This is for respiratory higher specialty trainees, usually ST4 and above, who have bought a commercial SCE Respiratory Medicine question bank and want to know whether it is actually training them for the exam they will sit. The audit method here uses British Thoracic Society (BTS) resources and the Federation's official material as the reference standard. Its principal limitation is honest: BTS is a guideline and education body, not a question bank, so it defines the target rather than supplying the practice volume.
Auditing a bank sounds like scepticism, but it is really respect for your own time. A respiratory bank can be large, well-reviewed and still misaligned with the current blueprint — because guidelines move, because the vendor over-tests one area, or because the questions read like textbook recall when the exam tests clinical reasoning. BTS resources give you a current, authoritative yardstick to measure that alignment against.
What British Thoracic Society resources offer right now
On the last check (20 July 2026), BTS provides a genuinely useful, largely free layer of exam support — but not a proprietary question bank:
| Feature | British Thoracic Society resources |
|---|---|
| Live question count | None of its own; BTS signposts the Federation's official mock and sample questions |
| Access period | Open access to guidelines; some content member-linked |
| AI / adaptive features | None |
| Price | Guidelines free to access; the exam-prep short course is a paid event (verify current fee on the BTS site) |
| Supported SCE components | The full respiratory blueprint, via guidelines, quality standards and clinical statements |
| Notable assets | A dedicated SCE resources page; an annual "Preparing for the SCE" short course led by examiners; the complete BTS guideline set; recommended texts such as Oxford Handbook of Respiratory Medicine and thoracic imaging references |
BTS is unusually strong among the societies here because it runs an examiner-led SCE preparation course and hosts the guidelines the exam is written from. That makes it an excellent audit reference. It is still not the place you accumulate practice questions.
The SCE Respiratory Medicine format, verified
The SCE in Respiratory Medicine uses the standard Federation structure: two papers of 100 best-of-five questions each — 200 questions total — three hours per paper, one day, computer-based via Surpass at a test centre. One mark per correct answer, no negative marking, with the pass mark set by statistical test equating since September 2020. The blueprint follows the JRCPTB Specialty Training Curriculum for Respiratory Medicine and samples the whole curriculum against a predetermined blueprint. It is mandatory for UK trainees whose training began on or after August 2007 and open to international candidates. That format is fixed across specialties; what changes is the blueprint, which is exactly why your bank needs auditing against the respiratory curriculum specifically.
Separating official material from commercial preparation
Keep three tiers distinct. The Federation's blueprint, official sample questions, mock and regulations are the exam in its own voice — the calibration gold standard. BTS guidelines, quality standards, clinical statements and the SCE course are authoritative for knowledge and blueprint scope, and unusually close to the exam because BTS guidance is frequently the source of the correct answer. Commercial banks and revision books are one vendor's interpretation, useful for volume. When a commercial explanation conflicts with a current BTS guideline, the guideline wins — and finding those conflicts is a core purpose of the audit.
Extracting the signals from official material
Before you judge the bank, read the Federation sample and BTS material for these signals:
- Stem length: full respiratory vignettes with history, spirometry or lung-function data, imaging and often an arterial blood gas.
- Option construction: five options, one best answer, four closely related distractors; recognition alone will not discriminate.
- Cognitive level: application and management — next investigation, most likely diagnosis, most appropriate treatment given current guidance.
- Image and data use: chest radiographs and CT, spirometry and flow-volume loops, blood gases and sleep-study data are all examinable.
- Timing: roughly 1.8 minutes per item; comfortable unless you re-read long stems.
- Negative marking: none; answer everything.
- Domain emphasis: airways disease, infection, interstitial and pleural disease, lung cancer, sleep and ventilation, and respiratory failure carry real weight; match effort to the blueprint.
The audit matrix
Populate this for your specific bank, comparing characteristics rather than copying any item text.
| Signal | Official / BTS reference | Your commercial bank (audit it) |
|---|---|---|
| Guideline currency | Current BTS guidance | Check the answer matches the latest guideline, not a superseded one |
| Stem length | Full vignette with lung-function and imaging data | Flag if stems are short or fact-led |
| Data interpretation | Spirometry, gases, imaging | Verify these appear, not just text recall |
| Distractor quality | Closely related, plausible | Flag easy or implausible distractors |
| Pace demand | ~1.8 min/item | Time a block and compare |
| Domain spread | Whole respiratory curriculum | Check against the blueprint, not the bank menu |
Guideline currency is the signal that matters most in respiratory medicine, because asthma, COPD and pleural-disease guidance is revised often and a bank that has not kept pace will teach you a superseded answer.
Using discrepancies diagnostically
Interpret each gap as an instruction. A bank that is easier than the official sample is safe to use for confidence early on but must not be your final calibration. A bank whose answers lag current BTS guidance is actively hazardous and should be corrected against the guideline every time — flag those items and re-learn from the source. A bank that is narrow — heavy on airways disease, light on sleep, pleural or occupational lung disease — has given you a precise list of domains to top up. And a bank that tests recall where the exam tests management is training the wrong skill; add vignette-style, next-step items to compensate.
Preserving the calibration value of official material
The Federation's sample questions and mock are finite and only work while unseen. Sit them once, timed, and record the result honestly before drilling anything. If you rehearse them repeatedly they become a memory test of those items and lose all predictive value. Use them as a one-time calibration checkpoint, learn from the explanations, and reserve ongoing measurement for fresh unseen questions from your bank and from iatroX.
Translating findings into quotas and conditions
Turn the audit into a plan. For every domain the matrix flags as thin, set a weekly quota of unseen questions. For every bank item that conflicts with current BTS guidance, log it and re-learn from the guideline. If your timed pace lags 1.8 minutes per item, book two mixed timed blocks a week to build speed. If spirometry or gas interpretation is slow, ring-fence a short data-interpretation block every few days. The audit is only worth doing if it changes what you practise next week.
Worked example: a seven-day plan around clinical work
Take an ST6 in respiratory medicine, five weeks out, revising between clinics and on-calls. BTS gets one job — the guideline-and-blueprint reference — and iatroX supplies unseen transfer measurement.
- Monday: 25 minutes reading the current BTS guideline on a flagged domain (say, pleural disease); no questions.
- Tuesday: a 30-item timed block on that domain in the commercial bank; log first-attempt accuracy and flag any answer that conflicts with the guideline.
- Wednesday: review every miss and every guideline conflict; write a one-line corrected rule per item.
- Thursday (day off): a 60-item mixed timed block for pace, then a short unseen iatroX block on the same topics to test whether the learning transferred to new stems.
- Friday: space the Tuesday misses — re-test only what you got wrong, plus adjacent unseen items.
- Saturday: a fresh unseen mixed block; compare to Tuesday.
- Sunday: update the audit matrix; reset next week's quotas.
Nothing here relies on a proprietary algorithm. It works because BTS supplies current knowledge, the bank supplies volume, and iatroX measures transfer on unseen items and spaces the misses.
Decision checklist: continue, supplement, switch or stop
- Continue if the audit shows the bank matches the official style, tracks current BTS guidance, and covers the blueprint, and your unseen accuracy is climbing.
- Supplement if coverage is good but one or two domains are thin or data-interpretation items are scarce — add a targeted source, not a whole new bank.
- Switch only if the bank repeatedly lags current guidance or tests the wrong cognitive level and supplementation cannot fix it.
- Stop doing new questions in a domain once your unseen, timed accuracy is stable and high there, and move that effort to weaker domains or to rest.
Decide on measured gaps, never on unattempted-question counts or sunk cost.
Bottom line
BTS resources are among the strongest society offerings for any SCE, because they combine current guidelines with an examiner-led preparation course. They define the target superbly and are the right yardstick to audit a commercial bank against. They are not a practice-question product. Use BTS to set the standard, a commercial bank for volume, and iatroX to measure unseen transfer — remembering, as the iatroX guide on why your Q-bank percentage is not your exam score explains, that accuracy on familiar items overstates readiness.
FAQ
Is British Thoracic Society resources enough for SCE Respiratory Medicine on its own? No. BTS guidelines and the examiner-led SCE course are an excellent knowledge and blueprint foundation, and unusually close to the exam's source material, but BTS does not host a large practice-question bank. You still need a commercial bank for unseen volume and a separate layer for timed transfer measurement, so BTS is best used as the reference standard rather than the whole revision.
Which SCE Respiratory Medicine component does British Thoracic Society resources not reproduce well? It does not reproduce timed, exam-style question practice at volume. BTS points you to the Federation's finite official mock and sample questions, but it holds no renewable pool of unseen best-of-five items, so pace-building and repeated transfer measurement have to come from a commercial bank and from iatroX rather than from BTS itself.
How many British Thoracic Society resources questions should I complete per day for SCE Respiratory Medicine? BTS is not a daily-question product, so the meaningful daily count is unseen questions from your practice bank, not from BTS. Around 30 to 50 unseen items on weekdays with one longer timed block at the weekend suits most trainees revising around clinical work, with BTS guidelines used for reading and to correct any bank answers that lag current guidance.
When should I stop using British Thoracic Society resources and move to mixed mocks? You keep BTS as your guideline reference throughout, but shift the emphasis to mixed, timed, unseen mocks in the final three to four weeks, when transfer and pace, not knowledge acquisition, are the limiting factors. Return to BTS guidance only to close the specific gaps the mocks reveal, particularly on rapidly changing topics like airways disease.
How should I combine British Thoracic Society resources with iatroX without duplicating practice? Assign distinct roles: BTS for current guidelines and blueprint scope, your commercial bank for the bulk of practice, and iatroX only for unseen, timed measurement and spacing your misses — never re-testing identical items across sources. Following the two-Q-bank rule this way keeps iatroX measuring genuine readiness on new stems rather than rehearsing questions you already recognise.
Editorial notes and references
Written by Dr Kolawole Tytler, NHS GP and founder of iatroX. Last checked 20 July 2026. Society and vendor details, including course fees and guideline versions, are vendor-reported and change — verify current details on the British Thoracic Society and Federation pages before planning. Disclosure: iatroX operates a UK question bank that competes with commercial SCE banks; its role here is confined to cross-specialty knowledge and unseen-MCQ measurement, which British Thoracic Society resources do not claim to provide. Corrections via the feedback route on iatrox.com.
References: Federation of Royal Colleges of Physicians — Specialty Certificate Examinations and SCE in Respiratory Medicine (format, blueprint, sample questions and mock); JRCPTB Specialty Training Curriculum for Respiratory Medicine; British Thoracic Society SCE resources page, guidelines and "Preparing for the SCE" short course; iatroX — completion is not coverage and the two-Q-bank rule.
Run a fresh, timed SCE Respiratory Medicine block in iatroX →