This is for the respiratory higher specialty trainee using BMJ OnExamination for the SCE and wanting its dashboard to report readiness, not just activity. It addresses the written best-of-five paper only. The principal limitation is that on a relatively small pool, repeat exposure lifts your accuracy quickly, so coverage and blended percentages can look reassuring while your standing against 200 unseen questions has barely moved.
What BMJ OnExamination offers for SCE Respiratory Medicine right now
BMJ OnExamination publishes a dedicated SCE in Respiratory Medicine module. The figures below are vendor-reported and last checked on 20 July 2026; confirm the live numbers on the product page before you buy.
| Attribute | Vendor-reported detail (checked 20 July 2026) |
|---|---|
| Question volume | 190+ best-of-five items |
| Question format | Best of five (single best answer) |
| Access periods | 1 to 12 months |
| Price (GBP) | 1 month £54.99; longer terms up to roughly £134.99 (12 months) |
| Mock tests | Timed mocks curated against recent exam themes |
| Analytics | Per-question feedback, peer comparison, self-selected difficulty, revision planning |
| Adaptive/AI | No proprietary adaptive-difficulty algorithm is advertised |
| Free access | 10 free questions per day |
Note the pool size honestly: at 190-plus items against a 200-question exam, the Respiratory module is a focused supplement rather than a bottomless well. That has a direct consequence for the analytics, because a small pool is completed fast and re-drilled often, which is exactly the condition under which repeat accuracy detaches from readiness.
The exam you are actually sitting
The SCE in Respiratory Medicine follows the standard Federation format: two papers of 100 best-of-five questions, 200 total, three hours each, one day, computer-based via Surpass, one mark per correct answer, no negative marking. Only the blueprint differs from other specialties. The published Respiratory blueprint distributes questions approximately as below, and it is your reference standard for every coverage judgement.
| Domain | Questions | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Diffuse parenchymal lung disease (DPLD) | 25 | 12.5% |
| COPD | 20 | 10% |
| Imaging | 20 | 10% |
| Physiology | 20 | 10% |
| Pulmonary infections | 20 | 10% |
| Thoracic oncology | 20 | 10% |
| Disorders of pleura, mediastinum and pneumothorax | 15 | 7.5% |
| Pulmonary vascular disease | 15 | 7.5% |
| Occupational and environmental disease | 10 | 5% |
| Tuberculosis and opportunistic mycobacterial disease | 10 | 5% |
| Other (ethics, pharmacology, statistics) | 10 | 5% |
| Asthma | 5 | 2.5% |
| Cystic fibrosis | 5 | 2.5% |
| Sleep-related breathing disorders and hypoventilation | 5 | 2.5% |
Two features shape your audit. DPLD is the single heaviest domain, and cross-cutting skills (imaging, physiology and the statistics-and-ethics "other" bucket) together account for a quarter of the paper. Neither is where most candidates naturally spend their revision time.
Every metric on the dashboard, defined
Name each number before you act. First-attempt accuracy is your percentage correct on first exposure and is the only accuracy figure close to an unseen estimate. Repeat accuracy is your score on previously seen items and rises quickly toward the ceiling on a small pool, so it tells you little. Peer comparison is BMJ OnExamination's percentile-style ranking against other subscribers, representative only of that self-selected cohort. A predicted score, where any platform shows one, is a behavioural model rather than a promise; I could not confirm BMJ OnExamination publishes a formal predicted SCE score for this module, and any such figure should be a soft prior, not a verdict. Coverage is the fraction of the pool attempted, a completion measure. Difficulty reflects the filter you set or an item's historical facility. Time per item is your pace against roughly 108 seconds per question. On a 190-item pool, coverage will hit high figures fast, which is precisely why you must read first-attempt accuracy, not coverage, as the signal.
Why the feed flatters you
A revision loop that keeps steering you back to weak and flagged items makes those items feel easy, which is good for learning and misleading for measurement. Re-drill your DPLD failures and your DPLD percentage recovers, but on the exact stems you have now seen more than once. The dashboard cannot separate "can distinguish idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis from hypersensitivity pneumonitis on unseen data" from "remembers this particular high-resolution CT vignette." Raw practice percentages therefore are not comparable with a mixed, unseen block, and treating them as such is the commonest self-deception in respiratory revision, where the image-heavy items are the most memorable and the most re-shown.
Blueprint audit before you trust the average
Set your attempted-question distribution beside the blueprint table. The right question is whether you have attempted a representative share of every domain, especially the ones respiratory trainees under-weight: imaging, physiology and lung function, occupational disease, and the statistics-and-ethics bucket. A candidate can sit at 80% overall having drilled COPD, asthma and infections while barely touching DPLD (the heaviest domain), pulmonary vascular disease, and the 10% of cross-cutting "other." Build the two-column check: attempted share versus blueprint share. Any domain below half its blueprint weight is a blind spot the average conceals, and in respiratory that blind spot is frequently the most heavily weighted content on the paper.
The readiness test
A number becomes a readiness signal only under five simultaneous conditions: the block is unseen, timed at exam pace, mixed across the blueprint, sat with no assistance, and large enough to be a sufficient sample (80 to 100 items). A 92% on a re-seen 20-item imaging drill is not a signal; a 66% on a 100-item mixed unseen timed block is. On a small pool this discipline matters more, not less, because it is so easy to exhaust the bank into recognition and mistake a high coverage figure for competence.
Override rules for the feed
Because the feed follows your behaviour and the pool is finite, force blocks in the areas the average under-serves. In Respiratory that means imaging interpretation (chest radiographs and high-resolution CT patterns), physiology and lung-function traces (flow-volume loops, transfer factor, restrictive versus obstructive patterns), arterial blood-gas interpretation, the statistics and critical-appraisal items in the "other" bucket, occupational and environmental disease, tuberculosis, and sleep and hypoventilation. These are low-volume on the blueprint but high-value, and they are exactly the material a self-directed feed skips because it is uncomfortable. DPLD deserves a scheduled block of its own given its 12.5% weight; do not let it hide behind a comfortable COPD percentage.
Worked dashboard example
Suppose your dashboard reads: overall 79%, first-attempt 63%, coverage 88% of the pool, peer comparison 58th percentile. Attempted by domain: COPD 30 items, asthma 20, infections 25, DPLD 10, imaging 8, physiology 6, pulmonary vascular 6, everything else in low single figures. This is not a 79% candidate; it is a 63% first-attempt candidate who has drilled the comfortable airway domains and left the heaviest and most cross-cutting content nearly untested.
Next week's quotas follow. Freeze COPD, asthma and infections at revision-only. Assign new unseen volume to the gaps: 20 DPLD, 15 imaging, 12 physiology and blood gases, 10 pulmonary vascular disease, 8 statistics-and-ethics, 8 occupational and TB. Close with one mixed timed block and record only first-attempt accuracy. No pass prediction is produced; the plan is driven by the coverage deficit against the blueprint and by the first-attempt figure alone.
A seven-day pattern for busy trainees
One job per tool, no proprietary-algorithm claims. BMJ OnExamination is your Respiratory coverage-and-explanations engine; iatroX is your unseen measurement layer for the cross-cutting content.
- Days 1 to 5 (20 to 30 minutes each): work the under-served respiratory domains on BMJ OnExamination, reading every explanation and flagging lucky correct answers for review.
- Day 6: sit one mixed timed block. Alternate a BMJ mock one week with a fresh unseen iatroX block the next. Respiratory has a genuine cross-specialty core (statistics, pharmacology, ethics, physiology principles and general-medicine comorbidity), and iatroX's UK bank is a fair unseen yardstick for that core.
- Day 7: review only. Spaced-queue the misses and open reasoning-gap items in the iatroX Socratic Tutor to be questioned rather than told.
State the boundary plainly: iatroX does not carry respiratory-specific depth such as high-resolution CT patterns or lung-function nuance, and it does not claim to. It measures the transferable and cross-cutting layer; the specialty bank owns the respiratory depth.
Continue, supplement, switch or stop
Continue while first-attempt accuracy is rising and un-attempted items remain in weak domains. Supplement as soon as first-attempt accuracy plateaus or coverage nears exhaustion, which on a 190-item pool happens early; you will need unseen volume from a second source. Switch your primary bank if the pool is too small to sustain revision to your diet and you need a larger specialty bank for depth. Stop re-drilling a domain once first-attempt accuracy on new items meets target and repeat accuracy has stalled. Decide on the measured gap, not on novelty or sunk cost.
Bottom line
BMJ OnExamination's Respiratory module is a well-edited, focused coverage tool worth including in the stack, but at 190-plus items it is a supplement whose blended analytics flatter you quickly. Read first-attempt accuracy, audit attempted distribution against a blueprint that is heavier on DPLD and cross-cutting skills than most revision plans, and reserve "ready" for a large, mixed, timed, unseen, unassisted block.
Frequently asked questions
Is BMJ OnExamination enough for SCE Respiratory Medicine on its own? For most candidates, no, not as a sole source: at 190-plus items (vendor-reported, 20 July 2026) the pool is a focused supplement rather than a complete spine, and it is exhausted into recognition before many trainees are ready. It is a strong companion for coverage and explanations, but a full preparation needs additional unseen volume, whether from a larger specialty bank or a measurement layer.
Which SCE Respiratory Medicine component does BMJ OnExamination not reproduce well? Like any static bank, it presents curated, labelled data, so it under-rehearses the extraction of an abnormality from raw imaging, lung-function traces, sleep studies and blood gases. It can test whether you know what a given pattern means, which is what the written paper asks, but it cannot reproduce the ambiguity of reading unlabelled data yourself, and image-heavy revision is also the most prone to becoming recognition.
How many BMJ OnExamination questions should I complete per day for SCE Respiratory Medicine? Target blueprint-weighted coverage, not a count. Because the pool is small, 20 to 30 carefully reviewed items a day, biased toward DPLD, imaging, physiology and the cross-cutting bucket, is more useful than exhausting the bank in a fortnight of repeats. Track first-attempt accuracy and attempted share, and slow down when review quality falls.
When should I stop using BMJ OnExamination and move to mixed mocks? Move earlier than you would with a larger bank, because a 190-item pool reaches recognition quickly. Once your attempted distribution covers the blueprint and first-attempt accuracy plateaus, shift to predominantly mixed, timed, unseen blocks, which are the only source of a trustworthy signal at that stage.
How should I combine BMJ OnExamination with iatroX without duplicating practice? Give each one job. BMJ OnExamination owns respiratory coverage, explanations and specialty mocks; iatroX owns unseen measurement of the cross-cutting layer (statistics, pharmacology, ethics, physiology principles, comorbidity) and spaced retrieval of misses, under the two-Q-bank rule so the second source stays clean. iatroX is a UK measurement layer, not a respiratory bank, which is exactly why the pairing keeps your unseen signal honest.
Editorial notes and references
Written by Dr Kolawole Tytler, NHS GP and founder of iatroX. Last checked 20 July 2026. All BMJ OnExamination question counts, prices and features above are vendor-reported and were correct at the time of checking; verify the current figures on the product page before purchase, as they change between diets. Disclosure: iatroX operates a UK question bank that competes with parts of BMJ OnExamination's offering; this article confines iatroX's role to jobs BMJ OnExamination does not claim, namely unseen cross-specialty measurement and spaced retrieval, and iatroX is not a specialty SCE bank. Corrections are welcome via the feedback route on iatrox.com.
References: the Federation of Royal Colleges of Physicians SCE Respiratory Medicine specialty and blueprint pages (thefederation.uk); the BMJ OnExamination SCE in Respiratory Medicine product page (onexamination.com); iatroX, Your Q-Bank Percentage Is Not Your Exam Score; iatroX, the two-Q-bank rule; iatroX, building a blueprint-coverage matrix; the iatroX comparison hub and Socratic Tutor.
Run a fresh, timed unseen block in iatroX and decide whether to learn, retest, simulate or stop →