# Practising for Medical School UK with MedMock

Canonical page: https://medmock.com/exams/medical-school-uk

## What do UK medical-school finals involve, and how do you practise for them?

The clinical half of UK finals is the Clinical and Professional Skills Assessment, which your own medical school sets and runs. MedMock lets you rehearse the skills it tests — history taking, explaining and counselling, breaking bad news, ethics, prescribing, acute management, data interpretation and clinical reasoning — out loud against a realistic AI patient or examiner, with instant feedback after every station.

A complete example station — full transcript and the scorecard MedMock produced — is at https://medmock.com/exams/medical-school-uk/example

## About this exam

Preparation for UK medical-school finals. Practise the bedside skills the GMC outcomes require — interpreting data, taking a focused history, breaking bad news, ethics & capacity, prescribing safely, and managing the acutely unwell patient — to UK final-year medical-student standard.

## What happens in the real Medical School UK (checked against the official source on 2026-09-26)

UK medical school finals have no single national OSCE format: each medical school sets and runs its own clinical and professional skills assessment (CPSA), which schools call by different names such as an OSCE or OSLER, and chooses its format, the number and length of its stations, and how it is marked. What is national is the GMC's Medical Licensing Assessment (MLA): every student graduating from a UK medical school must pass both its parts, an applied knowledge test (AKT) and the CPSA, and each school's CPSA must meet the GMC's published CPSA requirements before it counts.

- **Clinical and professional skills assessment (CPSA)**: A performance-based assessment of clinical and professional skills, knowledge and behaviours, set and run by your own medical school in your penultimate or final year, on dates the school chooses. The school decides the format (for example an OSCE or OSLER), the station types, and the number and duration of stations.

Marking: Marking is set by each school: it decides how performance is scored within stations (for example by domain, checklist or overall global judgement), how results are combined across the whole assessment and how any marks from simulated or real patients contribute, and must explain its rationale to the GMC. The GMC requires every CPSA to assess professionalism and to draw its content from the GMC's MLA content map.

Passing: The GMC does not publish a national CPSA pass mark: each school sets its own standard at station and whole-assessment level, including any extra criteria such as a minimum number of stations passed, and must justify its method to the GMC. The MLA is part of your degree, so if you fail it you will not graduate.

Sources: https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/medical-licensing-assessment https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/medical-licensing-assessment/uk-students-guide-to-the-mla/taking-the-mla https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/medical-licensing-assessment/uk-students-guide-to-the-mla/costs-and-test-scores https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/medical-licensing-assessment/uk-medical-schools-guide-to-the-mla/clinical-and-professional-skills-assessment-cpsa https://www.gmc-uk.org/cdn/documents/mla-cpsa-requirements-_pdf-84742729.pdf https://www.gmc-uk.org/cdn/documents/guidance-to-assessment-providers-on-creating-a-submission-against-the-cpsa-requirements_pdf-84741760.pdf https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/medical-licensing-assessment/uk-medical-schools-guide-to-the-mla/framework https://www.gmc-uk.org/cdn/documents/mla-framework---updated-october-2024_pdf-104463559.pdf https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/medical-licensing-assessment/mla-content-map https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/medical-licensing-assessment/mla-compliance-reports
Full format page: https://medmock.com/exams/medical-school-uk/format

## How to prepare for the Medical School UK (facts checked against official sources on 2026-09-27)

UK finals have no single national OSCE: your medical school sets and runs its own clinical and professional skills assessment (CPSA), and you must pass it and the applied knowledge test, the two parts of the GMC's Medical Licensing Assessment, to graduate. Prepare from your school's own assessment guidance and the GMC's MLA content map, practise the presentations, practical skills and professional behaviours it lists, and rehearse stations out loud to your school's timings.

1. **Start with your own school's rules** — Each school chooses its CPSA format, station types, number and length of stations, scoring and pass standard, and sets the dates. Get your school's assessment guidance, mark schemes and any practice circuits early, and check its resit rules; some schools charge for resits.
2. **Read your school's GMC compliance report** — The GMC publishes a report on each school's CPSA, recording its review against the GMC's requirements. A report can describe the school's format, stations and scoring: UCL's, for example, covers its format, testing time, number and duration of stations and use of real and simulated patients.
3. **Use the MLA content map as your checklist** — The content map sets out the core knowledge, skills and behaviours needed for UK practice and is the framework for CPSA content. Work through its patient presentations, conditions, practical skills and procedures, and clinical and professional capabilities, and tick off what you can do out loud.
4. **Practise the three themes in every station** — Every CPSA must map to readiness for safe practice, managing uncertainty and delivering person-centred care, and must show you can identify and interpret clinical findings. In practice stations, say what you would do if the diagnosis is unclear, when you would escalate, and how you would involve the patient in decisions.
5. **Get competent in the GMC's practical skills** — The GMC's Practical skills and procedures sets out the core procedures, and the minimum level of performance, you need when you start work. Practise them on models and, under supervision, on patients until you can perform and explain each one without prompts.
6. **Treat professionalism as examined everywhere** — Every CPSA must assess professionalism and capture unprofessional behaviour. Use Achieving good medical practice to rehearse sharing information, supporting patients' decisions, safeguarding and being open when things go wrong, and treat every simulated patient as a real one.
7. **Rehearse on placement, not just in the library** — The GMC describes the CPSA as responding to scenarios you might meet in clinical practice. Ask doctors on your placements to watch you take histories, examine and explain to real patients, and time your practice stations to your school's station length.

Official resources:

- Taking the MLA: what the assessment involves (GMC) (https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/medical-licensing-assessment/uk-students-guide-to-the-mla/taking-the-mla): The GMC's guide for UK students on the AKT and CPSA, and how to prepare.
- MLA content map (GMC) (https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/medical-licensing-assessment/mla-content-map): The core knowledge, skills and behaviours that CPSA and AKT content is drawn from; the version in force from September 2026.
- Outcomes for graduates: Practical skills and procedures (GMC) (https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/standards-guidance-and-curricula/standards-and-outcomes/outcomes-for-graduates/outcomes-for-graduates---practical-skills-and-procedures): The procedures, and the level of performance, you must reach before you start work.
- Achieving good medical practice: guidance for medical students (GMC) (https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/standards-guidance-and-curricula/guidance/student-professionalism-and-ftp/achieving-good-medical-practice): The professional standards expected of you as a student, the basis for professionalism in your CPSA.
- Requirements for the MLA Clinical and Professional Skills Assessment (GMC) (https://www.gmc-uk.org/cdn/documents/mla-cpsa-requirements-_pdf-84742729.pdf): What every school's CPSA must do, including its themes, content sampling and assessment of professionalism.
- MLA compliance reports (GMC) (https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/medical-licensing-assessment/mla-compliance-reports): The GMC's published report on each medical school's CPSA.

Sources: https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/medical-licensing-assessment/uk-students-guide-to-the-mla/taking-the-mla https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/medical-licensing-assessment https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/medical-licensing-assessment/uk-students-guide-to-the-mla/costs-and-test-scores https://www.gmc-uk.org/cdn/documents/mla-cpsa-requirements-_pdf-84742729.pdf https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/medical-licensing-assessment/uk-medical-schools-guide-to-the-mla/clinical-and-professional-skills-assessment-cpsa https://www.gmc-uk.org/cdn/documents/ucl-medical-school--university-college-london---mla-cpsa-compliance-report-and-decision--a-106863454.pdf https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/medical-licensing-assessment/mla-content-map https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/standards-guidance-and-curricula/standards-and-outcomes/outcomes-for-graduates/outcomes-for-graduates---practical-skills-and-procedures https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/standards-guidance-and-curricula/guidance/student-professionalism-and-ftp/achieving-good-medical-practice https://www.gmc-uk.org/-/media/gmc-site/transcripts/students-guide-to-the-mla-how-can-i-prepare-for-the-mla_docx-87822003.docx https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/medical-licensing-assessment/mla-compliance-reports https://www.gmc-uk.org/cdn/documents/mla-framework---updated-october-2024_pdf-104463559.pdf
Full guide: https://medmock.com/exams/medical-school-uk/prepare

Dates: Medical school finals OSCEs (the Medical Licensing Assessment’s clinical and professional skills assessment) are set and run by each medical school, so there is no national date. Your school publishes its own assessment calendar. (source: General Medical Council (GMC)).
All Medical School UK dates: https://medmock.com/exams/medical-school-uk#dates

## Stations you can practise

- **Data Interpretation** — Interpret a 12-lead ECG, chest radiograph, blood gas, FBC/U&E/LFT/troponin, or other bedside investigation against a paired clinical vignette. Reason aloud through the systematic interpretation, name the diagnosis, give differentials, and explain immediate + definitive management to UK final-year medical-student standard.
- **History Taking** — Take a focused, structured history from a virtual patient presenting with a common acute or chronic complaint (chest pain, breathlessness, abdominal pain, headache, collapse, fatigue, etc). Demonstrate ICE, red-flag screening, social impact, and a clear summary back to the patient.
- **Communication & Counselling** — Counsel a patient on a new diagnosis or treatment in plain English (eg new type 2 diabetes, asthma inhaler technique, warfarin counselling, smoking cessation). Demonstrate teach-back, ICE, written-information offer, and clear safety netting.
- **Breaking Bad News** — Deliver a difficult diagnosis or prognosis to a patient or relative using a SPIKES-style framework. Test pacing, warning shot, chunking, silence, emotion handling, and follow-up planning at student-appropriate level.
- **Ethics & Professionalism** — Work through a finals-level ethics scenario — consent, capacity (MCA 4-pillar test), confidentiality, duty of candour, mistakes on the ward, raising peer concerns. Verbalise reasoning against GMC Good Medical Practice and the relevant statute.
- **Prescribing** — Prescribe safely against a clinical scenario — drug, dose, route, frequency, duration, allergies, interactions. Practise common finals scenarios: paracetamol/opioid analgesia ladder, fluid resuscitation, sepsis-six antibiotics, asthma exacerbation, anaphylaxis, anticoagulation, insulin sliding scales.
- **Acute Management (A–E)** — Manage a deteriorating patient using a structured A–E approach. Common finals presentations: sepsis, anaphylaxis, MI, asthma exacerbation, PE, hypoglycaemia, opioid overdose. Verbalise immediate priorities, monitoring, escalation, and definitive treatment.
- **Clinical Reasoning Viva** — Examiner-led short case viva — given a 1–2 sentence vignette, walk through differentials, focused investigations, working diagnosis, and management plan. Trains the rapid-fire 'what would you do next?' decision-making expected at finals.

## Sample Medical School UK questions

- *Breaking Bad News:* Speak to the parents of a 3-month-old infant admitted with poor weight gain and a chest infection. Break the news that sweat and genetic testing have confirmed cystic fibrosis, and discuss what this means for their child.
- *Acute Management (A-E):* A staff nurse calls you to review a patient with known asthma who is speaking in single words, has a respiratory rate of 32, and oxygen saturations of 88% on air. Talk through your immediate A-E assessment and management steps.

## Example scenarios

- *Data Interpretation:* A 67-year-old man presents with crushing central chest pain, sweaty and clammy. Vitals: BP 138/82, HR 92, RR 18, SpO₂ 97% on air. Interpret the ECG and troponin shown to you, give your top differential, and walk through your immediate management.
- *History Taking:* A 58-year-old woman presents to her GP with a four-week history of intermittent epigastric pain. Take a focused history covering red flags, ICE, and social context.
- *Communication & Counselling:* A 42-year-old man has just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes (HbA1c 62 mmol/mol). Counsel him on the diagnosis, lifestyle changes, and starting metformin.
- *Breaking Bad News:* A 61-year-old's CT scan has shown findings consistent with metastatic pancreatic cancer. Break this news to her at her outpatient appointment. Her husband is in the room.
- *Ethics & Professionalism:* An 86-year-old woman with mild dementia refuses surgery for a fractured neck of femur. Walk me through your capacity assessment and how you would proceed.
- *Prescribing:* A 74-year-old admitted with community-acquired pneumonia, NEWS2 of 7, allergic to penicillin. Talk the examiner through the sepsis-six antibiotics and IV fluids you would prescribe, and justify each entry.
- *Acute Management (A–E):* A 22-year-old with known asthma is brought to ED unable to complete sentences, RR 32, SpO₂ 88% on air, peak flow 30% predicted. Walk me through your A–E assessment and immediate management.
- *Clinical Reasoning Viva:* A 70-year-old presents with a three-day history of unilateral leg swelling and pleuritic chest pain. Walk me through your top differential, the investigations you would order, and your management plan.

## How a practice session works

1. **Choose a station** — Pick from the Medical School UK stations — all 8 that MedMock runs, or let MedMock surprise you the way exam day will.
2. **Have the conversation** — Speak naturally, out loud. The AI patient or examiner responds in real time — with follow-up questions, emotions, cues and unexpected turns, just like the real stations.
3. **Get instant feedback** — The moment you finish, you get specific, examiner-style feedback and a score — what you did well, what cost you marks, and precisely what to fix before the next attempt.

## Price

Start with a one-off £5 taster: 30 credits (30 minutes of speaking practice), not a subscription. After that, or instead, £20 per month for 200 credits. One credit is one minute of spoken practice, or two typed exchanges, and where the examiner or patient speaks first, that opening line is free. Examiner scorecards, mark schemes and model answers for finished sessions are included at no extra credit cost. Cancel at any time. Full details: https://medmock.com/pricing

## Frequently asked questions

### How does the feedback work?

When you finish a station you can have it marked, and the scorecard comes back in seconds — what you did well, what cost you marks, and exactly what to work on next. Scorecards, mark schemes and model answers are included at no extra credit cost.

### Can I practise specific Medical School UK stations?

Yes. You can pick any of the 8 stations to drill a weak area, or run a Full Mock that takes you through the stations MedMock practises, back to back.

### How much does it cost?

You can start with a one-off £5 taster: 30 credits, which is 30 minutes of speaking practice, with no subscription. After that, or at any time, you can choose a monthly plan, which includes a monthly credit allowance. Current prices are on the pricing page.

## About MedMock

MedMock is a web app for practising the spoken parts of UK medical and dental exams and interviews out loud. The candidate talks; an AI patient, examiner or interview panel answers in real time by voice; and when the station ends MedMock marks the performance against that exam's assessment domains and shows the model answer.

It covers 104 spoken exams and interviews — OSCEs, vivas, structured oral exams, simulated consultations, and specialty-training and consultant interviews. It does not cover written or multiple-choice papers, and it is not a question bank.

It was founded by Mr Sam Nahas, MBBS BSc MEd FRCS (Tr & Orth), a practising consultant orthopaedic surgeon in the UK, with co-founder and CTO Arjan Jandu. It is operated by VirtualPatients Ltd (company no. 16303492).

Pricing: a one-off £5 taster of 30 credits to try it (not a subscription, one per account), and a monthly subscription from £20 to £129 depending on the exam (student exams cost least, fellowship exit exams and consultant interviews most), or £199 to £275 for the Intensive plans, which carry more credits. One credit is one minute of spoken practice, or two typed exchanges, and where the examiner or patient speaks first, that opening line is free. Examiner scorecards, mark schemes and model answers for finished sessions are included at no extra credit cost. Subscriptions can be cancelled at any time.

It runs in a web browser on a laptop or phone; spoken practice needs a microphone. There is no public demo: practice needs an account with credits, usually from the taster or a monthly plan.

MedMock is for adults aged 18 or over. Sign-up asks every new account to confirm it.

MedMock is a revision tool. The patients, examiners and cases are fictional and AI-generated; it is not clinical guidance and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any Royal College, the GMC, the GDC or any examining body.

Start with the £5 taster: https://medmock.com/auth/signup