Do past medicine interview questions help?

What does a medicine interview mark?

How a candidate thinks. The Medical Schools Council, which represents UK medical schools, says interviews "aren't just about testing your knowledge" and that each station of a multiple mini interview (MMI) assesses "specific attributes". Individual schools say the same. Leeds says its interview "does not aim to test clinical or scientific knowledge" and scores candidates against standardised scales on qualities such as communication, ethical reasoning and problem solving. Hull York tells candidates "You will not be tested on your medical knowledge".

When a station measures reasoning, knowing its topic in advance gives a candidate a prepared script. A script holds up until the follow up questions start, and those are there to test the reasoning.

Do medical schools reuse MMI stations?

We know of no school that publishes which stations return, and researchers have advised schools to change them. A 2008 study of MMI applicants at an Australian medical school, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, followed 17 candidates who sat the interview twice. Their total scores rose significantly on the second attempt, with small gains on stations the same as, or similar to, ones they had met before. The authors concluded that "as practice on similar MMI tasks does improve scores, tasks should be rotated each year". A list of last year's questions describes the stations a school had the most reason to change.

What do past questions miss?

The follow up questions. A list records the opening question of a station. What comes after it depends on what each candidate said first, so no list can record it.

How does AlphaMED prepare students for medicine interviews?

The Interview Masterclass runs for 30 hours on the UK pathway. The first 10 hours are a course on the foundations every applicant needs: motivation, medical ethics, NHS knowledge and clinical reasoning. The other 20 are one to one, on the format each target school uses, whether MMI, panel interview or Oxbridge.

Then come the mock panels. Each mock is scored independently by more than one mentor, and the marks are reconciled before the student sees any feedback, so what the student hears is a view several markers have agreed on. Since 2022, our students have consistently turned interviews into offers.

Are past questions any use at all?

They show the territory, in the way hot topic lists show which stories are in the news. The Medical Schools Council's statement on core values sets out the values and attributes schools select for, and it is free. An evening with it tells a candidate what a station could be about.

Preparing for what the interviewer does with the answer takes practice in front of people who have marked these interviews, and that is what our mock panels are for.