EMedBuddyThe AMC CAT MCQ rewards applied judgement - choosing the single safest, most appropriate next step across the whole curriculum. Below are ten original practice questions with full explanations. Try each before you read the answer, and make a point of understanding why the other options are wrong: that is what transfers to new questions.
Key takeaways
- Ten original single-best-answer questions spanning emergency, cardiology, endocrine, surgery, obstetrics, neurology, renal, GI, respiratory and psychiatry, each with a full rationale.
- The habit that matters most: understand why every wrong option is wrong, not just confirm the right one.
- Track your accuracy by topic and deliberately attack your two weakest areas rather than re-reading your strengths.
- These are original practice questions for study, not real exam questions.
10 practice questions
1. Emergency / Toxicology
A patient is brought in unresponsive with a respiratory rate of 6, pinpoint pupils and needle marks. What is the most appropriate immediate treatment?
2. Cardiology
A hypertensive man has sudden severe “tearing” chest pain radiating to the back, with a blood-pressure difference between the arms and a new early diastolic murmur. What is the priority?
3. Endocrine
A young person with type 1 diabetes presents drowsy and dehydrated with glucose 28 mmol/L, high ketones and a venous pH of 7.1. What is the first priority?
4. Surgery
An adolescent has 2 hours of sudden severe testicular pain with a high-riding, exquisitely tender testis and an absent cremasteric reflex. What is the management?
5. Obstetrics
During labour, after the membranes rupture, a loop of umbilical cord is felt in the vagina and the fetal heart rate drops sharply. What is the immediate action?
6. Neurology
A 72-year-old has a new temporal headache, scalp tenderness, jaw pain on chewing and transient visual blurring, with a markedly raised ESR. What is the most important immediate step?
7. Renal / Emergency
A patient with chronic kidney disease has a potassium of 7.0 mmol/L with peaked T waves and a broadening QRS. What is given first?
8. Gastroenterology
A patient with cirrhosis and ascites develops fever, abdominal pain and worsening confusion. An ascitic tap shows 350 neutrophils/mm³. What is the diagnosis and treatment?
9. Respiratory
A patient with severe COPD remains drowsy with pH 7.26 and a high PaCO₂ despite controlled oxygen and bronchodilators. What is the next intervention?
10. Psychiatry
A patient on an SSRI is given tramadol and within hours develops agitation, sweating, tremor, hyperreflexia and clonus worse in the legs, with a fever. What is the diagnosis?
How to study MCQs so they stick
- Read every rationale - right or wrong, understand why each option is correct or incorrect.
- Practise across all disciplines, not just your strengths - the exam is broad and unpredictable.
- Track accuracy by topic and deliberately attack your two weakest areas.
- Space your mistakes - re-attempt questions you got wrong a few days later.
EMedBuddy's QBank has 2,560+ single-best-answer questions like these across every AMC discipline - each with a rationale for every option, a real reference and an exam tip - plus topic filtering and accuracy tracking.
What does the AMC CAT MCQ actually test?
Applied clinical judgement, choosing the single safest, most appropriate next step, across the breadth of the medical curriculum, not just factual recall.
How should I use practice questions to actually improve?
Read every rationale, including for questions you got right, and understand why each wrong option is wrong. That is what transfers to unfamiliar questions in the real exam, more than the count of questions you attempt.
Are these real AMC exam questions?
No, these are original practice questions written for study purposes only, not reproductions of real exam content.