AMC CAT MCQ exam day: what to expect at the test centre

The shape of the day

The CAT MCQ is a single computer adaptive exam of 150 questions over 3 hours 30 minutes, in one session, delivered on screen at a Pearson VUE test centre. Around that sit the test centre's own procedures: arrival, identity checks and, at the end, collection of the whiteboard and your departure.

The AMC requires candidates at all venues to arrive at least 30 minutes before the appointment time, and late arrivals are excluded. Allow more margin than that. Candidates who arrive with no margin start the exam with their pulse up, and the first questions are not a good place to be flustered.

Before you leave home

• Confirm the address and the appointment time the day before, and plan the trip so that you arrive at least 30 minutes early with a margin for delay.
• Take two forms of identification, in English or with a certified translation. The AMC requires the primary ID to carry a photo and a signature and the secondary ID a signature.
• Leave behind what you cannot take in. Tissues, paper of any kind, pens, pencils and rulers are not allowed into the examination, and food and drink are not permitted in the room. Do not plan on having notes to glance at.
• Eat properly beforehand. Three and a half hours of concentration is a physiological demand as much as an intellectual one.
• Dress in layers, so that the room temperature is not a distraction across 150 decisions.
• Arrange for anyone travelling with you to wait elsewhere. The AMC says family members must wait outside.

Check-in

Expect identity checks against your two IDs, and the capture of your signature and photo before you are taken into the examination room.

A whiteboard and pen are provided for making notes and are collected at the end of the examination. Being able to write down a few numbers matters for questions involving calculations.

The on-screen exam

The exam presents one question at a time: a clinical scenario, a lead-in question and five options, some with an X-ray, ECG, scan or clinical photograph. An on-screen timer shows the time remaining.

Each question must be answered before the next is shown. There is no going back, no changing an answer and no review at the end. Because the test is adaptive, the AMC says a correct answer is followed by a more difficult question and an incorrect answer by a less difficult one.

Two features of adaptive delivery matter in the chair.

• Finish all 150. The AMC expects every question to be completed, and not completing them can produce a fail with insufficient data to obtain a result. There is no negative marking.
• Hard questions do not mean you are failing. Difficulty rises after correct answers, so an exam that feels hard throughout can be an exam working near the top of your range. The pass mark page explains how the result is scored.

Pacing across three and a half hours

The time allowance works out at about 84 seconds a question. The practical approach is a steady pace with a firm decision rule.

1. Read the lead-in, then the scenario, then the options.
2. Eliminate the options that are wrong for this patient or answer a different question.
3. If two remain and neither resolves within your time budget, choose the more likely and move on.
4. Check the timer at fixed intervals rather than continuously, for example every twenty-five questions.

The last hour is where marks are lost. Accuracy falls with fatigue, and candidates who have never sat a full-length timed paper discover this for the first time in the examination itself. Full-length mocks in the weeks beforehand are the most reliable preparation for it.

Breaks

The AMC's published information describes the CAT MCQ as one session of 3 hours 30 minutes and does not set out break arrangements. If a break matters to you, for a medical reason or otherwise, ask the AMC before the day rather than relying on what other candidates report.

After the examination

Results are released at 4.00pm on the Friday three weeks after the exam, in the AMC candidate portal. The AMC CAT MCQ dates page gives the results date for each window.

Do not attempt to reconstruct the exam afterwards, alone or with other candidates. The AMC prohibits recording, disclosing or selling examination content, and it may withhold results where analysis suggests prior knowledge of questions. Memory of individual questions after three and a half hours is poor in any case, and the practice questions guide explains why remembered questions are a poor basis for preparation.

If the result is not what you hoped for, the common mistakes guide sets out the patterns that most often account for it. The AMC does not accept another CAT MCQ application until the results of a scheduled exam have been received, so the next attempt can be planned from the day results arrive.