Abstract
The Applied Knowledge Test (AKT) exam is a time-pressured exam with 200 questions in 180 uninterrupted minutes covering the entire breadth of the GP curriculum.
Exam preparation
General practice as an ST2 or ST3 is by far the best preparation ground for the AKT exam:
Look up any areas of unmet patient need, regularly undertake your own needs assessment and then concentrate on your weaker areas rather than reinforcing in depth your favourite subjects
Ensure that you critically consider your own actions as well as those of colleagues
Make use of your protected training environment to look at the evidence which underpins decision making in primary care
Use a simple medical statistics book and make sure that you understand how to critically appraise
Ask your trainer to show you the sort of paperwork that comes to a GP and make sure that you understand any quoted statistics or graphs therein
Educational resources
A number of excellent resources exist for registrars preparing for the AKT and Table 1 lists useful websites that may help you with your preparation.
Useful websites to use to prepare for the AKT exam
InnovAiT practice AKT questions
InnovAiT publishes AKT questions validated by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) for AKT practice purposes. Every month there are two to three questions published in the journal with more new questions available online. You can also access our extensive database of past questions covering the entire GP curriculum via the InnovAiT website: www.rcgp-innovait.oxfordjournals.org.
InnovAiT AKTs can be used to hone your AKT technique and also to identify areas of weakness. The feedback provided can be used to enhance your knowledge and also to compare your performance against others answering the same question. In the near future, you will be able to construct personalized practice AKT tests using past InnovAiT AKT questions and covering areas of the curriculum that you specify.
Essential Knowledge Updates
The RCGP ‘Essential Knowledge Updates’ are freely available to all Associates-in-Training (AiTs) via www.elearning.rcgp.org.uk. The associated Essential Knowledge Challenges are 50-item AKT-like tests with the first four all having direct access to answers. These challenges are proving increasingly popular and will soon have answer justification comments available as well as anonymized benchmarking graphs to compare yourself to other GPs.
RCGP AKT courses
All RCGP Faculties have 1 day AKT exam preparation courses and the RCGP provides a PowerPoint presentation as well as 50 validated AKT questions which can be downloaded from the RCGP website (no answers are given as they are intended to give you familiarity with the question format and style rather than the topic itself).
Feedback to educators
It is well worth scrutinizing the ‘Feedback to Educators’ document, which is produced by the RCGP after every AKT examination. This document highlights pass rates and identified areas causing candidate difficulty. Consider if these areas are your strong or weak areas. Almost without fail, family planning knowledge remains poor in every diet so why not put this top of your ‘to do’ list now.
Other resources
A multitude of exam preparation websites and books exist, which can help you identify what you know and what you need to know.
Exam technique
Make use of the tutorial available on the Pearson Vue website before the day of your exam. There is also a short compulsory tutorial at the beginning of the AKT examination for everybody.
Answering questions
You have less than a minute to answer each question. Watch the clock throughout and work out in advance how many questions you should have covered after 60, 120 and 150 minutes. This way you will not run out of time. It is important to be strict with yourself as you will not get marks for unanswered questions.
The AKT exam software programme runs an automatic countdown timer in the top right hand corner of the screen. This shows how much time you have left and there is a warning at 10 minutes before the end. If you are absolutely confident that you wish to finish the test early, you can; alternatively, you are forced to finish at exactly 180 minutes with all your hard work saved.
Answer questions based on your initial intuition and workings out and then move on. Leave questions that you find difficult to the end. Any unanswered questions are flagged automatically. Using the ‘cover test’ can be helpful. Answer the question first with the available answers covered. When you uncover the picking list, if your answer is on the list, then it is highly likely to be correct. Do not allow the other distracters to appeal to you.
Flag any questions that you feel are ‘50/50’ for a review at the end and do not spend too long prevaricating first time round. Mark a question for review by ticking the box in the top left hand corner of the screen.
And finally
Enjoy the challenge. Even the best registrar will feel stretched by this exam but focused preparation for the AKT will not only increase your chances of success but will equip you with a knowledge base that will serve you well in your future career.