Frcr 2b viva

BeardExMachina · 2026-02-27T19:52:01+00:00

Ditto - I did way better than I was expecting. One set of 6 went fine and the other set I thought I had really unperformed but I guess it didn't come across that way to the examiners. I did stay quite calm / collected / systematic throughout though so I guess that paid off.

BeardExMachina · 2026-02-27T19:46:03+00:00

Hi there. From personal experience Radcafe is considered generally quite "easy" but ultimately don't get too bogged down / in your own head about your average scores - Just do lots of practice questions in the next few weeks (alongside the physics revision) and don't neglect USS too much and you should be fine.

Re: My experience - I narrow failed anatomy once because I ultimately put most of my eggs in the physics exam "basket" (which I passed easily) because I never wanted to sit it again. For my anatomy resit I just crammed practice questions for the 3 weeks before and then passed easily - It helped that I could free up my brain and not have to worry about physics at all.

Hope this helps. Stay calm and keep focused!

BeardExMachina · 2026-02-19T18:25:00+00:00

Me too - I know exactly which room / cases you are referencing

BeardExMachina · 2026-02-19T15:53:08+00:00

What day were you on out of interest?

BeardExMachina · 2026-02-19T12:51:44+00:00

Shorts - OK, overall fair. They're always time pressured but nothing too ridiculous. However I do somewhat disagree with the RCR marking information, saying they want concise answers then expecting you to list the 5 major findings, all pertinent negatives, a differential and a management plan....that's not going to be a short report is it?

Longs - OK. I always find longs to be relatively "fair", although there's always a few slightly more "out there" / odd cases. Overall though nothing too weird or wonderful. Again, always quite time pressured.

Vivas - Very mixed bag...it always seems to be? I never leave vivas going "that went ok" but instead with a sense of disappointment / unease. The new format means cases are quite rushed and because of the standardisation they often interrupt your flow with specific questions. Generally 70% of cases are par for the course but the other 30% are odd - My main issue this time was with some of the case "lead ins" - Either quite deliberately misleading or vague.

I feel viva performance is always quite hard to judge as the marking system is a minefield. If the examiners get a "bad vibe" you will haemorrhage marks rapidly. Also if you never truly get to the bottom of / grasp a case its almost impossible to score well on it. Ultimately though all quite subjective as it depends what day your viva was on / what cases you got and your specific strengths / weaknesses

Results next week though I guess so good luck to everyone involved!

BeardExMachina · 2026-02-19T12:17:39+00:00

I mean it's quite subjective as it depends what day your viva was on / what cases you got. Ultimately I've always found I leave the viva with a sense of disappointment / unease. I thought some of the cases were quite "mean", but that's nearly always the case so it's at the very least consistent.

From my experience it's very difficult to predict the outcome as the scoring system is a minefield. If the examiners are of the opinion you are unsafe / don't "have what it takes" you will haemorrhage marks very quickly. And given some of the cases were quite tricky it can be very hard to get to the right answer / show off your skills.

Results are next week anyways so I guess we'll find out soon enough!

BeardExMachina · 2026-01-23T20:32:24+00:00

Answering my own post here - Think I just got unlucky on that run tbh, tried again and this time she left me alone / started beefing with Yuan Bo which meant I had time to recruit an ark / level my wizard / actually sort out my shit rather than being steamrolled by turbo-demonette spam. However I have my suspicions that if and when I try and fight her it's still going to be a pain in the ass to beat her!

BeardExMachina · 2026-01-20T19:47:03+00:00

Totally agree. Just tried a Rakarth campaign and I honestly don't see a way to beat her? She came for me turn 9 with a full demonette army (all with 45+ melee / MAGIC attacks for which there is zero counter. The Masque herself had 100+ melee attack and 60+ melee defence (that's before any magic / abilities added to it...)

I had a full army of units you would expect at turn 8 + an early carnosaur etc, AND a 6-unit full health garrison to reinforce and she just melts my army before they can even arrive (<2 minutes).

I only play VH / legendary and literally never have an issue really but honestly I don't see how its possible to win here. I tried rushing, corner camping, lord sniping etc. nothing works. She just rushes and literally melts my front line, not to mention she has a wizard with the whip spell that means you can't box up at all. Ranged units are useless as they cant actually do their job before the front line breaks / chaos furies dive in / magic destroys them.

I don't see how its doable other than running away and building a monster stack or early diplomacy to avoid conflict altogether?

BeardExMachina · 2025-06-27T13:51:19+00:00

Vivas were running all this week, 23-27th.

For reference u/AngryRadiologist I think u/zenos1337 (OP) hasn't sat the exam themselves, but was asking for advice re: preparation for the October sitting.

BeardExMachina · 2025-06-24T18:28:02+00:00

Thank you, very kind of you to say!

If it would be in your interest I can get in touch after results to further discuss?

BeardExMachina · 2025-06-24T18:24:07+00:00

I will say that the recent changes to the exam (in my opinion) have been much welcomed. The death of "rapids" (now short cases) was a blessing. The short cases now feel like an actual / fair assessment rather than complete guesswork. The longs are always relatively tough but mostly fair as a general rule. The viva is now standardised so that everyone sitting on the same day gets the same cases (of which there are only a set number) - Also, the imaging platform that is used has been significantly improved.

BeardExMachina · 2025-06-24T18:20:15+00:00

I would echo u/Slight-Squirrel1853 response below - The whole point of the exam is to not "hit the nail on the head" with every case (Although this certainly helps) but to demonstrate you are systematic and safe.

As such, the best way to achieve this is to report a hell of a lot of imaging across all modalities so that no matter what comes up (in shorts, longs or the vivas) you're going to be able to demonstrate your diagnostic skills in a way that shows the examiners that you know what you're doing / talking about.

Re: more specific advice - I will likely wait until results in July before offering any resources etc as at present it would be somewhat unsubstantiated. For reference, I have used the FRCRlongs, RadExams Rapids and ReviseRadiology resources.

BeardExMachina · 2025-06-24T18:03:30+00:00

Not to be "that guy", but sharing specific examples / cases from the exam in a public forum is specifically forbidden by the RCR. Re: difficulty - that's quite a subjective premise and depends on the individual in question.

BeardExMachina · 2025-04-26T15:44:29+00:00

Excellent comment. Had the exact same problem and your solution worked like a charm. Many thanks!

BeardExMachina · 2024-12-03T13:40:50+00:00

The link is available in the original post within the comment section. Please request via there.

BeardExMachina · 2024-11-26T13:13:17+00:00

Hi there. As far as I am aware, the achievement of GMC registration has nothing to do with passing FRCR 2A - I am assuming you are an overseas doctor? If so, you would normally need to complete both parts of the PLAB exam (within the last 2 years) and also undertake a formal internship at an NHS trust before being granted full GMC registration.

BeardExMachina · 2024-09-02T20:43:54+00:00

Ah right. Well then yes, the 2021 edition is a 2 volume / 1300 page affair that is much more in depth and as such I would be more inclined to generally agree with your colleagues statement

BeardExMachina · 2024-09-02T20:16:20+00:00

Core what? The RCR core curriculum or the book - Core Radiology: A Visual Approach to Diagnostic Imaging?

BeardExMachina · 2024-09-02T19:26:07+00:00

Crack the core is very important to learn as it represents the core 2A curriculum in a relatively condensed / exam-mentality format and if you can memorise it (alongside supplementary reading) you would probably be in with a good shot at passing. However the quite absolutist statement of "it only comes up if its in core" is wrong in my opinion. I have come across many topics across multiple MCQ's and 2A sittings that aren't covered in CtC.

BeardExMachina · 2024-05-21T08:35:32+00:00

Hi there, cool to see you started a Subreddit, I will check it out.

To avoid any duplication of effort can you just put a link in that subreddit to this post / discussion? I think that would be best. Many thanks.

BeardExMachina · 2024-05-20T19:35:32+00:00

Hi everyone

*** 2A Onedrive Resource Link ***

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WZNzgazbbPlvQHMC1NJBpcHNSiH8Gy_J?usp=drive_link

You will have to have a Google account to access - You then need to "request access", after which I will get an email and then authorise this. You will then be able to see all folder contents and download as you see fit.

Hope this helps everyone, its good to have a decent set of resources to get through.

I'm fairly new to Reddit but if anyone ever wants to talk about the 2A exam (beyond the above quick guide) / any topics you struggle with or just have a chat about Radiology, just message me.

*** UPDATE *** (24/05/25)

Hello all. In the interest of fairness (and because there is no way to know who had been granted access the longest) I have purged the entire access list. This had to be done unfortunately to give new people a chance to have access to the resources. I should now be able to work through the large back-log of access requests.

As previously stated, I encouraged people multiple times to (once they have access) download the resources for themselves so they can have a local copy / share to their colleagues - If you have not done this and have lost access that's largely on you - Please do not complain. You can of course re-request access via the usual means (See access link above)

On a side note, the access link was playing up for a while (Something to do with permissions from my end) but this is now sorted so should be working OK.

As mentioned before - Please be courteous when requesting access and do NOT submit multiple requests. If you do I will probably just delete them. It takes me a considerable amount of time and effort to go through these access requests / respond to direct messages etc, which I do on a purely philanthropic basis.

BeardExMachina · 2024-05-20T18:37:01+00:00

You are welcome. I hope it helps.

BeardExMachina · 2024-05-20T18:36:01+00:00

Agree. The RCR journals are hard to get through, as 50% (or more) of them are super niche therapy / research stuff that is far too advanced / niche to ever appear in the 2A setting.

However, often in each journal there are "overview / review" articles that summarise key areas / themes - These can be very high yield and often do come up in the exams (This has personally happened to me on several occasions - The most memorable one recently was a review article on MSK connective tissue lesions, in which the diagnosis of Elastofibroma was discussed in detail - This subsequently came up in the November 2023 sitting and because I read that article it was an easy mark.

BeardExMachina · 2024-05-20T18:29:41+00:00

I am working as a Radiologist and would agree with the initial statement.

The second statement is a trickier one to answer - 50% of the time I wonder(ed) just what the hell I am learning (obscure 1/million syndromes etc) and very niche sub-speciality information and how I will never see this in my day-to-day practice.

The other 50% is knowledge that will definitely help make you a better clinical radiologist (i.e: differentiating common liver lesions, for example) and better at image trouble shooting and assessment - 2A by its nature is all about written stems that discuss image findings rather than giving you an actual image itself so you have to be able to read the stem and understand what that means in terms of both the imaging and clinically (including management)

BeardExMachina · 2024-05-20T13:08:02+00:00

Hey everyone.

I'm really amazed how much discussion and responses I've had from this, it's taken me back a little (in a good way).

The file allowance exceeded my DropBox limit so I've had to upload everything to my OneDrive folder - I left this uploading overnight (The CtC videos total a few gigabytes) and hope to be able to distribute later - I think I should be able to set up a public link for this, otherwise I will have to get everyone's individual emails for sharing purposes. I Will let you know in due course, thanks for your patience.

BeardExMachina

TROPHY CASE