PLAB 2 practice

What counts as PLAB 2 practice?

An attempt only counts as practice if it does what the exam does. On the day you stand outside a cubicle, read a task card for about ninety seconds, walk in, and consult with a person who reacts to your words while a clock runs. Examiners score you against a rubric in three domains and flag safety-critical omissions. So practice that prepares you for that has three properties:

• Spoken. You say the words, in your own phrasing, at conversational speed. Reading a model answer trains recognition, not production. On exam day only production is marked.
• Timed. Eight minutes is unforgiving. Candidates who never train the clock either rush the plan or run out before safety-netting, and both cost marks.
• Marked. After each attempt you need to know exactly which rubric criteria you hit, partially hit or missed. Untracked repetition just rehearses the same mistakes more fluently.

Reading, flashcards and video courses still have a place: they build the clinical knowledge you draw on. But they are study, not practice, and PLAB 2 fails well-read candidates every sitting because the two were confused.

The four ways to practise PLAB 2

Candidates realistically have four options. They stack rather than compete, but they are not equal:

• Solo, out loud. Talking through stations to a mirror or a recorder. Free and always available, and better than silent reading, but nothing responds to you and nothing marks you, so errors go unnoticed.
• With a partner. Two candidates role-play doctor and patient. Excellent when the patient has a real script and the pair debrief honestly. Plabity's free consulting rooms run exactly this: one plays the doctor, one plays the patient from a proper brief, with a live mark scheme to score against.
• In-person courses and mock days. Useful final-weeks calibration with actors and examiners, at £300 to £650 for a day or two. The limitation is repetition: you get each station once. See the courses comparison before paying.
• Simulated patient online. A voice-based patient who responds in real time, an examiner on request, and rubric marking after every attempt, repeatable as often as you like. This is what Plabity does, free, across 474 stations.

A strong routine uses the free options daily and, if budget allows, an in-person mock near the end as a dress rehearsal, not as the practice itself.

How to practise a station properly

Make every attempt exam-shaped:

• Read the task card like it is exam day. Ninety seconds. Identify who the patient is, what you must do, and what the trap is likely to be.
• Open well and explore early. Greet, confirm identity, open question, then ideas, concerns and expectations before you narrow down. The ICE framework is the single highest-yield habit in the interpersonal domain.
• Keep the clock in view. Roughly half the station on gathering, half on explaining and planning. Leave the final minute for the plan, safety-netting and checking understanding.
• Debrief against the rubric, not your mood. A station that felt smooth can still miss criteria. Go through the mark scheme line by line, note what you missed, and rehearse the exact phrasing before repeating the station.
• Repeat until the misses disappear. Then move on. Returning to a passed station a week later checks it actually stuck.

How much PLAB 2 practice is enough?

There is no magic number, but the pattern among comfortable passers is consistent: one to three full spoken stations a day for six to eight weeks after PLAB 1, which works out at roughly 60 to 120 marked attempts. Skew the mix toward your weak domains and the recurring station families rather than spreading evenly. If you are short on time, protect the daily spoken attempt and cut reading first, not the other way round. For a week-by-week structure, use the free PLAB 2 study plan.

What to practise first

Start with the presentations that recur sitting after sitting: chest pain, breaking bad news, the angry patient, counselling and capacity. The 20 most common PLAB 2 stations ranks them with a free guide and a practice cubicle for each. From there, drill by weakness: browse all 474 PLAB 2 stations by specialty and station type, and use your feedback breakdowns to see which domain keeps leaking marks.

Start your PLAB 2 practice

Sign up with an email address and you are in a cubicle within a minute: task card, live spoken patient, examiner on request, and a rubric-marked breakdown seconds after you finish. Free, no card.

Start practising free Browse the 474 stations

Frequently asked questions

See also: the complete PLAB 2 guide · free PLAB 2 mock test · the PLAB 2 mark scheme · free PLAB 2 preparation