illustrative core keeps the emergency sequence and adult adrenaline dose together for rapid recall.
Prepare for PLAB 1 with active retrieval
For PLAB 1, practise single-best-answer questions by clinical presentation, not only by specialty. A case can test whether you identify the most urgent problem, choose an appropriate investigation or select the safest initial management. After answering, explain why the best option is better than the strongest distractor. If you cannot explain the difference, return to your notes and make that distinction explicit.
Use flashcards for single facts or decisions: a dose, a red flag, an investigation choice, or the next step in management. Avoid cards that ask for an entire topic. Review them on a spaced-repetition schedule, and grade yourself honestly. Mark a card as difficult when you needed a hint or confused it with a similar presentation; a correct guess is not reliable recall.
Keep a written error log alongside question practice. Record the clinical decision you missed, why your answer seemed plausible, and what would change your choice next time. For example: “I chose an antihistamine because of urticaria; airway compromise makes IM adrenaline the immediate priority.” Turn repeated errors into short cards and revisit the relevant board.
Practise PLAB 2 as a sequence of decisions
For PLAB 2, rehearse aloud. Use a repeatable structure, but tailor every step to the case. In an acute clinical station, a practical framework is immediate safety and ABCDE, focused history and examination, prioritised differentials, investigations, management, then safety-netting and follow-up. Do not recite every possible question or test: select what matters for this patient and explain your reasoning.
For communication or ethics scenarios, begin by establishing the patient's agenda and building rapport. Give information in plain language, check understanding and involve the patient in decisions. Address capacity, consent and confidentiality when relevant. Close with a safe plan, documentation and escalation if needed.
Practise concise transitions: “I’m concerned about your breathing, so I’m going to call for urgent help while I assess you.” “I’ll explain what I’m worried about and what we need to do next.” “I’ll document the findings, treatment and response, and hand over to the receiving team.” Clear language is more useful than a long list of unprioritised actions.
A station on this board could be practised and reviewed like this:
Examiner
A 34-year-old develops wheeze, lip swelling and dizziness shortly after taking a new medicine. Talk me through your immediate assessment and management.
You recognised airway and circulation risk and called for help, but escalation could have been stated earlier.
ImproveSay you are treating this as an emergency, call the resuscitation team and begin ABCDE immediately.
You identified likely anaphylaxis from the sudden onset after a medicine and the airway, breathing and circulation features.
ImproveState that anaphylaxis remains possible even if a skin rash is absent.
You mentioned monitoring but did not make clear that treatment must not wait for tests.
ImproveDescribe observations and monitoring as concurrent with urgent treatment, not a prerequisite for it.
You gave the correct adult IM adrenaline dose and planned reassessment, but left the repeat interval unclear.
ImproveSpecify 500 micrograms IM and repeat after 5 minutes if there is no improvement; include observation and allergy follow-up in the later plan.
Your explanation was calm and direct, but you could narrate what you are doing to the patient.
ImproveUse short explanations while acting, and check in with the patient as the emergency response continues.
A strong answerI’m concerned this is anaphylaxis because the symptoms started suddenly after a new medicine and involve breathing and circulation. I’ll call for urgent help and assess you using ABCDE, while asking someone to bring the resuscitation equipment. I would give an adult 500 micrograms of adrenaline intramuscularly into the anterolateral thigh and repeat it after 5 minutes if there is no improvement. I’ll monitor your observations, support breathing and circulation, and reassess your response while arranging urgent escalation. Once you are stable, we will plan appropriate observation, allergy assessment and advice to reduce the risk of another reaction.
That is a MySummaries station, filled with PLAB material. Yours is written from your own notes. Start free
This illustrative review shows a spoken answer, platform feedback against its own criteria, and a model response to learn from.
After each practice station, review the answer in three passes: identify the safety-critical omission; identify one reasoning or communication point to improve; then repeat the station with that change. If you only read feedback, you may recognise the right answer without being able to produce it under pressure. Re-speak the improved answer in your own words.
Use audio for a different kind of revision
An audio recap can help you revisit a board while walking or travelling, but it should support, not replace, active practice. Listen for the order of decisions and pause to predict the next action before it is stated. After listening, close the recap and explain the sequence aloud from memory. Check any management detail against current UK guidance if the topic may have changed.
For example, a short examiner-voiced recap can focus on the high-risk decisions in anaphylaxis. In MySummaries, the lecture from this board might sound like this:
Transcript · tap any word to jump there
The first decision is whether this is anaphylaxis, not whether the patient has a rash. Sudden illness after a likely trigger, with airway, breathing or circulation compromise, should make you act. Skin or mucosal changes can support the diagnosis, but their absence does not safely exclude it. Call for help and begin an ABCDE assessment.
For an adult, the first-line drug is adrenaline 500 micrograms intramuscularly: 0.5 mL of the 1 mg/mL solution, given into the anterolateral thigh. If there is no improvement, repeat the intramuscular dose after 5 minutes. Do not let antihistamines, corticosteroids or a wait for tests delay that treatment. Reassess the patient, support oxygenation and circulation, and escalate urgently.
After the immediate reaction is controlled, the work is not finished. The patient needs an appropriate observation and follow-up plan, including assessment for the suspected allergy and advice about avoiding another exposure. Use current local guidance for decisions that depend on the patient's response and circumstances.
This illustrative listening screen turns the board's emergency sequence into a spoken revision passage.
A weekly method you can start now
Choose one clinical topic and one session for questions this week. In your first session, organise your own notes into a board and check uncertain management against a reliable, current source. In the next, reduce the topic to a core checklist and make cards for facts you repeatedly miss. Then answer questions and explain your choices, including why the most tempting alternative is wrong.
For a PLAB 2 practice session, choose a station from the same topic, speak through it under a fixed practice limit, and review safety, reasoning and communication separately. Repeat it after feedback rather than moving straight to a new case. Across subsequent weeks, alternate topics and return to earlier cards when due. Increase the amount of timed practice as you become more accurate, while preserving time to review errors.
Once a week, check your error log. Sort misses into knowledge gaps, misread clues, poor prioritisation and unclear communication. Each cause needs a different fix: relearn a fact, practise reading the stem, rehearse an urgent sequence, or simplify your phrasing. This makes revision targeted rather than a cycle of doing more questions without correcting the reason marks were lost.
How MySummaries helps
MySummaries lets you build revision boards from your own PDFs, slides and photographed notes, then create spaced-repetition flashcards, written mock exams marked against those notes, examiner-voiced audio lectures and recorded oral practice. For PLAB preparation, use one board per clinical topic and turn repeated question or station errors into the next focused revision task.