How to practise for a viva on your own
To practise for a viva on your own, answer real questions out loud against a clock, record yourself, and mark the recording against a structure before you look anything up. The aim is not to learn more facts but to rehearse retrieving and organising them under pressure — the same six steps, a few questions a day.
Pick a question you would not choose
Work from a list of the exam's common topics and take them in order, not by preference. The topics you avoid are the ones the examiner finds.
Answer out loud, standing up, against a clock
Two to five minutes, depending on the exam. No notes. If you dry up, keep talking — recovering mid-answer is a skill you are also rehearsing.
Open with a structure, not a fact
Classify, define, or state your approach in the first sentence ("I would consider this under three headings…"). It buys thinking time, and it is what examiners mark first.
Record it, and listen back once
Note hesitations, filler, and the moment you lost the thread. Most candidates are surprised by how long they take to reach the point.
Mark yourself before you look anything up
Write down what a full answer should have contained, then check it. The gap between what you said and what you knew is the thing to close — it is rarely a knowledge gap.
Repeat the same question the next day
Then again a week later. A question you have answered well three times out loud is one you will answer well in the exam.
Frequently asked questions
What if I don't know the answer at all?
Say what you do know, in a structure, and say how you would find out the rest. Examiners mark safe reasoning; silence gives them nothing to mark.
How do I know if my answer was good enough?
That is the hard part of practising alone, and the honest limit of it. Marking schemes and examiner reports help. So does an examiner — human or AI — that marks the answer against the exam's domains and shows you what a full answer contained.
How many questions a day?
Three to five, done properly, beats twenty skimmed. Depth of rehearsal on a question matters more than the number of questions seen.
Practise this in a real station
Rehearse these skills out loud with MedMock's AI patient and examiner in the exams this matters for: