MRCOG PART II WRITTEN, MCQ AND EMQ COURSE

Structure of the course

This is an exam preparation course and is not intended to teach you all about obstetrics and gynaecology as such. The aim is to train you for a specific event, not to teach subject material or understanding from scratch. We hope to help you develop a technique for approaching the examination questions and to familiarise yourself with their style. This will be partly by enabling you to understand the examiners' perspectives and intentions in setting the questions.

After each session of the course you will be given the question material to keep. It is up to you to keep a record of your own initial answers, and to make a note of topics which you may need to focus on further in your personal revision.

Extended Matching Questions sessions

Since September 2006, the MRCOG Part II written examinations includes one paper of 40 Extended Matching Questions (EMQs). One hour is allowed for this paper, in addition to a reduced MCQ paper of 1½ hours (225 questions) and two reduced Short Answer Question papers of 1¾ hours each (4 short essays in each paper). The new EMQ paper contributes a possible 15% of the total marks for the written exams.

As a proportionate reflection of this new development, our course includes two sessions of Extended Matching Questions for you to try, interspersed with the expected answers and relevant discussion.

The "Multiple Choice" sessions

In each of the "MCQ" sessions you will be presented with questions in groups of 10 with 4-5 minutes allowed for you to answer each group of questions (equivalent to the timing in the actual exam), followed by a review of the correct answers and discussion of the questions. The questions you will see during the week are all made up Miss Susan Tuck, an experienced MRCOG examiner, from knowledge of what goes into the exam setting process at the College.

The essay sessions

In each of these sessions you will have 20 minutes to write your answer for each question, and you will be expected to follow exactly the same "rules" as in the exam itself (this is slightly less time than the 26 minutes per essay which you will have during the actual exam, but should be adequate for you to write your response and allow as many questions as possible to be fitted into each session). After each essay there will be 12-15 minutes for discussion of the correct answers (the key points of which are all pre-determined) and for you to mark your own response.

Click here for the course timetable.