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FCPS Part-I preparation books & guidelines!

Time required for study = 3-4 months (you can do 6 to 8 hours job with this but do leave that job about 2
months prior to exam)
The recommended books that most people follow are:
ANATOMY

upper limb, lower limb, back, head and neck from: KAPLAN
abdomen, chest, pelvis, head and neck from: SNELLS REVIEW
neuroanatomy from: KAPLAN
embryo just imp topics, tables and charts from: HIGH YEILD
histo (epithelium, cells, salivary glands from: LAIQ HUSSAIN)
general anatomy: bones, joints (v. imp) and muscles
(you should give only 3 or 4 days to embryo, histo and general anatomy. do not do it in so much detail)
PHYSIOLOGY

endocrinology, kidney from KAPLAN

rest all from BRS physiology (including acid base balance)
also solve questions of BRS (very important)
PATHOLOGY

whole BRS including systems

also solve questions of BRS
PHARMA
from KAPLAN

if you dont have time, do more emphasis on ANS DRUGS, CVS and NSAIDS
Do minimum 3 readings of FIRST AID

you can cover pharma from there, at the end of each chapter drugs related to that system are given
BIO CHEM., MICROBIOLOGY, STATISTICS from FIRST AID only
MCQ's from: MURAD and CHANDKIAN

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How To Study:
You need to study basic sciences, so the subjects are Anatomy, Embryology, Neuroanatomy,
Histology, Physiology, Pharmacology, Pathology, and Biochemistry. The books I recommend to
everyone irrespective of their sub specialty are
Snells REVIEW ANATOMY
Kaplan Anatomy (Histology and Neuroanatomy from this book)
High Yield Embryology
Kaplans or BRS Physiology (According to your taste)
BRS Pathology
Practice MCQs from Asim and Shoaib (Medicine and Surgery), Murad, Chandkas and any
other you can find

I had a total of around 2 and a half month to prepare. I started with anatomy. Somehow I
have always studied on page wise basis. For example I see the number of pages in a book
and divide by the days I need to study. Snell Review anatomy has around 200 pages. 40
pages/day would mean completing the book in 5 days. So I did 20 pages in morning. (My
method of studying is I read the page thoroughly at least 2 times, maybe 3 if it has a lot of
text. Please note that everyone have their own way of studying. Do whatever suits you. Do
not try to copy someone else as it would only lead to anxiety and poor outcome). Then 20
pages in evening. Eventually I was done with Gross anatomy in 5 days. After the first read,
you may not remember many things. This is completely NORMAL. Do not be upset as with
successive reads, your retaining power would only get better. After Anatomy, next was
Neuroanatomy. Many people say that neuroanatomy in Kaplan is a lot more detailed, but I
have yet to find any book which is so accurate and conceptual in this regard. I highly
recommend this book to everyone. Since this section is around 120 pages. I completed it in
3 days doing 20 pages in morning and evening. Next was histology. Many people will tell
you to completely skip this section as it is extremely detailed. But 1 thorough read is not
going to hurt you. Read it thoroughly, specially the chapter of GIT, LIVER and LUNGS.
Finally we move on to Embryology. High Yield embryology is extremely concise. 3 days is all
you need to read this book. Now that we are done with Anatomy. Lets move to other
subjects.

Physiology. Many recommend BRS, but this book is too concise for me. I had a difficult time
understanding it and it seemed like mugging up rather than understanding something. So I
read Kaplan physiology which was twice as big, but much more effective in basic
understanding. 1 week is adequate for you to revise this book. Finally move on to Pathology.
BRS pathology is a good book. You need to do General pathology ONLY. Special pathology
can be read once if you feel like (I read it once) but considering USMLE First AID has a lot
of pathology in it. Reading BRS Special pathology seemed like a bit of time waste later.
Finally we move on to USMLE FIRST AID. This is by far the most important book. You
cannot pass your exam without this book unless you are extremely lucky. Read this book
thoroughly word by word. (WORD BY WORD) in about 2 weeks. Every chapter is important
except Psychiatry. Other subjects like Biochemistry, Pharmacology, Ethics, Statistics are just
enough in it for you to pass FCPS in both medicine and Surgery.
Now if you finally add up the days, you will realize that my first read have been completed in
about a little more than a month. Now you need to buckle up. It is time for a second read
and you need to start doing MCQs too. Repeat the above process, but this time there is a
very high probability you might complete you second read much earlier. (Note that I read
Physiology, Special pathology and histology only once and did not read them again). While
reading, you need to simultaneously start doing Mcqs.Try solving at least 200 mcqs in
afternoon and around 200 in night. Once I completed my second read in about two and a
half weeks, I did MCqs for 5 days straight. (Around 1000 a day.)
Eventually I was done with my second read and MCQ books. I still had a few weeks left so I
read anatomy, neuroanatomy, embryology, and general pathology again for the third time
and re did all MCqs. It must come to your surprise that despite doing Mcqs for the second
time. You will still get a lot of wrong answers. So I highly recommend that you do Mcqs at
least twice.
Now that we are done with the basic subjects, books and time management. I will now give
you guys certain tips which I think might come in handy
1 Do not be overwhelmed by the amount of study material. Keep yourself calm and take a
day off if you feel like it.
2 Everyone studies the same books. They have the same amount of time. The deciding
factor for clearing FCPS is the TIME you give to studies. So set your priorities right and
study adequately.

3 When doing Mcq books. There will be certain question which will be particularly difficult.
Like the time required for blood to flow through hepatic lobule. The answer is 8 seconds.
Mark the mcq with a star so that when you are re doing these books, you pay special
attention to these tough questions.
4 Do not try to copy someone in terms of studying. If you study a particular way and have
been successful so far, then there is no need to change now.
5 Do not believe what people say. You probably must have heard about 100 myths related
to CPSP marking scheme and what not. You dont have to worry about that. All you need to
do is give your best shot and Pray for the best.
6 Remember. A lot of Mcqs in books are wrong. You need to double check those. What I
used to do was immediately Google the question on my cell phone. This saved a lot of my
time.
7 Arrive at least an hour before scheduled time at the venue.
8 Do not be depressed by the people you meet at the venue. You are likely to meet people
attempting exam for the 4th or 7th time. Do hear what they have to say but do not act on it.
There is probably a reason they havent passed this exam in so many attempts and are the
least likely person to be seeking advice from.
9 If you think you have successfully answered at least 75 Mcqs in both Paper 1 and Paper
2 (individually) then there is a really high chance you will pass this exam. This is just a rough
estimate so I might be wrong.
10 When attempting Mcqs, read the question very thoroughly. At times multiple options
might seem right but read the question again to see if you have missed anything. Most
people tend to ignore the EXCEPT which is written at the end of question. Please dont do
this
11- There is absolutely no need to hurry. 3 hours is more than enough for 100 questions.
You should not miss out in any of them.
12 Do not cheat. Trust me. There is a high chance your neighbor might be a repeater. You
definitely do not want to copy his answer. Trust your own instincts rather than that of a
stranger.

13 Finally, Pray a lot after paper. This is the second most important thing to do after your
months of hard work.
14 STUDY STUDY and STUDY. I am re-writing this point because of a specific reason.On
average CPSP passes around 15-20% of students. However recently due to very large
number of residents pouring in and very limited residency seats available there has been a
dramatic reduction in the passing rate. Just 2 weeks ago I came across a letter written to
CPSP from Health Secretary to reduce the number of FCPS graduates due to unavailability
of seats. There was an emergency meeting conducted to address this issue and I can only
sense that they have actually reduced the number of passing graduates because this time
in february, only 7% of students were passed. This is indeed a dramatic decline. You need
to keep this figure in mind because scoring in the top 7% can be pretty difficult but definitely
NOT impossible.