This audit is for ST4+ geriatric medicine trainees deciding whether PassGeriMed should be their primary specialty bank for the written SCE — two 100-question best-of-five papers. PassGeriMed is a dedicated geriatric-medicine bank, which is a real strength: specialty focus beats generic breadth for the specialist core. The principal limitation to flag up front is not about PassGeriMed's quality but about verification — see the current-state note below — so this article gives you the method to audit it yourself against the official blueprint.
Current state — and an honesty note
On 21 July 2026 I could not programmatically retrieve passgerimed.com to confirm its live figures; the site blocked automated access. I will therefore not state a question count, price or access period I cannot verify. What can be reported is secondary and vendor-adjacent, and should be confirmed on passgerimed.com before you rely on it.
| Attribute | Status (checked 21 July 2026) |
|---|---|
| Specialty focus | Dedicated SCE Geriatric Medicine bank (vendor-reported) |
| Engine | Described as using the PassMedicine platform with peer-comparison histograms (secondary source) |
| Authorship | Described as written by geriatric medicine consultants (secondary source) |
| Tutor feature | A "Knowledge Tutor" feature referenced (secondary source) |
| Live question count | Not independently verified — verify on passgerimed.com |
| Price / access period | Not independently verified — verify on passgerimed.com |
| AI/adaptive engine | No verified adaptive-difficulty claim; do not assume one |
| Mock exams | Not verified — check the product page |
Treat the specialty focus and consultant authorship as genuine positives worth having, and treat every number as something to confirm yourself. An audit that invented a count would be worse than useless.
Exam anchor: format and blueprint
The SCE in Geriatric Medicine is two papers of 100 best-of-five questions (200 total), three hours each, one day, computer-based, one mark per correct answer, no negative marking, sat by higher specialty trainees. The Federation's published blueprint — not any vendor's topic list — defines what can be sampled. Its heaviest domains are cognition (delirium/dementia) ~20, falls ~16, stroke ~15 and rehabilitation/MDT ~14, with roughly 61 of 200 questions drawn from general medicine in older people. That distribution is the yardstick for the audit.
Break the headline total down by blueprint domain
A bank's headline question count tells you little; what matters is the count per domain against the official weight. Because I cannot verify PassGeriMed's live totals, use this template and fill the middle column from the bank itself. Convert the blueprint's per-200 weights into the proportion of your practice each domain should occupy, then check whether PassGeriMed actually gives you enough items to meet it.
| Domain | Blueprint share (~/200) | PassGeriMed items (fill in) | Enough for a timed block? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cognition (delirium/dementia) | 20 | ||
| Falls and mobility | 16 | ||
| Stroke care | 15 | ||
| Rehabilitation / MDT | 14 | ||
| Continence | 10 | ||
| Orthogeriatrics / osteoporosis | 10 | ||
| Transfer of care | 9 | ||
| Palliative care | 9 | ||
| General medicine in older people | ~61 |
If a heavily weighted domain has too few items to build even one timed block, that is a coverage gap no headline total will reveal — and the cue to supplement.
Sample the question style
Work a stratified sample and judge the writing, because style predicts transfer:
- Recall versus application: does the item test a fact, or a decision in a scenario? SCE items lean heavily on application and management sequencing.
- Stem length and realism: are stems clinically rich, like the exam, or thin one-liners?
- Option plausibility: are all five options defensible, forcing judgement, or is there an obvious throwaway?
- Data and images: are labs, ECGs and imaging descriptions used the way the exam uses them?
- Management sequencing: does the bank reward the correct next step, not just the diagnosis?
A specialty bank written by consultants should score well here; verify it does on your sample rather than assuming.
Jurisdiction and recency
Geriatric medicine is guidance-sensitive, so check a stratified sample of explanations against current UK sources — NICE, CKS, SIGN, the SmPC/eMC and NHS guidance — for anticoagulation, osteoporosis thresholds, dementia and delirium management, and secondary stroke prevention. Record the date you checked. A bank can be excellent yet carry an explanation that a guideline has since moved past; your job is to spot-check currency, not to assume it.
The format gap: can a standard bank prepare you for the reasoning traps?
State it plainly: a well-written MCQ bank can prepare you for the knowledge and management-sequencing that dominate the SCE, but the reasoning traps — frailty judgement, mental capacity, deprescribing sequences and multidisciplinary decision-making — are only rehearsed if the bank writes items that force them. Audit whether PassGeriMed does. Where it does, that is a point in its favour; where items default to single-drug answers, supplement with capacity and MDT-focused practice and with real ward decisions.
Duplication and contamination
As you near completion of any bank, two things happen: concepts start to repeat, and near-duplicate stems mean a rising score reflects recognition rather than knowledge. Check how often the same concept recurs, and treat your late-stage percentage with suspicion — a bank you have almost finished measures memory of the bank. This is the structural reason to hold a second, unseen source for measurement, discussed below.
Best-fit matrix
Where does PassGeriMed sit in a revision stack? Decide from your own audit:
| Role | Good fit if… |
|---|---|
| Foundation building | You want a consultant-written, specialty-focused first pass through the geriatric core |
| First pass | Its per-domain counts cover the heavy blueprint areas adequately |
| Second bank | You already used a broad bank and want geriatric depth |
| Retake | You need a fresh, specialty-specific pool after exhausting another bank |
| Final simulation | It offers verified full-length timed mocks (confirm this on the product page) |
For most trainees, a dedicated geriatric bank is a strong candidate for foundation and first pass; whether it doubles as your final-simulation tool depends on verified mock functionality.
Worked example: a seven-day plan
One defined job for PassGeriMed this week: clear a first pass of the two heaviest specialist domains — cognition and falls. iatroX supplies unseen cross-specialty measurement so your readiness signal stays honest.
| Day | PassGeriMed (one job) | iatroX (unseen measurement) |
|---|---|---|
| Mon | 25 cognition items, review explanations | — |
| Tue | 25 cognition items; code errors | 15 unseen mixed items, timed |
| Wed | 25 falls/mobility items | — |
| Thu | 25 falls/mobility items; code errors | 15 unseen mixed items, timed |
| Fri | Re-test the two domains, timed | — |
| Sat | — | 30 unseen mixed block, timed; compare to Tue |
| Sun | Light review of coded errors | Log retention; plan next domains |
PassGeriMed builds and consolidates the specialist core; iatroX confirms the learning transfers to items you have not seen — the check a single bank cannot perform on itself. No proprietary-algorithm claims are made; the value is simply that the measurement items are unseen.
Decision checklist: continue, supplement, switch or stop
- Continue if your filled coverage table is adequate across heavy domains and unseen accuracy is rising.
- Supplement with a cross-specialty measurement bank (for the ~61/200 general-medicine slice and for unseen scoring) once your PassGeriMed score is climbing mainly through recognition.
- Switch primary banks only for a measurable reason — persistent empty domains, or exhaustion of the pool before you are ready — never for novelty.
- Stop buying resources when unseen timed blocks sit above your floor across all domains, retention holds at two weeks, and pacing is comfortable.
Three mistakes this audit is designed to stop
Chasing the headline count. A bank advertising a large total can still be thin in a heavily weighted domain; the per-domain breakdown, not the headline, tells you whether you can build a timed block in cognition or falls. Audit depth where the blueprint is heavy, not just the grand total.
Mistaking a late-stage score for readiness. As you near completion, near-duplicate stems turn a rising percentage into recognition rather than knowledge. Hold an unseen source in reserve so your final measurement is not simply memory of a bank you have almost finished.
Assuming currency. A consultant-written bank can still carry an explanation that a guideline has since moved past. Spot-check a stratified sample against current NICE, CKS, SIGN and SmPC/eMC guidance, record the date you checked, and treat currency as something you verify rather than assume.
Bottom line
PassGeriMed's dedicated geriatric focus and consultant authorship make it a credible primary specialty bank, and those are real reasons to consider it. The caveat is verification, not quality: confirm its live question count, price and mock functionality on passgerimed.com, audit its per-domain counts against the official blueprint, and pair it with an unseen cross-specialty source so your readiness signal does not rest on recognition of a bank you have nearly finished.
Frequently asked questions
Is PassGeriMed enough for SCE Geriatric Medicine on its own? A dedicated, consultant-written geriatric bank can carry most of the specialist core, so for many trainees it is a strong primary resource. Whether it is enough on its own depends on two things you should verify: that its per-domain counts adequately cover the heavy blueprint areas, and that you have a separate source of unseen items for honest measurement, since any single bank you complete starts testing recognition. Confirm its live figures on passgerimed.com, as they could not be independently verified on the check date.
Which SCE Geriatric Medicine component does PassGeriMed not reproduce well? No standard MCQ bank fully reproduces the multidisciplinary, capacity and frailty-judgement reasoning the exam rewards unless it deliberately writes items that force those decisions — audit whether PassGeriMed does. It also cannot, by itself, provide an unseen measurement layer once you have worked through it, and it may under-weight the large general-internal-medicine slice of this blueprint relative to the specialist core. Supplement those specific gaps rather than assuming full coverage.
How many PassGeriMed questions should I complete per day for SCE Geriatric Medicine? A sustainable 20 to 40 items a day around clinical work is more effective than occasional large batches, because spacing and review drive retention better than volume. Prioritise the heavy domains first, code every error, and re-test rather than pressing on to new topics while old ones decay. The right daily number is the one you can review properly the same day; unreviewed questions are activity, not learning.
When should I stop using PassGeriMed and move to mixed mocks? Move to mixed timed mocks once your first pass has covered the heavy domains and your per-domain accuracy is stable — you do not need 100% completion first. Continuing to grind topic-filtered blocks past that point trains topic cueing, which the real exam removes. Keep some unseen items in reserve, or use a second bank, so your mixed mocks measure readiness rather than recall of PassGeriMed stems you have already reviewed.
How should I combine PassGeriMed with iatroX without duplicating practice? Assign non-overlapping jobs and never answer the same concept in both on the same day. PassGeriMed is the specialty learning-and-coverage bank; iatroX is the unseen, cross-specialty measurement and general-medicine layer. When you miss a PassGeriMed concept, repair it and then verify the repair on a fresh iatroX item testing the same principle. That is the two-Q-bank rule in practice: learn in one, measure in the other, see no question twice.
Editorial notes and references
Written by Dr Kolawole Tytler, NHS GP and founder of iatroX. Last checked 21 July 2026. PassGeriMed's live question count, price and access period could not be independently retrieved on the check date; all such figures are vendor-reported and must be confirmed on passgerimed.com. Other vendor figures are likewise vendor-reported and subject to change. Disclosure: iatroX operates a cross-specialty UK question bank that competes for revision time with PassGeriMed; this audit confines iatroX to jobs PassGeriMed does not claim — unseen cross-specialty measurement and the general-medicine slice — and does not present iatroX as a geriatric-specific SCE bank. Corrections via the feedback route on iatrox.com. References: Federation of the Royal Colleges of Physicians (MRCP(UK)) SCE Geriatric Medicine blueprint; PassGeriMed product pages (passgerimed.com — verify current figures); your Q-bank percentage is not your exam score; the SCE Geriatric Medicine content-gap checklist; the iatroX comparison hub.