High-yield topics for AMC Part 1

What high-yield means on this page

AMC Part 1 is the name many candidates use for the AMC CAT MCQ. The AMC's MCQ Examination Specifications do not use the term high-yield. They describe the exam as a comprehensive examination of medical knowledge and practice, and the AMC recommends a thorough review of the major topics.

The specifications do describe which questions the exam includes. Some are critical to the safety or clinical outcome of the patient. Others are based on important common conditions and meet one of four further criteria:

• related to life-threatening illness
• critical to safe practice, which includes professionalism
• successful clinical outcome
• an important aspect of public health

We use these criteria as our definition of high-yield. The selection below is ours, and it is not an AMC list. It is not drawn from recalled questions, from candidates' accounts or from claims about which topics appear most often. The AMC also says that most questions reflect common clinical conditions in the Australian community and test pathogenesis, clinical features, investigative findings, differential diagnosis and management.

Presentations that meet the criteria, by patient group

The table gives kinds of presentation in each patient group that meet at least one criterion, with the Australian guidance for each. The shares are from the AMC blueprint.

Most rows meet more than one criterion. Acute coronary syndrome is a life-threatening illness, lithium toxicity is a question of safe practice and screening is an aspect of public health. Each row is a starting point, and every group contains many more conditions that meet the same criteria. The AMC's free book Australian Medicine in Context covers 105 common conditions and 56 professional practice topics, and the AMC describes it as essentially a guide to what is examinable.

Testing it group by group

Work through one patient group at a time, starting with the group where your first read is weakest. For each wrong answer, name the criterion the question turned on and the Australian guidance that decides it. Several wrong answers in one row of the table mark a topic to revise before the next set.

Two kinds of question cut across the groups. The specifications say questions may contain X-rays, ECGs, scans and clinical photographs. Many emergency presentations relate to life-threatening illness, whichever patient group they belong to.

For more practice in one group, use the pages for adult medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, psychiatry and population health and ethics. The preparation guide sets out the method, and the study plan turns it into a timetable.