Passmedicine is the question bank most UK students and trainees reach for first, and for good reason — it is cheap, huge and reliable. But "everyone uses it" is not the same as "it is right for you." This review is honest about what Passmedicine does well, where it falls short, who should pay for it, and where a free adaptive layer like iatroX changes the calculation. Pricing is as of mid-2026 — confirm current rates on Passmedicine's site.
What it is
Passmedicine is a long-established, high-volume single-best-answer question bank covering the UKMLA and finals, the MRCGP AKT, MRCP Part 1 and more, with an integrated textbook-style Knowledge Tutor that uses spaced repetition, plus community comment threads on questions. Its UKMLA and finals bank runs to many thousands of items — in the region of 11,000 across UKMLA and finals — with separate banks of 4,500-plus AKT and 5,100-plus MRCP Part 1 questions, and it bundles some OSCE and PSA material too. It has been the default UK bank for years, which is part of its appeal: the content is well-worn and the platform is familiar to almost everyone you will revise alongside.
What it costs
Passmedicine is known for value. Subscriptions are commonly around £20 to £40 for three to twelve months depending on the module and any promotion, with the AKT and MRCP Part 1 banks often around £35 for four months. For the sheer volume of questions, it is among the cheapest serious options on the market, and that price-to-content ratio is the single biggest reason it stays so popular.
Strengths
The price-to-content ratio is the headline: few banks give you this much material for so little. The Knowledge Tutor's spaced repetition is genuinely useful for locking in facts, the peer comparison helps you benchmark readiness against other candidates, and the community threads sometimes surface helpful clarifications on awkward questions. Because it is the market standard, the questions and explanations are well-worn and reliable, and the fact that most colleagues use the same bank makes group revision and shared notes straightforward. In practice, the most effective way to use Passmedicine is not to grind it cover to cover but to work in focused blocks by system, review every wrong answer rather than racing to the next question, and lean on the Knowledge Tutor's spaced repetition to keep earlier topics from fading. Used that way, the volume becomes an asset rather than a time sink. The trap most candidates fall into is treating a large bank as a checklist to complete — finishing it once and assuming readiness — when the marks come from the questions you got wrong and then genuinely understood, not from the count of questions seen. It also helps to start early enough that the Knowledge Tutor has time to cycle material back to you several times, since spaced repetition only works if there are weeks for the intervals to play out.
Limitations
Three things are worth knowing before you commit. First, it is largely static: questions are presented in a fixed structure, so you can be over-exposed to topics you have already mastered and under-exposed to your weak areas — there is no true adaptive engine targeting your personal gaps. Second, its UKMLA alignment is retrofitted: the structure pre-dates the UKMLA, and the content-map tagging is a relabelling of existing material rather than a ground-up build, so some specialty weights do not perfectly match the current blueprint. Third, CPSA and OSCE coverage is limited — it is primarily an SBA tool — and the interface, while perfectly functional, feels older than newer app-first rivals.
Who it's worth it for
Passmedicine is worth it for most UK finalists and trainees who want the market-standard bank, deep content and an unbeatable price, and who are comfortable working through volume. If you already know it from earlier years or from MRCP, the familiarity is itself a reason to continue rather than relearn a new interface. If your priority is maximum questions at the lowest cost, it is the safe pick.
The verdict
Yes — for most people Passmedicine is worth it, as the volume backbone of their revision. The caveat is that volume alone is not the same as efficient revision: working linearly through a large static bank can quietly waste hours on what you already know. That is the gap worth filling with something more targeted, rather than a reason to avoid Passmedicine itself. For most candidates the honest recommendation is to keep it as the core volume resource and pair it with something that targets weakness, rather than to replace it.
Where iatroX fits
iatroX is the adaptive layer that complements a volume bank like Passmedicine. Its engine targets your weakest topics and looks across topic boundaries; a Socratic tutor works back through the reasoning behind a wrong answer rather than just showing the model answer; spaced repetition keeps earlier material warm; questions are mapped to each exam's blueprint; and there are native iOS and Android apps. On pricing, iatroX keeps MRCP Part 1, MRCEM, the PSA and PARA free, with its other banks — including UKMLA and the MRCGP AKT — on one subscription at £29 a month or £99 a year, and free sample questions for every exam. A common, low-cost setup is Passmedicine for volume and iatroX for daily adaptive drilling and weak-area targeting: the two play to different strengths, and the combination often beats paying for a second large static bank.
A few common questions
Is Passmedicine the best question bank? It is the best-value high-volume SBA bank for many UK exams; whether it is "best" for you depends on whether you also want adaptivity, OSCE coverage or guideline-anchored explanations.
Is Passmedicine enough on its own? For volume, often yes; many candidates add an adaptive layer to target weak areas more efficiently in the run-up to the exam.
Is it worth it for the UKMLA specifically? Yes for content depth, though its UKMLA tagging is retrofitted, so check the specialty weighting against the current blueprint.
Can I use it with iatroX? Yes — Passmedicine for volume, iatroX for adaptive drilling; the combination is common and keeps costs down.