RACGP AKT Exam – 101 Exam Technique

Fundamentally, the RACGP AKT exam is not about assessing whether you are a good doctor. It is simply about assessing your ability to pass the RACGP AKT. Understanding exactly what is required allows you to score higher marks from exactly the same clinical knowledge and practical skills base.

Time Management

You do not run out of time on an exam. You mismanage exactly the same time everyone else had. So don’t do that. You can not score marks for questions you have not answered, and yet, on every exam cycle, the examiners note some candidates did not finish the paper.

Before you sit an exam, you should know how many questions it contains, how long it is, and, therefore, where you should be at any given time. The RACGP AKT MCQ exam has 150 questions and runs over a 4-hour timeframe.

  • 10 questions per 15 minutes
  • 40 questions at the end of the 1st hour
  • 80 questions at the end of the 2nd hour
  • 120 questions at the end of the 3rd hour
  • 150 questions done with 15 minutes to spare

Before any exam, take a couple of minutes to learn the cadence required to finish on time. That way, if you are running behind schedule, you know you need to speed up, and conversely, if you are ahead of schedule, you can afford the time to get up, stretch your legs, walk to the toilet, and empty your bladder. 4 hours is a long time to hold your water, and it’s hard to fully concentrate on the next question if you are physically uncomfortable. Know the cadence. Don’t ever run out of time and leave (almost) free marks on the table. 

You can not score marks for questions you have not answered.

The RACGP AKT MCQs

MCQ exams provide the colleges with an opportunity to test the breadth of your knowledge. The carpentry adage to measure twice, cut once speaks to the exam mantra – read the question (twice), then answer the exact question asked once.

There are a range of common errors to avoid:

  • Running out of time and, therefore, not providing an answer.
  • Knowing the correct answer but physically shading the wrong box/circle.
  • Knowing the right answer but failing to read the question carefully enough, ie not answering the question asked.
  • Not considering the fact that while the first answer you see may be correct(ish), one of the following answers may be more correct (i.e. jumping to conclusions).
  • Following advice to leave problem questions until later!
    • Quite frankly, this is a terrible idea for a whole range of reasons, including:
      • If you don’t know now, you are unlikely to know < 4 hours later.
      • If you leave an exam full of unanswered questions, you increase the possibility of not answering questions because you have run out of time and never got back to them.
      • It takes just as long to read the question the first time as it does the second, so you have just added an extra question to the exam and thrown your time management plan out the window.
        • Do that 10 times on the AKT, and the schedule above says you will run out of time.
      • You apply unnecessary stress to yourself and may not be putting 100% focus on the current question because you continue to think about the unanswered question(s).
  • Not using exclusion to make a high-probability guess from the remaining possibilities.
    • You will always be able to exclude some answer options, so do that, guess from the remaining possibilities (usually only 2 or 3) and accept that the law of statistics says you will gain 1/2 or 1/3 of a mark from all the questions you reduce down to an educated guess.
      • There is no negative marking, so not shading a circle is a waste of fractional marks.
    • If you do not do this, it is entirely possible you not only fail to grab the 1/3-1/2 mark on offer for this question but also fail to grab whole marks from questions you do know the answer to but don’t have time to focus on properly.
    • Exclude, guess, answer, move on. 
    • The other 149 questions need your full and undivided attention.