For Psychiatry trainees: 150 questions in three hours. Critical review — statistics — is where marks are won or lost, and the clinical specialties decide the rest. The questions are formulaic once you know the patterns; we teach those patterns.
A guided, free tour of the questions the examiners keep coming back to — the critical-appraisal data families and every clinical specialty, each with a briefing and common worked examples. Browse it all without signing up.
| Component | Details | Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Total Questions | 150 (~100 SBAs + ~50 EMIs) | ~1 min 12 sec per question |
| Critical Review | ~20–25% | Statistics — highest-yield for score improvement |
| General Adult Psychiatry | ~30–35% | Depression, psychosis, anxiety, personality |
| Subspecialties | ~25–30% | Old age, CAMHS, forensic, LD, liaison, addictions |
| Psychotherapy | ~10% | CBT, psychodynamic, systemic, group |
| Service Organisation & Law | ~10% | MHA, MCA, risk assessment, service models |
The critical-review component follows the RCPsych evidence-based practice syllabus. Our common-questions page mirrors it section by section.
| § | Section | Key content |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Asking the question | PECO(t); therapy, harm, aetiology, prognosis, diagnosis, economic, qualitative |
| 2 | Finding evidence | Hierarchy of evidence, publication bias, databases, searching |
| 3.1 | Epidemiology & design | Bias, validity, reliability, sampling, confounding, randomisation, study designs |
| 3.2 | Biostatistics | Descriptive stats, diagnostic accuracy, survival, effect measures, hypothesis testing, regression, meta-analysis |
| 3.3 | Health economics | Cost-effectiveness/utility/benefit, QALY, ICER, opportunity cost |
| 3.4 | Qualitative methods | Grounded theory, phenomenology, ethnography, sampling, validation |
| 3.5–3.6 | Guidelines & appraisal | NICE/SIGN; STARD, CONSORT, QUORUM/PRISMA; appraising each design |
| 4–5 | Apply & evaluate | Shared decision-making; audit & PDSA cycle |
Official RCPsych Paper B calendar. Applications must be submitted no later than 3.30pm UK time on the last date of the application period. Always confirm on the RCPsych website before booking.
| Diet | Date of examination | Application period | Publication of results |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 12 February 2026 | 1 December – 12 December 2025 | 17 March 2026 |
| 2 | 19 May 2026 | 16 March – 27 March 2026 | 25 June 2026 |
| 3 | 07 October 2026 | 13 July – 24 July 2026 | 6 November 2026 |
| Study | Topic | Key Finding |
|---|---|---|
| CATIE | Antipsychotics | SGAs not clearly superior to FGAs |
| CUtLASS | Antipsychotics | UK trial: no clear advantage of SGAs |
| STAR*D | Depression | Stepped treatment; remission declines with each step |
| BALANCE | Bipolar | Lithium + valproate combination most effective |