The Bottom Line
- Your MSRA performance is partly determined before you sit it: <strong>booking discipline</strong>, location selection, and timeline planning matter.
- Use official MSRA pages for structure; then run your own “operations plan” for booking and logistics.
- If you can’t book or your test centre options are poor, escalate early—don’t wait until the last week.
Most MSRA advice focuses on content. But candidates regularly lose points (or lose the sitting) due to booking chaos: centre availability, travel failures, incorrect assumptions about sittings, and last-minute reschedules. This page is your MSRA logistics playbook.
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Step 1 — Confirm which sitting applies to you
Sittings can differ across specialties and rounds. Start from the official MSRA recruitment pages and confirm your cohort and timeline.
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Step 2 — Book with resilience
Pick a centre that you can reach with redundancy (not a high-risk travel plan). Avoid stacking long shifts right before the sitting. Treat it like an exam day, not a normal day.
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Step 3 — Create an “MSRA ops file”
Keep: booking confirmation, ID requirements, centre address, travel plan, contingency plan, key emails/contacts. Stress drops when everything is in one place.
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Step 4 — If booking fails, escalate with evidence
Take screenshots of availability/booking errors and contact the official support route promptly. ‘Trying again later’ is how people miss windows.
48-hour pre-exam checklist
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