Preparing for the Situational Judgement Test (SJT) test may be a difficult task, to say the least. It accounts for at least half a portion of your Foundation Programme application, and as a result, it has the most impact on your ranking of any single exam. You’ll hear people say that you can’t prepare for it or that planning would make you do worse. Several people will recommend their favorite textbook or curriculum. You will be left feeling uncomfortable as you attempt to study for an exam for which you have no clue how to prepare.
Even though you cannot acquire or cram content for the SJT foundation programme in the traditional way, you may prepare for it, and we will discuss how to do so in this post.
Defining SJT
Taking the SJT isn’t a test of your expertise or abilities but rather a test to see if you have the qualities necessary to succeed as a Foundation doctor. A dedication to professionalism, patient attention, pressure management, good communication skills, and collaboration are all covered in this course.
With a total of 70 scenarios asking you how you would behave in different situations, the SJT takes 2 hours and 20 minutes. There are several different formats for questions, including multiple-choice and ranking order questions.
- The ranking questions provide you with five options, which you must rate from best to worst to pass the question.
- The multiple-choice questions offer eight options, and you must choose three of them that are the most appropriate responses to the question.
Tips To Prepare for SJT
You do not prepare for this test in the traditional way of memorizing facts. Since the questions are properly phrased and everything is heavily contextualized, it can become hard to memorize things. Slight variations in the phrasing or context of a question can significantly impact what you do.
Check Good Medical Practice and Ethical Guidelines
- Make an effort to comprehend and learn the major concepts presented here. More acquaintance with them will allow you to rate against the guidelines.
- You must be familiar with the concepts of capacity, ethical pillars of medicine, informed consent, and other similar fundamental principles of medical practise.
Practice Questions
- These are beneficial, and you should perform them more than once if possible. The reasons and solutions are also crucial to study since they will assist you in understanding the GMC’s goals.
- The key is not to memorise the answers but rather to fully comprehend the complexities of how the question and answers are phrased and how this influences their ranking or selection.
Time Management
- The most prevalent cause for students performing badly on the SJT foundation programme test is that they did not complete or missed a question. Because even one question’s marks can significantly influence your overall rating, a question with a zero might be the difference between landing your first option or not.
- Work your way through an official practice paper and get a feel for the time constraints.
- The test will last 2 hours and 20 minutes and will consist of 70 questions in total.
- Part one accounts for two-thirds of the total marks, so you should expect to spend around 1 hour 30 minutes on it and 40 minutes on section two.
- You will have plenty of time if you aim for 90 seconds for each question.
- Remember not to transcribe your answers until the very end of the exam! This is a surefire method to end up in failure.
Visit the hospital ward
- Spending time in the ward and witnessing how physicians interact with patients and their families was educational.
- Understanding how the multidisciplinary team interacts is beneficial because it allows you to get more familiar with the SJT situations that occur in the hospital setting. In the exam, the more you observe, the simpler it is to visualize the scenarios.
- This is useful in understanding what is practically doable under the limits of a time-pressed healthcare system. Without this knowledge, the distinction between an educational supervisor and a clinical lead is difficult to grasp.
Must-Remember Points
- Early planning is essential.
- Complete the questionnaire from the practice paper.
- It is not necessary to read or take classes. Unlike other examinations, the finest candidates spend time on the wards, reading and comprehending the fundamentals.
- Keep in mind that the questions have been written with the F1 job in mind and the GMC rules.
- Ensure that you read all of the answers before picking a choice in the ranking questions.
- When answering the selection questions, ensure that your options make sense when regarded as a whole.
- Do not overthink the replies or make conclusions about the situation.
