There is a document, published after every AKT sitting by the people who write the exam, that names the topics where candidates performed badly. It is free, it is public, and it is the nearest thing to an official revision guide that will ever exist for this paper. Most candidates either never open it or skim one report and move on. Used properly, across several sittings, it does something no question bank can do on its own: it tells you what the examiners already know you are likely to get wrong.
Key takeaways
- The RCGP publishes a feedback report after each AKT sitting, identifying areas of poor candidate performance.
- Read at least the last three reports, because the pattern across sittings matters more than any single one.
- Separate two kinds of content: generic exam advice, and specific topics where that cohort underperformed.
- Certain themes recur across many sittings, and recurrence is the strongest signal in the whole document.
- Cross-check the reported weaknesses against your own dashboard, because a national weakness is only your problem if it is also your weakness.
What the reports actually contain
The reports are not long, and they mix two quite different kinds of information, which is why skimming them is unproductive.
The first kind is generic guidance about how to approach the paper: how the standard is set, how the questions are constructed, and the recurring behaviours that cost candidates marks. This is useful once, and it does not change much between sittings.
The second kind is the valuable part: specific commentary on where that particular cohort underperformed, naming clinical areas, question types and reasoning failures. This is what you are there for, and it is what most candidates read past.
Read across sittings, not within one
A single report is a snapshot of one cohort's weaknesses, and some of that is noise. The signal appears when you read several and look for repetition.
Across recent AKT feedback reports, certain themes come up again and again rather than once. Data interpretation, particularly of graphs and numerical results, is a persistent theme. So is prescribing in older people, including the recognition of inappropriate polypharmacy. Controlled drug prescribing recurs. Neurology has been flagged repeatedly across consecutive sittings. ECG interpretation and asthma management appear more than once.
When something appears in one report, it may be that cohort. When it appears in four, it is telling you something structural about what the exam demands and what candidates reliably fail to bring to it. That is where your attention belongs.
Convert commentary into questions, not into reading
The commonest mistake at this point is to respond to the reports by reading. A report says candidates underperformed on data interpretation, so the candidate reads a chapter about data interpretation, feels better, and remains unable to interpret data under time pressure.
Convert each identified weakness into a practice session instead. If the reports name graph and numerical interpretation, build a block of questions that demand exactly that, sit it timed, and review the errors properly. If they name prescribing in older people, drill polypharmacy and deprescribing decisions rather than re-reading a list of drugs to avoid. The report is a diagnosis. Questions are the treatment.
Then cross-check against your own data
A nationally identified weakness is only your weakness if your own performance says so, and the two frequently diverge. Someone who trained in neurology may be perfectly comfortable there while being genuinely poor at statistics, which the reports may not have emphasised that sitting.
So run the two datasets side by side. Take the recurring themes from the reports, and look up your own accuracy in each of those areas in your question bank dashboard. Three things can happen. A theme is flagged nationally and you are weak in it: that is your top priority, because both signals agree. A theme is flagged nationally and you are strong in it: note it, sample it occasionally to confirm, and move on. And most importantly, a theme is not flagged nationally but you are weak in it: that is still your weakness, and the report does not excuse it.
Use the reports to calibrate what the exam wants
Beyond specific topics, the reports repeatedly reveal something about the exam's character that changes how you answer. The AKT rewards appropriate, evidence-based and cost-effective management, and the correct answer is frequently not to investigate, not to prescribe, or not to refer. Candidates default to action, and the reports say so, in various phrasings, sitting after sitting.
They also reward answering from the guidance rather than from local practice habit. What your training practice happens to do is not necessarily what the national guidance says, and the exam tests the latter.
Neither of those points is a topic you can revise. They are stances you bring to the paper, and the feedback reports are where you learn to bring them.
Keep a live document
Practically, do this once and maintain it. Build a single page listing the recurring themes from the last three or four reports, with a column for your own accuracy in each. Update it when a new report is published, since a new one follows every sitting, and update your accuracy figures as you practise. That page is your highest-yield revision list, and it took an hour to construct.
Where iatroX fits
iatroX's MRCGP AKT bank is mapped to the RCGP curriculum with explanations grounded in NICE, CKS, SIGN and the SmPC, which makes the conversion from feedback report to practice straightforward: take a recurring theme, drill it as a targeted block, and let the adaptive engine keep returning the concepts you are getting wrong. Missed questions can be opened in the Socratic Tutor, which asks you to reason before it explains, and spaced repetition returns the corrected principle before it decays. Try it with free sample questions at iatroX. For the blueprint structure these reports sit within, see the AKT 80/10/10 plan.
Frequently asked questions
Where do I find the RCGP AKT feedback reports? The RCGP publishes a feedback report after each AKT sitting on its website. They are free and public, and they are the closest thing to official guidance on where candidates go wrong.
How many feedback reports should I read? At least the last three, and ideally four. A single report shows one cohort's weaknesses, some of which is noise. Themes that recur across several sittings are the strongest signal in the document.
Which topics recur in AKT feedback? Data and graph interpretation, prescribing in older people and polypharmacy, controlled drug prescribing, neurology, ECG interpretation and asthma management have all appeared across recent reports, some in consecutive sittings.
Should I revise everything the reports mention? No. Cross-check each recurring theme against your own dashboard. A national weakness matters most where it coincides with your own, and your personal weak areas remain weak whether or not the reports mention them.