This is for GPs and doctors in women's health revising DRCOG with PassMedicine who want a disciplined weekly loop rather than a rising percentage that feels reassuring but hides gaps. PassMedicine covers the SBA paper well. The principal limitation is that it does not force breadth for you: with no advertised adaptive engine, a weakness-drilling habit can let your overall score climb while whole modules — subfertility, neonatal examination, emergency gynaecology — stay barely touched. This loop keeps coverage honest.
What PassMedicine offers for DRCOG right now
Last checked 19 July 2026; vendor-reported figures — verify on the product page.
| Item | Vendor-reported position (19 July 2026) |
|---|---|
| Question volume | "Over 1,000" DRCOG single-best-answer questions |
| Components | All seven RCOG modules; SBA-only |
| Modes | Revision and test mode; timed tests and mocks you configure |
| Analytics | Daily-updated cohort histogram; per-question teaching notes; flags and notes |
| Adaptive/AI engine | None advertised — you set the priorities, the software does not |
| Price | About £20 for two months, £30 for four months |
"Adaptive" here means you adapt the feed using topic filters and the incorrect-question pool. That is a feature, not a weakness — but it puts the responsibility for breadth on you.
The exam anchor
DRCOG is one three-hour computer-based paper: 120 single-best-answer questions, two marks each, 240 total, SBA-only, standard-set by modified Angoff so the pass mark moves between diets. The syllabus is seven modules covering sexual and reproductive health, subfertility, early pregnancy, the pregnant and peripartum woman, the neonate, and urgent and non-urgent gynaecology. RCOG does not publish a fixed per-module question quota, so the goal is even, honest coverage across all seven — not chasing a percentage in your two or three strongest topics.
Baseline week: measure before you personalise
Before you let filters and drills shape your feed, complete a small, blueprint-stratified unseen sample — around 10 to 15 questions per module, mixed and timed. This gives you a first-attempt baseline per module, uncontaminated by revisiting. Record it. This is the reference point every later decision is measured against; without it, a rising overall percentage tells you nothing about where you started or which module moved.
First pass: set domain floors
On the first full pass, set a floor for every module — a minimum number of first-attempt questions you will complete before the exam, regardless of how comfortable you feel. Floors stop the algorithm-free feed from hiding unattempted areas behind a rising overall score. A practical floor is 60 to 80 first-attempt items per module; strong modules will clear it early, weak ones will drag, and the drag is exactly the signal you want. Track attempted-per-module against the floor, not against your overall percentage.
An error taxonomy that tells you what to do next
"Got it wrong" is not actionable; why you got it wrong is. Tag every error into one of six types, because each demands a different response:
- Knowledge gap — you did not know it. Needs a short source read, then a fresh question later.
- Misread stem — you knew it but misread. Needs a pacing and technique fix, not more content.
- Premature closure — you locked onto a diagnosis too early. Needs deliberate differential practice.
- Guideline error — outdated or wrong management. Needs a current NICE/CKS check.
- Dosing or eligibility error — wrong drug, dose or contraception eligibility. Needs the SmPC/eMC and UKMEC-style reasoning, not rote recall.
- Time-pressure error — right when untimed, wrong when rushed. Only visible in timed blocks.
Review interval: not everything deserves a repeat
Match the response to the error type rather than re-drilling immediately. A knowledge gap earns a short source read and a new transfer question days later; a guideline error earns a quick check and a spaced review; a misread or time-pressure error earns technique work, not content. Immediately repeating the same item after reading its answer mostly trains recognition. Space the retest so you are recalling, not remembering the last screen.
The mixed-block switch
Topic-filtered practice is right early and wrong late. Switch toward timed, random, mixed blocks once two conditions hold: every module has cleared its floor, and your first-attempt accuracy on the baseline modules has stopped swinging. At that point, reduce topic-filtered drills and increase mixed timed blocks, because the exam is mixed and your remaining risk is integration and pacing, not raw topic knowledge.
Exit criteria that are not "bank completed"
Finishing the bank is not readiness. Exit when five things are true together: every module has cleared its coverage floor; first-attempt accuracy on unseen mixed blocks is stable; your pacing sits comfortably under 90 seconds per item; retention holds on spaced retests rather than fresh reads; and you have calibrated against at least some official RCOG sample material. Bank completion alone satisfies none of these — you can complete 100% of a bank and still fail on breadth, pacing or retention.
A seven-day plan
PassMedicine does one job — structured learning and weak-module drilling; iatroX does another — unseen transfer measurement. No proprietary-algorithm claims.
- Day 1: PassMedicine, the two modules furthest below floor; first-attempt only; tag every error.
- Day 2: Short source reads (NICE/CKS, SmPC/eMC) on Day 1's knowledge and guideline errors.
- Day 3: iatroX, a fresh timed block on the same two modules — unseen transfer, not a replay.
- Day 4: PassMedicine, forced images/CTG and emergency gynaecology.
- Day 5: iatroX, a 60-item mixed timed block; record first-attempt accuracy and pacing.
- Day 6: Review by error type; spaced retests of earlier gaps.
- Day 7: Update the coverage matrix; set next week's floors.
Decision checklist: continue, supplement, switch or stop
Continue while modules are still below floor and first-attempt accuracy is climbing. Supplement with an unseen bank the moment revisited accuracy rises but first-attempt accuracy stalls — you need fresh items to see past recognition. Switch primary resource only if a module stays below floor despite deliberate forcing, or its explanations are not fixing repeat errors. Stop drilling any pool you have fully seen; recognised items no longer measure anything.
Reading your results without fooling yourself
Three numbers deserve your attention each week, and none of them is the home-screen average. The first is first-attempt accuracy per module on unseen items: this is the closest proxy to readiness, and it is the only figure that should move your plan. If it is rising across modules, the loop is working; if it is flat while your overall percentage climbs, you are accumulating recognition, not knowledge. The second is coverage against the floors: a simple count of first-attempt items completed per module, read against the minimum you set. A module sitting far below its floor is a louder signal than any accuracy figure, because you cannot be ready on material you have barely attempted. The third is error-type distribution: if most of your errors are knowledge gaps, you are still in the learning phase and should keep drilling and reading; if most are misreads, premature closure or time-pressure errors, your content is largely sound and your remaining work is technique and pacing, which mixed timed blocks address far better than more revision. Reading these three together stops the two classic self-deceptions: the candidate who feels ready because the average is high but has three untouched modules, and the candidate who panics at a low filtered-practice percentage that reflects deliberate hard drilling rather than weakness. Neither the comfort nor the panic is warranted by the number that triggered it. Track first-attempt accuracy, coverage against floors, and error type; let those three decide whether next week's action is to learn, retest, mix or stop; and treat everything else on the dashboard as context, not verdict.
Bottom line
PassMedicine is a capable DRCOG bank, but it will not protect you from your own blind spots — it does not adapt, so you must. Baseline before you personalise, set per-module floors, tag errors by type, retest on unseen items, and switch to mixed blocks on evidence rather than mood. The adaptive part of "using PassMedicine adaptively" is the discipline you bring, not an algorithm inside the app.
Frequently asked questions
Is PassMedicine enough for DRCOG on its own? It can serve as a sufficient primary bank for the SBA paper because it spans all seven modules with strong teaching notes, but "enough" depends on how you use it. Drilled without coverage floors it will happily let you ignore two or three modules; used with floors and an unseen retest layer, it is a solid backbone. The bank is enough to learn from; your process is what makes it enough to pass on.
Which DRCOG component does PassMedicine not reproduce well? The format match is close, since DRCOG is SBA-only. The practical weak spots are the low-volume modules a weakness-drill tends to starve — subfertility, neonatal examination, emergency gynaecology — and timed image and data interpretation. None of these is a format the bank cannot show; they are simply the areas you must force rather than wait for.
How many PassMedicine questions should I complete per day for DRCOG? No official target exists, and a raw daily count is a poor guide. A working doctor doing 30 to 50 first-attempt questions a day, weighted toward below-floor modules, will out-prepare someone doing 100 recycled easy items. Track first-attempt questions per module against your floors, not a headline daily number.
When should I stop using PassMedicine and move to mixed mocks? Move once every module has cleared its coverage floor and your first-attempt accuracy has stabilised across the baseline modules. If your overall percentage is rising largely through revisiting, you are not ready to stop learning, but you are ready to add mixed timed blocks so pacing and integration get measured before the exam.
How should I combine PassMedicine with iatroX without duplicating practice? Keep the jobs separate: learn and drill in PassMedicine, then measure transfer on fresh iatroX blocks you have never seen. If you retest inside the same bank you learned in, you measure recognition; using an unseen source for the retest is what keeps the readiness signal honest and avoids duplicating the same items.
Editorial notes and references
Written by Dr Kolawole Tytler, NHS GP and founder of iatroX. Last checked 19 July 2026; vendor figures are vendor-reported on that date and may change — verify on the product page. Disclosure: iatroX operates a DRCOG question bank that competes with PassMedicine; here it is confined to unseen transfer measurement, a job the PassMedicine dashboard does not claim. Corrections are welcome via the feedback route on iatrox.com.
References: RCOG, DRCOG format and pass mark and DRCOG syllabus; PassMedicine DRCOG; iatroX, Your Q-Bank Percentage Is Not Your Exam Score and completion is not coverage.