Historical: February 2025 PLAB Exam Patterns & Management

What changed

• Increased proportion of stems testing management order rather than diagnosis alone, particularly in acute medicine and surgery.
• More questions requiring candidates to identify the correct next step when initial investigations are already provided in the stem.
• Greater emphasis on recognising when to escalate versus continue conservative management in time-pressured scenarios.

Why it matters for your score

• Candidates who default to diagnostic-first thinking lose marks on stems designed to test action sequencing under clinical pressure.
• The shift toward pre-loaded investigation data means rote investigation lists are less useful than applied clinical reasoning.

Practical checklist

• Practice blocks focused specifically on next-step management where the diagnosis is already given.
• Review acute medicine and surgical emergency pathways with explicit attention to escalation thresholds.
• Complete at least two timed mocks with post-mock analysis focused on sequence errors rather than knowledge gaps.