This coverage audit is for Final FRCA candidates deciding how far the TeachMeAnaesthetics question bank will take them. The honest headline first: TeachMeAnaesthetics does publish a Final FRCA bank — around 400+ SBAs by vendor report — but it is single-best-answer only. It addresses one of the three assessed components, the SBA paper, and does not reproduce the Constructed Response Question (CRQ) paper or the Structured Oral Examination (SOE). It is a strong SBA-practice tool with real blind spots you must plan around.
What TeachMeAnaesthetics offers for Final FRCA right now
TeachMeAnaesthetics is a UK resource written by anaesthetic registrars, best known for its Primary FRCA bank and its subject guides. Its Final FRCA offering is a subspecialty-weighted SBA set. The figures below are vendor-reported and were checked on 20 July 2026; confirm the live count, inclusion and price on the product page, because the sign-up page foregrounds the Primary bank and does not separately itemise Final FRCA pricing.
| Attribute | Vendor-reported (20 July 2026) — verify on teachmeanaesthetics.com |
|---|---|
| Final FRCA questions | 400+ SBAs, subspecialty-focused (cardiothoracics, neurosurgery, obstetrics, critical care) |
| Question type | Single Best Answer only |
| Adaptive / AI | None described |
| Mock exam mode | Not described — verify |
| Tools | Custom quiz builder, difficulty filter, answer-status filter, per-subject performance tracking |
| Learning content | Referenced notes and subject guides, podcast; sources cited to textbooks, national guidelines and BJA articles |
| Price | Primary plans are one-off at £30 (1 month), £50 (3 months), £75 (6 months); Final FRCA inclusion/price not separately stated — verify |
| Access period | Fixed one-off windows as above — verify |
The takeaway from the box is that this is a knowledge-and-SBA product, not a full Final FRCA preparation suite. That is not a criticism; it is a scope statement you should hold in view while reading the rest of this audit.
The exam you are actually sitting
The current Final FRCA written comprises a CRQ paper (12 constructed-response questions, three hours, each marked out of 20, all mandatory, modified Angoff) and an MCQ paper (90 SBAs, three hours, roughly 45 general anaesthesia, 10 perioperative medicine, 10 regional and 25 other, one mark each, no negative marking). The SOE is a separate defended oral. A bank that holds SBAs maps cleanly onto exactly one of these — the MCQ paper — and touches the CRQ and SOE only indirectly, through the underlying knowledge those questions build.
Register the 2027 flag while you plan. From July 2027 (pending GMC approval) the Final written becomes a single AKT of 100 SBAs in three hours with no CRQ, and the SOE is replaced by a Final Clinical Performance Exam (FCPE) of 12 nine-minute stations. An SBA bank is, if anything, more central to the AKT than to the current split paper — but the CRQ practice you might expect a bank to help with is disappearing, and the station-based clinical exam is even further from what any SBA bank reproduces. Check your diet against the RCoA's 2027 hub, and separate the RCoA's official requirements from any third-party claim about what a bank "covers".
Coverage by blueprint domain, not by headline total
A headline of 400+ is only useful once you break it against the paper's weighting. The SBA paper is dominated by general anaesthesia (about half), so the first question for any Final FRCA bank is whether its items track that distribution or over-index on eye-catching subspecialty scenarios. TeachMeAnaesthetics describes its Final set as subspecialty-focused (cardiothoracics, neurosurgery, obstetrics, critical care), which is valuable for depth but is a different shape from the exam's general-anaesthesia-heavy blueprint.
| Blueprint area (SBA paper) | Approx. exam weight | Likely fit of a subspecialty-weighted bank |
|---|---|---|
| General anaesthesia | ≈45 of 90 | Needs the most volume; verify the bank carries it in proportion |
| Perioperative medicine | ≈10 | Often under-represented in subspecialty sets |
| Regional anaesthesia | ≈10 | Usually reasonable |
| Other (pain, ICM, paediatrics, etc.) | ≈25 | Subspecialty focus helps here |
Treat 400+ as a starting figure and audit it yourself: filter by subject in the quiz builder and check whether the domains that carry the most marks also carry the most questions. If they do not, that is a coverage gap to fill from a second source.
Sample question style and cognitive level
Judge the items on more than count. Look at whether stems are exam-length clinical vignettes or short factual prompts; whether the five options are genuinely plausible so the question discriminates, rather than one obvious answer among filler; whether image and data interpretation (waveforms, ABGs, ECGs, statistics) appears at exam frequency; and whether the required cognitive step is recall, application or management sequencing. Final FRCA SBAs reward the "next best step" under realistic constraints. A bank that leans toward factual recall will feel easier than the exam and can flatter your readiness — precisely the failure the score-interpretation guidance warns about.
Jurisdiction and recency
TeachMeAnaesthetics is UK-authored and cites textbooks, national guidelines and BJA articles, which is the right provenance for a UK exam. Recency still needs checking on a stratified sample: pull a handful of items from pharmacology, resuscitation, obstetrics and perioperative medicine and confirm each against current NICE, specialty guidance (AAGBI, DAS, Resuscitation Council UK) and the SmPC/eMC for drug detail. Note the date you did this; guidance moves, and a correct-in-2023 explanation can drift. Report your own review date rather than trusting a "last updated" badge.
The format gap, stated plainly
No standard SBA Q-bank — TeachMeAnaesthetics included — can prepare the whole Final FRCA. It can train recognition and application for the SBA paper, and it builds knowledge that indirectly supports the CRQ and SOE. It cannot teach you to construct a timed written answer to a 20-mark CRQ, and it cannot rehearse defended reasoning for the oral. Those need marked written practice and live viva rehearsal respectively. Say this to yourself before you start, so a high bank percentage does not become false confidence about components the bank never tested.
Duplication and contamination
A single bank worked repeatedly stops measuring knowledge and starts measuring memory of the bank. Watch for repeated concepts and near-duplicate stems, and notice when your score climbs because you recognise the item rather than because you reason to the answer. The defence is to keep a protected pool of unseen questions — ideally from a second source — that you never study from and only ever sit cold. That unseen pool, not your reviewed-question percentage, is your readiness signal.
Best-fit matrix
| Use case | Is TeachMeAnaesthetics Final FRCA a strong fit? |
|---|---|
| Foundation building | Partial — the notes and subject guides help; the SBA set is secondary study |
| First-pass SBA practice | Yes, within its subspecialty weighting — supplement general anaesthesia |
| Second bank for unseen volume | Reasonable, if it is genuinely unseen to you |
| Retake diagnosis | Only alongside error analysis and general-anaesthesia breadth |
| Final simulation (CRQ + SOE) | No — out of scope for an SBA bank |
A seven-day worked example around clinical work
"Sam" is three weeks from the SBA paper, strong on subspecialties but slow and error-prone on general-anaesthesia detail. Sam uses TeachMeAnaesthetics for one job — subspecialty consolidation — and iatroX for unseen transfer practice and pace, claiming no proprietary algorithm.
| Day | TeachMeAnaesthetics (one job) | iatroX (unseen measurement) |
|---|---|---|
| Mon | 20 subspecialty SBAs; read the linked notes | 20 unseen general-anaesthesia SBAs; code misses |
| Tue | 20 SBAs on a weak subspecialty | 30 mixed unseen SBAs, timed at exam pace |
| Wed | Podcast on the commute (passive) | 15-item micro-block; log error types |
| Thu | 20 SBAs; review explanations for principle, not key | Write one CRQ under time; self-mark to the rubric |
| Fri | — (clinical day) | 30 mixed SBAs; compare pace to Tuesday |
| Sat | Consolidate subspecialty error log | 40-item timed mixed block; review calibration |
| Sun | Rest / light re-read | Re-test only missed principles with fresh items |
TeachMeAnaesthetics supplies the subspecialty depth; iatroX supplies unseen general-anaesthesia volume and the pace check. Neither marks a real CRQ or runs an SOE.
Decision checklist: continue, supplement, switch or stop
Continue if your unseen SBA scores are rising and the bank still covers domains you are weak in. Supplement — usually correct — if your general-anaesthesia breadth or your pace is lagging: add unseen general-anaesthesia volume and start CRQ and SOE practice elsewhere. Switch or add a second bank if you are recognising items rather than reasoning, or if recency checks fail. Stop when your protected unseen pool, not your reviewed percentage, sits reliably above your target and further reps are recognition, not learning. Judge on measurable gaps, not novelty.
Bottom line
TeachMeAnaesthetics is a credible, UK-authored SBA bank that is genuinely useful for the Final FRCA SBA paper, especially for subspecialty depth. Its blind spots are structural, not accidental: it is SBA-only, subspecialty-weighted rather than general-anaesthesia-weighted, and silent on the CRQ and SOE. Use it for what it tests, verify its counts and recency yourself, and build the CRQ, oral and unseen-general-anaesthesia layers around it.
Frequently asked questions
Is TeachMeAnaesthetics enough for Final FRCA on its own? No. It is an SBA-only bank, and by vendor report its Final FRCA set is subspecialty-weighted, so it prepares one of the three assessed components — the SBA paper — while leaving the CRQ and SOE unaddressed and the general-anaesthesia bulk of the SBA paper needing supplementary volume. It is a strong SBA-practice component within a wider stack, not a complete preparation on its own.
Which Final FRCA component does TeachMeAnaesthetics not reproduce well? The CRQ paper and the SOE. A single-best-answer bank cannot train you to write a timed, 20-mark constructed response, and it cannot rehearse defended reasoning under oral questioning. Those require marked written practice and live viva rehearsal. The bank supports the knowledge behind both, but it does not reproduce either format.
How many TeachMeAnaesthetics questions should I complete per day for Final FRCA? A workable target is 30–50 SBAs a day in the final month, with the weighting shifted toward domains you are weak in and toward genuinely unseen items rather than reviewed ones. The number matters less than the discipline of coding each error and re-testing the principle with a fresh question; 30 well-reviewed items beat 80 skimmed ones. Confirm your access window covers your revision period.
When should I stop using TeachMeAnaesthetics and move to mixed mocks? Move to timed mixed mocks once your topic-filtered scores have stabilised and your errors are more about pace and integration than about missing knowledge — usually the final two to three weeks. At that point the priority becomes exam-condition rehearsal: full-length timed SBA blocks, marked CRQ practice, and SOE rehearsal, using the bank only to repair specifically identified weaknesses.
How should I combine TeachMeAnaesthetics with iatroX without duplicating practice? Give each a separate role: use TeachMeAnaesthetics to learn and drill subspecialty depth, and use iatroX as your unseen measurement set for general-anaesthesia breadth and timed mixed blocks. Do not re-sit the same concept in both on the same day; test the principle with a fresh iatroX item instead of repeating the TeachMeAnaesthetics stem. Keep the iatroX pool unseen so your percentage there means something, exactly as the two-Q-bank rule prescribes.
Editorial notes and references
Written by Dr Kolawole Tytler, NHS GP and founder of iatroX. Last checked 20 July 2026; all TeachMeAnaesthetics figures are vendor-reported and were correct at the date of checking — verify the live question count, Final FRCA inclusion, access period and price on teachmeanaesthetics.com. Disclosure: iatroX operates a competing UK-focused SBA bank; this audit confines iatroX's role to jobs TeachMeAnaesthetics does not claim — unseen general-anaesthesia SBA volume and timed measurement — and states plainly that iatroX does not mark CRQs or simulate the SOE, OSCE, or the 2027 FCPE. Corrections are welcome via the feedback route on iatrox.com.
References: RCoA Final FRCA examination and Final FRCA Written examination pages (rcoa.ac.uk); RCoA 2027 Launch of the New FRCA Exams hub (rcoa.ac.uk/examinations/2027-launch-new-frca-exams); TeachMeAnaesthetics question bank and pricing pages (teachmeanaesthetics.com); iatroX Final FRCA bank (iatrox.com/frca-final); the iatroX comparison hub (iatrox.com/compare); "Your Q-Bank Percentage Is Not Your Exam Score" (iatrox.com/blog/qbank-percentage-not-your-exam-score); completion is not coverage — building a blueprint matrix (iatrox.com/blog/question-bank-completion-is-not-coverage-how-to-build-a-blueprint-coverage-matrix-for-any-medical-exam).