This is for intensive care trainees revising for the Final FFICM MCQ around clinical work, who want to know whether BMJ OnExamination's dashboard means they are ready. It addresses the written MCQ component only—BMJ OnExamination does not touch the OSCE or the structured oral. The principal limitation is that its analytics describe how you practised, not how you will perform: a high home-screen percentage built from topic-filtered blocks is not the same as a score on a timed, mixed, unseen paper.
What BMJ OnExamination offers for FFICM right now
BMJ OnExamination carries a dedicated FFICM Intensive Care Medicine bank, so coverage of the written component is real. The figures below are vendor-reported and last checked 20 July 2026; confirm the current count and price on onexamination.com before you buy.
| Feature | What we found (20 July 2026, vendor-reported) |
|---|---|
| Question volume | 1,000+ FFICM questions |
| Exam scope | FFICM MCQ (written) only; no OSCE or SOE content |
| Access/pricing | 1 month £34.99; 3 months £54.99; 6 months £84.99; 12 months £149.99 |
| Mocks | Timed mock tests curated by the BMJ editorial team |
| Analytics | Progress tracking, feedback, peer comparison, difficulty tags |
| Extras | Leaderboard/group learning, offline mobile app, 10 free questions daily |
| Adaptive engine | None advertised—treat the analytics as conventional, not algorithmic |
Two honest notes shape everything that follows. First, BMJ OnExamination covers only the MCQ; the OSCE and SOE that complete the Final FFICM are out of scope for any question bank, this one included. Second, the product does not advertise an adaptive difficulty algorithm, so the "selection bias" you must worry about is the one you create yourself by choosing topic-filtered blocks—not a hidden engine reshaping your feed. iatroX plays the same written-knowledge role and can act as your independent, unseen measurement bank; it does not reproduce the OSCE or SOE either.
The FFICM exam anchor
The Final FFICM has three sections: an MCQ examination made up of single-best-answer and multiple-true-false items, an OSCE of multiple stations, and a structured oral examination. The exact MCQ question counts and duration are not published on the public examinations page, so verify them on ficm.ac.uk against the current examination regulations rather than trusting any third-party figure. For this article the point is narrow: BMJ OnExamination and iatroX both serve the MCQ knowledge layer, and neither is a substitute for the OSCE or SOE. Map your revision to the FICM syllabus domains, not to the bank's internal topic list.
Define every metric before you trust it
A dashboard is only as useful as your definitions. Pin down exactly what each number counts before you let it steer your week.
| Metric | What it actually measures | The trap |
|---|---|---|
| First-attempt accuracy | Percentage correct the first time you ever saw an item | The closest number to "new-question" performance |
| Repeat accuracy | Percentage correct on items you have seen before | Inflates with familiarity; measures memory, not reasoning |
| Peer comparison / percentile | Your position against other users of the same bank | The peer pool is self-selected, not the exam cohort |
| "Predicted" or headline score | A blended average across your activity | Not a pass probability; do not read it as one |
| Coverage | Proportion of the bank you have attempted | Completion is not blueprint coverage |
| Difficulty | The bank's own tag for each item | Vendor-defined, not the FICM standard-setting |
| Time per item | Average seconds spent answering | Only meaningful under timed, mixed conditions |
The single most important line is first-attempt accuracy on a mixed, timed set. Almost every other number can be gamed by how you practised.
Selection bias: why your percentage is not comparable
Even without an adaptive engine, your own choices bias the dashboard. If you spend a week on topic-filtered blocks in your weak areas, your overall percentage falls—not because you got worse, but because you sampled the hard material. If you drill your strong topics, it rises. Either way, the home-screen average is now incomparable with a mixed unseen block, because the sampling frame changed. This is the core of the "Your Q-Bank Percentage Is Not Your Exam Score" argument: a percentage without a fixed, representative sampling frame is a study diary, not a readiness estimate. Only a timed, mixed, unseen block gives you a number you can compare week to week.
Blueprint audit against the FFICM domains
Do not let the home-screen average stand in for coverage. Export or list your attempted-question distribution and compare it against the FICM syllabus domains—resuscitation and initial management, cardiovascular, respiratory, neurology, renal, gastrointestinal, infection and immunology, sedation and analgesia, trauma and burns, obstetrics, paediatric transfer, ethics and end-of-life, and the applied basic sciences and data interpretation that thread through all of them. The FICM does not publish fixed per-domain question percentages, so treat the syllabus as your coverage checklist and look for domains you have barely attempted. A 78% overall figure that rests entirely on cardiovascular and respiratory items tells you almost nothing about your neurology or ethics readiness.
The readiness test
A number only counts as a readiness signal if it was produced under exam-like conditions. Require all five: the items are unseen (first attempt, not repeats); the block is timed at the exam's pace; the content is mixed across domains rather than filtered; you use no assistance—no tutor mode, no textbook, no pausing; and the sample is large enough to be stable, meaning a full mock rather than a ten-item block. Anything short of all five is practice data, useful for learning but not for deciding whether you are ready.
Override rules: force the material the feed under-samples
Because you drive the sampling, you must deliberately force in the low-volume, high-yield material a comfortable revision pattern quietly avoids: data interpretation (arterial blood gases, ventilator traces, haemodynamics), imaging and ECGs, ethics, consent and end-of-life scenarios, applied statistics and trial appraisal, and any calculation-heavy items. These are exactly the domains that are easy to under-attempt and expensive to fail. Set a weekly quota for each so they cannot vanish from your practice simply because you never selected them.
Worked dashboard example: turning analytics into quotas
Suppose after two weeks your dashboard shows: first-attempt accuracy 71% overall; repeat accuracy 88%; peer percentile 60th; coverage 55% of the bank; and, by domain, cardiovascular 80% first-attempt, respiratory 76%, but neurology 58%, ethics/data interpretation 61%, and renal barely attempted. Ignore the reassuring 88% repeat figure—that is memory. The signal is the spread of first-attempt accuracy and the thin coverage. Next week's quotas follow directly: a fixed daily allocation weighted toward neurology, renal and data interpretation; one timed mixed mock mid-week under full exam conditions; and a rule that no strong-domain block is allowed until the weak-domain quota is met. Note what we did not do: we made no pass prediction. The dashboard sets priorities; it does not forecast the result.
A seven-day plan around clinical work
Give BMJ OnExamination one job—structured topic practice and its curated mocks—and iatroX one job—independent, unseen measurement. No proprietary-algorithm claims are involved; the value is in the fixed sampling frame, not a secret engine.
- Day 1 (on shift): 20 items in your weakest domain during breaks; review by error type, not by re-reading whole explanations.
- Day 2: 20 items in the next weakest domain; log calculation and data-interpretation errors separately.
- Day 3 (off): One timed, mixed BMJ OnExamination mock; record first-attempt accuracy and pacing only.
- Day 4: Targeted repair on the two domains the mock exposed; force in imaging and ethics.
- Day 5 (on shift): Fresh, timed 30-item FFICM block in iatroX as an independent unseen check; compare its first-attempt figure with BMJ OnExamination's.
- Day 6: Reconcile the two banks—where do they disagree about your weak areas? Trust the unseen number.
- Day 7: Light review, spaced repetition of the week's misses; set next week's quotas from first-attempt spread.
Decision checklist: continue, supplement, switch or stop
- Continue if first-attempt accuracy on mixed blocks is trending up and your coverage of thin domains is filling in.
- Supplement with a second, unseen bank once your BMJ OnExamination percentages are high but built largely on repeats—familiarity inflates repeat accuracy, and you need fresh items to see through it.
- Switch your primary measurement to timed mixed mocks (BMJ's or iatroX's) once topic-block accuracy plateaus; more filtered practice then teaches little.
- Stop buying more question volume when the constraint is coverage or pacing, not shortage of items—1,000+ questions is rarely the binding limit.
Bottom line
BMJ OnExamination is a credible FFICM MCQ bank with useful, conventional analytics—but its dashboard measures how you practised, not whether you are ready, and it covers none of the OSCE or SOE. Read first-attempt accuracy on timed mixed blocks as your signal, audit coverage against the FICM syllabus, force in the under-sampled material, and use an independent unseen bank to check the number you are tempted to trust.
Frequently asked questions
Is BMJ OnExamination enough for FFICM on its own? For the written MCQ it is a strong, self-contained option with 1,000+ questions and curated mocks (vendor-reported, 20 July 2026). It is not enough for the exam as a whole, because it does not touch the OSCE or SOE, and no single bank should be your only source of unseen questions near the exam—a second, independent set guards against familiarity inflating your scores.
Which FFICM component does BMJ OnExamination not reproduce well? The OSCE and the structured oral examination. The product is built for the written MCQ and does not claim to prepare you for stations or vivas, so those components need dedicated practice—station circuits, timed viva rehearsal and clinical exposure—rather than any question bank.
How many BMJ OnExamination questions should I complete per day for FFICM? There is no universal number; quality of review beats raw volume. A sustainable target around 20–40 questions on a working day, with disciplined error-type review and at least one full timed mixed mock each week, tends to serve trainees better than large daily counts that leave no time to analyse mistakes. Adjust to your weeks-to-exam and domain gaps.
When should I stop using BMJ OnExamination and move to mixed mocks? When your topic-filtered accuracy has plateaued and most of your gains are coming from repeats rather than new items. At that point the informative test is a timed, mixed, unseen mock; keep the bank for targeted repair of the specific gaps each mock reveals.
How should I combine BMJ OnExamination with iatroX without duplicating practice? Assign roles rather than doubling up. Use BMJ OnExamination for structured topic practice and its mocks, and use iatroX for a fresh, unseen, timed block that independently checks your first-attempt accuracy. Compare the two banks' verdicts on your weak domains, trust the unseen number, and never re-answer the same items in both tools just to raise a percentage.
Editorial notes and references
Written by Dr Kolawole Tytler, NHS GP and founder of iatroX. Last checked 20 July 2026. Platform figures (question counts, features, pricing) are vendor-reported and change without notice—verify the live details on onexamination.com before relying on them, and confirm the FFICM MCQ structure on ficm.ac.uk. Disclosure: iatroX operates a UK question bank that competes with BMJ OnExamination for the FFICM written layer; this article confines iatroX's role to independent unseen measurement of the MCQ knowledge component and makes no claim that it reproduces the OSCE or SOE. Corrections are welcome via the feedback route on iatrox.com.
References: The Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine examination regulations and syllabus (ficm.ac.uk); BMJ OnExamination FFICM product page (onexamination.com); iatroX, Your Q-Bank Percentage Is Not Your Exam Score; iatroX, completion is not coverage: building a blueprint matrix; the iatroX comparison hub.