MRCPsych Paper 2

Written Paper Centres in the UK, Ireland and Hong Kong

The marking scheme for the MRCPsych Written Paper is available to download

The MRCPsych Paper 2 will be 3 hours long, containing 200 questions. The paper will include both ‘best answer 1 of 5’ style MCQs and EMIs.  Approximately one third of the paper will be the EMI component.

The content of the MRCPsych Paper 2 Written paper will be the following:

Please see the breakdown below for further details.

General Adult

General principles of psychopharmacology (pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics)

Psychotropic drugs

Adverse reactions

Evaluation of treatments

Neuropsychiatry (physiology, endocrinology, chemistry, anatomy, pathology)

Genetics

Epidemiology

Advanced Psychological Processes and Treatments

Please find below three sample MCQs and one EMI

Sample questions Paper 2

A woman with agoraphobia improves with repeated exposure to crowds. Which one of the following is the essential psychological process involved?

a)  distraction

b)  extinction  *

c)  instrumental conditioning

d)  massed practice

e)  selective abstraction

A patient asks you about a recent newspaper report on the neuregulin-1 gene and psychiatric disorder.  You explain to her that the most likely psychiatric link is with which one of the following disorders?

a)  Anorexia Nervosa 

b)  Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

c)  Bulimia Nervosa  

d)  Major Depressive Disorder

e)  Schizophrenia   *

You are teaching medical students about the differences between physiological Prion protein and pathological Prions which lead to the development of variant Creutzeld-Jakob disease. Which one of the following would you tell them about PrPsc (Prion Protein Scrapie)? It has a:

a)  amino acid sequencing difference

b)  bovine origin

c)  covalent bond difference from PrPc (normal Prion protein)

d)  higher beta sheet content   *

e)  origin from infected blood

(Correct answers are marked with an asterisk)

Options:

a)  Amitriptyline

b)  Buproprion

c)  Fluoxetine

d)  Lithium

e)  Olanzapine

f)   Quetiapine

g)  St John’s Wort

h)  Venlafaxine

Lead In: Which of the above medications may cause clinically significant drug interactions in each of the following vignettes?

Each option might be used once, more than once, or not at all.

A 60 year old man on warfarin has come back from a trip abroad when he developed some psychiatric symptoms. He was prescribed one of the above drugs.  Which ONE of the above drugs would lead you to send him for an urgent INR? Correct answer: G

A young woman wants to start the combined oral contraceptive pill. You advise her that she will need to change which ONE of the above psychotropic medications, so as not to decrease the effectiveness of the pill? Correct answer: G

A 50 year old man with life-long psychiatric disorder is prescribed an ACE inhibitor for hypertension. He has been stable from the point of view of his psychiatric symptoms and you do not wish to change his treatment regime. With which ONE of the above drugs is most likely to cause a possible interaction? Correct answer: D

Breakdown of Paper 2

(BT, CBT, Family/couples, Interpersonal, Psychoanalytic, Psychoeducation)

Treatment adherence

Psychosocial influences

This breakdown is intended as a general guide to the content of Paper 2 and is subject to change.

Candidates should note that for the June 2009 paper and onwards the Paper 2 ‘Statistics and research (basic)’ section will move from the Paper 2 to the Paper 3.