What should the last two weeks before the AMC MCQ look like?

By the time you are two weeks out, your date is effectively fixed. Pearson VUE lets you change or cancel up to 21 days before the exam, so at 14 days you can no longer move it without losing your authorisation and payment. That is a useful thing to know: the question stops being "am I ready?" and becomes "how do I get the most from the time I have?". The advice below is general guidance, not an official plan.

The goal of these two weeks

Consolidate what you know, find the last few gaps, and walk into the exam rested and familiar with the format. These weeks are not for learning a whole new topic from scratch. New material at this stage tends to crowd out what you already know.

Days 14 to 8: practise like the real thing

• Sit one or two full mocks. The real exam is 150 questions in 3.5 hours. Do them timed, in one sitting, with no skipping and no going back, because the AMC's specification says candidates must answer each question before the next appears.
• Choose the same time of day as your exam booking, so your body clock has practised.
• Spend as long reviewing as you did testing. Every wrong answer is a pointer to something. Group your mistakes: knowledge gaps, misread questions, rushed answers, changed-mind errors.
• Revisit weak patient groups with short, focused sessions, not marathons.

Days 7 to 3: tighten

• Go through your quick-reference material: doses, screening schedules, immunisation, normal values and notifiable conditions. Our free study guides cover each of these.
• Do short question sets each day to stay warm, and stop while you are still alert.
• Do not start new resources. Stay with the ones you trust.
• Sort the logistics. Confirm the venue, work out your travel, and read your authorisation and Pearson VUE emails again for the identification you need.

The last two days

• Do light revision only, such as your own summary notes.
• Do not sit a full mock the day before. Tired and anxious is the wrong way to arrive.
• Prepare your bag, your ID and your route, and go to bed early.

On the day

• Arrive early. The AMC says candidates must arrive at least 30 minutes before their appointment.
• Expect strict rules. Phones must be switched off and stored, and paper, pens and pencils are not allowed in the exam room. You are given a whiteboard and pen for notes, which are collected at the end.
• Pace yourself. 150 questions in 3.5 hours averages 84 seconds a question. Check your pace now and then.
• Answer every question. You cannot skip, wrong answers are not penalised, and a candidate who does not finish may have the result recorded as a fail for insufficient data.
• Do not try to guess how you are doing. The exam is adaptive, so the difficulty of the questions tells you little. Our post on how the adaptive exam works explains why.

Questions people ask