RACGP Exam Prep: Guide to Prepare for AKT & KFP Exams

An AceGP × Medrecruit guide to studying smarter, not harder

Preparing for the RACGP AKT and KFP exams shouldn’t be a mad dash… if you’re looking for the best RACGP exam prep strategy, the key is steady, well-paced study. With the right structure, resources, and support, you can walk into the exam room calm, confident, and ready. Here’s a practical, step-by-step approach you can start using today.

1. Treat RACGP exam preparation like a long-distance run (not a sprint)

• Give yourself at least a six-month runway. Sustainable effort beats cramming every time, and will make the exam process significantly less stressful.

• Map the terrain. Start with the RACGP Curriculum and BEACH data on common GP presentations. Note where your day-to-day work has given you depth (eg. you may be strong in women’s health after recently doing 2 years of obstetrics & gynaecology) and where you need to build breadth (eg. men’s health, geriatrics, dermatology).

💡 Action: Get out your calendar and plan your weeks. Allocate more time to weaker curriculum areas and schedule recurring “checkpoint” reviews.

2. Build a study plan that mirrors the AKT and KFP exams

• Know the exam formats. Use RACGP exemplar AKT and KFP questions, and gplearning SAPT questions, to understand how the AKT and KFP exams test knowledge and clinical reasoning. Familiarise yourself with the clinical scenario style, question stems and answer option structure.

• Study the sources exam writers use. Familiarise yourself with Therapeutic Guidelines (eTG), RACGP guidelines (RACGP Red Book and others), and relevant PHN resources (eg. The Royal Children’s Hospital guidelines).

• Use an exam-aligned course. A structured platform like AceGP gives you realistic questions, analytics, spaced learning study assistance, and supervisor-friendly insights so you can target gaps efficiently.

💡 Action: Get in the mindset of a weekly rhythm: content review → targeted questions → reflection → brief consolidation notes.

3. Turn daily clinical practice into high-yield study

Don’t silo your “exam prep” from your day-to-day GP work. Every patient is a learning prompt.

• Keep a simple running list (paper or digital): category → presentation → working diagnosis.

• Each evening, review the two or three cases you found most challenging, check current guidelines, and do 5 to 10 related questions on a platform like AceGP.

• This creates a tight feedback loop: clinical practice → reflection → revision → apply in a question setting → improved patient care and exam readiness. Over time, this organically covers the “hidden curriculum” of general practice.

💡 Action: End each clinic day with a 10-minute “case debrief” ritual.

4. Use Supervisor Sessions to sharpen RACGP exam strategy

Your supervisor sees patterns you can’t (yet).

• Plan weekly teaching sessions with agenda items drawn from your analytics and recent tricky cases.

• Blend knowledge and technique: discuss clinical concepts and exam strategy (pattern recognition, distractor traps, time management and AKT/KFP practice case reasoning) with your supervisor.

• If you’re using AceGP, bring your personalised insights and the “GP Takeaways” from each question to structure these weekly sessions with your GP supervisor.

💡 Action: Arrive with 3 targeted questions you got wrong and one you got right (but weren’t sure why).

5. Data-driven spaced learning for GP exams: retain knowledge longer

• Tag your errors. After each quiz, label why you answered a question incorrectly: knowledge gap, misread, or strategy. Then explore and fix the root cause.

• Spaced learning & data-driven learning works. Platforms like AceGP use spaced recall techniques to strengthen long-term retention for the RACGP AKT and KFP exams. Their built-in spaced learning feature will resurface questions at the moment you’re likely to forget the core knowledge being tested… like stoking a fire so it never burns out.

• Keep track of your knowledge gaps. As you review your question attempts, take time to actively reflect on the areas where your understanding is weakest. If you're using a platform like AceGP, make full use of its personalised performance analytics and radar charts which offer clear, targeted insights to help you focus your exam revision effectively.

💡 Action: Reflect and identify, the more you can hone in on the exact areas where you are losing marks, the more likely you are to be successful in mastering the written exams.

6. Convert mistakes into a personal flashcard deck

Rather than moving on after reading an explanation, make every error a resource:

• If you’re using AceGP, use the key takeaways that accompany each question as ready-made flashcards.

• Review them weekly, so repeated exposure cements the concept.

• Over time, your “error bank” becomes your most powerful revision tool.

💡 Action: Convert high-yield explanations from questions you’ve answered incorrectly into flashcards, utilise them from time to time to keep the knowledge “alive”. Treat each mistake as a win, because it’s one fewer you’ll make on exam day.

7. Practise clinical reasoning, not just recall

The KFP rewards structured clinical reasoning as much as knowledge.

• When reviewing explanations of answers from questions you’ve attempted, practise verbalising the “why” behind each answer.

• In study groups, explain your reasoning out loud and challenge peers to do the same.

• This trains you to articulate the exact thought process examiners want to see.

💡 Action: After each practice question, write one sentence that starts with “I chose this answer option because…”

8. Simulate exam day (early and often)

Mock exams make exam day feel familiar. Scheduling multiple AKT and KFP mock exams over your study period is one of the most effective exam prep strategies.

• Don’t save them all for the end. Space your mocks across months 3 to 6.

• Analyse like an auditor. Where did you lose marks, was it knowledge gaps, timing, second-guessing?

• Benchmark wisely. If you’re using a platform like AceGP, use cohort comparisons as a guide to prioritise areas you need to improve in.

💡 Action: After each mock, write a one-page improvement plan and act on it within the following week.

9. Build a study group that makes study effective & enjoyable

• Organise for your study group to meet weekly for 1 to 2 hours.

• Example Format: 20 min hot-seat KFP case discussion → 20 min AKT rapid-fire → 15 min “teach-back” (each person explains one mini-topic) → 5 min plan for the week.

• Teaching others is the fastest way to cement your own knowledge.

💡 Action: Create a study group and devise a plan of attack on how your group can make the most of the sessions.

10. Make study feel like a game, not a grind

Consistency matters, but study doesn’t have to feel heavy. If you’re using a platform like AceGP which has an accompanying mobile app, you can turn preparation into something you actually look forward to.

• Daily quizzes feel more like a game than a task, and they keep knowledge fresh in bite-sized chunks.

• Be opportunistic. Waiting to pick up your kids from school? Have 5 minutes between patients? Pull out your phone and do a quick ophthalmology quiz on the app, especially if you’ve noticed that’s been a weaker area this week.

• These micro-sessions stack up over months, building strong recall without overwhelming your schedule.

💡 Action: Replace idle scroll time with a 5 to 10 minute quiz. The compounding effect will be huge.

Example Six Month Gameplan:

Months 1 to 2: Map curriculum, set baselines, start spaced learning, try out 1 mock exam.

Months 3 to 4: Intensify weak domains, attempt a further mock exam, weekly supervisor sessions, study group cadence locked.

Month 5: Exam-style practice most days, targeted guideline refreshers, 2 mocks with deep review.

Month 6: Consolidation, high-yield flashcards, timing drills, final 1 to 2 mocks, sleep and exam routines should feel like second nature.

AceGP × Medrecruit: Your Partners in RACGP Exam Success

This partnership exists to help you study smarter and shape a career you love, not just pass an exam.

• AceGP gives you exam-realistic questions, analytics, spaced learning, and supervisor-friendly insights to focus your effort where it counts.

• Medrecruit helps you protect study time and broaden your experience with flexible locum rosters, from diverse rural settings to city clinics, so you can balance work, life, and preparation. Register here to get one on one expert support with finding jobs that match your training stage and goals.

💡 Pro tip: Consider a short locum block in a setting that complements your weaker domains (e.g., rural generalism for acute care variety, aged-care heavy practices for geriatrics). It builds confidence and skill in clinical reasoning, invaluable for your written examinations and later your clinical examinations.

Keep an eye out for our next blog post... "How to Use the Final Week Before Your RACGP Fellowship Exams to Get Prepared"