Hello everyone! I am Dr Ajay Saul and I passed the plab part 1 held in September, and I'll share how I prepared for it. It took me around 3.5 months to prepare for the exam while doing a full time job at the same time.
STUDY SOURCE :
Firstly, the sources that I used were plabable, pass medicine and Oxford handbook of clinical medicine. My personal advice to all of you is to only stick to plabable, as it is more than enough to pass your exam. Make it a priority that you understand the concept behind every answer you pick and use clinchers only during your revision so to avoid any blunders on the big day. ( Very common among many candidates). OHCM is very useful in those areas you are weak in. Make sure you visit the website cks.nice.org for the latest updates on the nice guidelines as it was very useful for me as well as many other candidates who were preparing with me.
MOCKS :
When completing a mock, make sure you do it all alone and within the time limit that you have in your main exam. My advice would be to go through the Samson mocks and all the 11 plabable mocks. Make a note of all the areas you went wrong and revise them again. Although I couldn't go through any of the recalls, it is very much useful for the exam as you get an idea of how the questions are framed.
GROUP DISCUSSIONS:
So most of my study was via zoom and a WhatsApp group with a sincere group of colleagues. It really helps when you have other people who can help you out in your weak areas and vice versa.
I would advice you not to do mocks together, but to do them individually instead and then have a discussion after you have finished taking the mock.
EXAM DAY
The exam was easy, but do keep a note of the time, as you shouldn't take more than 1 min for each question. Also, do not panic when you don't know a question. Mark that question and go to the next one asap before finally coming back to all the marked questions after you're done with your paper.
GOOD LUCK! 😀🎉