There are 12 OSCE questions plus a ‘test’ question in each exam. The question selection for an exam is undertaken by the OSCE group lead and follows a structure to provide the following questions:
- 1 radiology
- 1 ECG
- 1 communication (professionalism)
- 1 simulation
- 9 clinical/data questions
Question selection also considers the difficulty of questions (as reflected in the Angoff scores) so that exams have a similar overall level of difficulty across the days. This format is approved by the GMC and has been replicated in the transfer to remote delivery made necessary by COVID restrictions. As the simulation question cannot be provided identically in this remote format, the last three OSCE examinations have instead included an e-simulation station, in which the candidate talks to the examiner about what they would do in a specific clinical situation (demonstrating knowledge and behaviours rather than skills).
OSCE questions are selected from the database from across a wide and representative range of topics from the curriculum to ensure content validity.
