Don’t underestimate the difficulty of the MSRA, start studying early, and do as many questions as you can afford to. It will pay off.

The Multi Specialty Recruitment Assessment (MSRA / SRA) is used by various specialties as part of the recruitment process for training posts. It has been used longest for GP training. In this article, Dr Amelia Thompson explains how she scored 610 and got a direct offer while juggling studying with caring for 2 young children and working in Malawi! The second section is clinical problem solving and measures the applicant’s ability to apply their knowledge and make clinical decisions. This is again based on foundation doctor level competency and covers 12 topic areas related to general medicine. There are only a small number of ophthalmology questions, and therefore revision must be broad to cover other speciality areas. The questions are clinical scenarios which require you to use judgement and problem-solving skills to diagnose and manage conditions. It comprises of 97 questions, of which 86 count towards the overall mark and 11 are pilot questions. You are allocated 75 minutes to complete this section. The questions are either extended matching questions (EMQ) or single best answers (SBA). Exam markingThe 86 CPS clinical questions are split up equally into extended matching style questions where you are given a scenario and asked to choose the most appropriate option from a list of 7-10 possible answer options. And single-best answer style questions where you are asked to choose the single most appropriate answer option from a list of 5 answer options. One of PassMedicine's most-liked features is it's textbook which offers explanations and information around clinical topics in detail. Questions were felt to be less similar to those asked at the final MSRA exam than other online question banks, but at such a low cost it's a fairly inexpensive risk to take.

A patient presents with a 6-week history of a painful, non-healing ulcer on their foot. Which of the following tests is most likely to confirm the diagnosis?

Some prefer visual learning – for example our MSRA Clinical and SJT Online Courses allows you to follow syllabus-based teaching on screen – in more depth than the audiobooks. The Multi-Specialty Recruitment Assessment (MSRA) is a single computer-based exam comprising a Professional Dilemmas (PD) paper and a Clinical Problem Solving (CPS) paper. It is intended to assess candidates with a foundation level of competence. Extensive teaching notes accompany each question. These build to form a reference library you can access at any time Should you wish to transfer your MSRA score, please answer 'Yes' when reapplying. What's in the MSRA?

Management (non-Prescribing)– Advising, authorising or reviewing a patient’s clinical management plan – specifically the use of non drug-related treatment. My simple answer is that relying on one method alone can leave you a little short. No question bank can cover every aspect of the MSRA, whilst purely reading books and guidelines will not give your brain adequate exposure to problem-solving. If planned well, both should be used together as both have advantages in terms of improving retention and performance.All applicants that score higher than the cut-off score but are not initially invited to interview will be put on a reserve list.) Another very common question that I get asked is ‘which question bank should I use?’ I have not had experience of all banks on the market but all I would say is try and have some variety. Often doctors rely on only one question bank and get very used to a certain style of question-writing – doing the same style of question 2-3000 times is bound to trigger your brain to think in a certain way and it can be very confusing when another ‘style’ is suddenly encountered in the exam. The PD paper is split into two sections with about half the questions in section one, and half are in section two but section one carries the bulk of the marks as we'll see in a moment when we look at the scoring. Sample and practice questions for both papers of the MSRA are available here. Additionally, a demo test to enable candidates to familiarise themselves with the controls and screen layout is available here. Making optimum use of time is important – using travel time to answer a few questions here or there, or listen to a chapter of our MSRA Clinical Crammer or SJT Audiobook courses for example, can add to the formal preparation time that you sit down to do.