TL;DR: An AMC mock exam is a full-length rehearsal of the AMC CAT MCQ: 150 questions in 3.5 hours, forward-only, under real timing. General mocks test you against the AMC blueprint. AMC Academic's month-specific mocks are each built around the topics candidates reported from one AMC sitting and written as our own original questions, so you can measure how you'd have performed on that month's topics. No other AMC prep platform builds full-length, timed mocks around individual sittings. Sit general mocks first for a baseline, then month-specific mocks in your final weeks, and turn every result into a revision list by patient group. Start with the 10 free practice AMC clinical cases below.
Start free: try 20 free AMC questions or browse all 50 free AMC clinical cases. No account, no card.
Every AMC sitting leaves a pattern behind. Within days of an exam, candidates are comparing notes: which presentations came up, which patient groups felt heavy, which questions they're still turning over. For them, that sitting is finished. For you, it's information.
A general mock exam can tell you whether you've covered the blueprint. It can't tell you how you'd have handled the topics that turned up in a real, recent sitting. That's the job of a month-specific mock exam, and AMC Academic is the only AMC Part 1 platform that builds full-length, timed mocks around individual sittings.
This guide covers what a good AMC mock exam should do, how month-specific mocks differ from general ones, how to use both in your final eight weeks, and 10 free practice clinical cases you can try right now.
What is an AMC mock exam?
An AMC mock exam (you'll also see AMC mock test, AMC MCQ trial exam or AMC online practice test) is a full-length rehearsal of the AMC CAT MCQ examination, the exam most candidates call AMC Part 1. A good one copies the real exam's timing and navigation rules. Here's the exam it's rehearsing:
| Feature | The real AMC CAT MCQ |
|---|---|
| Questions | 150 single-best-answer questions, five options each |
| Time | 3.5 hours in one session, about 84 seconds a question |
| Navigation | Forward-only: no going back, no flagging, no review screen |
| Format | Computer adaptive: each answer shapes what comes next |
| Marking | No negative marking, and you're expected to answer all 150 |
| Result | A scaled score from 0 to 500, with 250 to pass |
If a mock lets you flag questions and come back, pause for a break or see answers as you go, it's useful practice, but it isn't a rehearsal. Good AMC online test preparation needs both: a question bank to learn from and mock exams that prove it worked. Our guide to the AMC CAT MCQ format explains why the forward-only rule changes how you should prepare, and our AMC exam overview covers everything else.
General mocks vs month-specific mocks
Both are full-length and timed, and AMC Academic includes both. The difference is what each one is built around.
General mocks cover the whole syllabus. A good one follows the AMC blueprint: 30% Adult health (Medicine), 20% Adult health (Surgery), and 12.5% each for Women's health, Child health, Mental health, and Population health and ethics, as set out in the AMC's MCQ Examination Specifications. AMC Academic's three high-yield mocks are your general mocks. They test whether you've covered the core, which makes them the right first benchmark.
Month-specific mocks start from a real sitting. After each AMC exam, candidates report the topics they met. We build a full mock around that topic pattern, write every question ourselves and check it against Australian guidelines. You sit it under the real timing and navigation rules, then see how you'd have performed on that sitting's topics, broken down by specialty and topic.
| Compare | General mock | Month-specific mock |
|---|---|---|
| Built around | The AMC blueprint | The topics candidates reported from one AMC sitting |
| The question it answers | Have I covered the core? | How would I have done on a recent sitting's topics? |
| Best time to sit it | Early as a baseline, then midway | Your final five weeks |
| Exam rules | 150 questions, 3.5 hours, forward-only | The same |
| What you get back | Results by specialty and topic | Results by specialty and topic for each sitting, so you can compare months |
| On AMC Academic | Three high-yield mocks | Seven month-specific mocks, with new ones added as patterns change |
Why month-specific mocks are the sharper test of readiness
General mocks build your base. Month-specific mocks tell you whether that base holds up against the topics candidates are meeting now. Five reasons they earn their place in your final weeks:
They keep you current. The blueprint fixes how much of the exam each patient group gets, and the AMC calibrates difficulty to stay consistent from month to month. What moves is which presentations turn up inside those shares, as guidelines change and new questions are trialled. A month-specific mock puts recent presentations in front of you. A general mock can't.
They give you a spread of results. One mock is one data point from one day. Sit three or four month-specific mocks and you'll see whether your performance holds across the topics of different sittings, which tells you far more about readiness than one good (or bad) morning.
They turn recall topics into practice you can trust. Each one is built on the topics candidates recalled from that sitting, then written as original questions and checked against Australian guidelines, so every stem and answer is ours. Our AMC recalls guide explains why we write our own.
They end with a revision list. Results come back by specialty and topic, so a disappointing score turns into something specific, like "Women's health is my weakest group, and postpartum haemorrhage is this week's topic."
They're a full dress rehearsal. Same timing, same forward-only navigation, same 150-question test of stamina. By exam day, 150 forward-only questions in 3.5 hours will feel routine.
Only on AMC Academic: month-specific AMC mock exams. Sit the general mocks first, then pick a recent sitting and see how you'd have done on its topics. Create your free account, or try 20 questions free first. Nothing is charged until you choose a plan.
How a month-specific mock is built
Every month-specific mock goes through the same four steps:
Start with a sitting. We take the topics candidates reported from one AMC sitting.
Write every question from scratch. Original vignettes on those topics, in the exam's single-best-answer format and written to the AMC blueprint. No reconstructed stems, and no AMC material.
Check it against Australian guidelines. It's the same review every question in our bank goes through.
Run it under real rules. 150 questions, 3.5 hours, forward-only, with results by specialty and topic.
One thing a month-specific mock isn't: a copy of the paper. The CAT gives every candidate a different set of questions, so there's no single paper to copy. What you get is that sitting's topic pattern, rebuilt as fresh questions, and that's the part worth practising.
How to use AMC mock exams in your last eight weeks
Mocks work best on a schedule. Count back from your exam date (our AMC exam dates guide covers booking). Our 12-week study schedule saves full mocks for the final fortnight; with ten mocks to use, start earlier and spread them out so each result has time to change what you revise:
Eight weeks out: general mock 1. Your baseline across all six patient groups. Spend the following week on the two weakest.
Six weeks out: general mock 2. Check the fixes held. Keep the third general mock for a midpoint check if a group is still lagging.
Five to two weeks out: one or two month-specific mocks a week. Start with older sittings and work forward. A group that stays weak across sittings is a real gap.
Your final week: the most recent sitting. Sit it early in the week as a dress rehearsal, then taper.
Two rules make every mock count:
Review within 24 hours. Go through every miss and every lucky guess, sort them by patient group, and redo the misses cold three days later. A mock you don't review is just a long, tiring quiz.
Rehearse the whole day. Treat every mock AMC exam like the real one. Sit at the same time of day as your booked slot, for 3.5 hours straight with no breaks, and answer every question. Past 90 seconds, pick the best option and move on.
Earlier in your preparation? Our guide to AMC Part 1 exam preparation shows where mocks fit in the full plan, and how to pass AMC Part 1 in 3 months covers the faster route.
Try 10 practice AMC clinical cases now
These 10 practice clinical cases are free and weighted to the blueprint: three Medicine, two Surgery, one each for Women's, Child and Mental health, and two for Population health and ethics. To practise at exam pace, set a timer for 14 minutes (84 seconds a case). Open each case in order, commit to an answer before you scroll, and don't go back.
Medicine. Atrial fibrillation: choosing anticoagulation. A 68-year-old with hypertension, type 2 diabetes and persistent AF, CHA2DS2-VASc 3. What's the long-term stroke prevention plan?
Medicine. Acute ischaemic stroke at 2.5 hours. Left hemiparesis, an NIHSS of 14, early ischaemia and no bleed on CT. What's the immediate management?
Medicine. Testing for H. pylori in dyspepsia. A 32-year-old with four weeks of epigastric pain, no alarm features and no NSAID use. Which test comes first?
Surgery. Escalating forearm pain after a fracture. Pain on passive finger extension three hours after a backslab, with pulses still palpable. What now?
Surgery. Acute angle-closure glaucoma. Halos, vomiting, a mid-dilated pupil and an eye pressure of 52 mmHg. What's the first step in the emergency department?
Women's health. Contraception with migraine with aura. A 28-year-old smoker asks her GP for the combined pill. What's the right advice?
Child health. Imaging after a first febrile UTI. A 9-month-old is improving on IV antibiotics. Which investigation comes next?
Mental health. Acute dystonia three days into haloperidol. Torticollis, trismus and upward eye deviation in a 25-year-old. What's the immediate management?
Population health. Meningococcal disease: protecting the household. A student in intensive care with serogroup B disease and four household contacts. What's the public health measure?
Ethics. Refusing life-saving surgery. A 62-year-old with a bleeding 7 cm aortic aneurysm and intact capacity wants to die at home. What do you do?
Score yourself, then look at where your misses came from. A miss in Medicine and a miss in ethics need different fixes, and that breakdown is exactly what a full AMC Academic mock gives you across 150 questions. Ready for all 150? Create your free account; general and month-specific mocks come with every plan.
Turn your mock result into a revision list
A mock is only as useful as what you do the next morning. Find your weakest patient group in the results, then start with the free cases for that group:
Every case has a worked explanation, a reason each wrong option is wrong and the Australian guideline behind it. All 50 are on our free AMC clinical cases page, and our AMC question bank has more than 2,800 original questions behind them.
AMC mock exams: frequently asked questions
What is an AMC mock exam?
A full-length rehearsal of the AMC CAT MCQ examination: 150 single-best-answer questions in 3.5 hours, forward-only, with no negative marking. AMC Academic's mocks run under those real timing and navigation rules and report your results by specialty and topic.
What is a month-specific AMC mock exam?
A full-length mock built around the topics candidates reported from one particular AMC sitting, written as original questions and sat under the real exam rules. It shows how you'd have performed on that sitting's topic mix. AMC Academic is the only AMC Part 1 platform that builds full-length, timed mocks around individual sittings.
Are month-specific mocks the real AMC exam questions?
No. Every question is written by our team on topics candidates reported, and no AMC examination material is used. The real exam is adaptive, so every candidate sees a different set of questions anyway. What a month-specific mock gives you is that sitting's topic pattern, never its questions.
How many AMC mock exams should I take?
At least two or three full mocks under exam conditions, with time to review each one. AMC Academic includes three high-yield general mocks and seven month-specific mocks, so you can set a baseline early and then test yourself on the topics from several recent sittings in your final weeks.
Is there a free AMC mock exam or online practice test?
You can start free: 20 AMC exam practice questions need no account, and 50 worked AMC clinical cases are open to everyone, including the 10 practice clinical cases above. Full-length general and month-specific mocks come with every AMC Academic plan.
Can a mock exam predict my AMC score?
No mock can give you an AMC scaled score, because the real exam is adaptive and reported on a scale of 0 to 500, with 250 to pass. What mocks show is whether your accuracy holds across patient groups and across sittings, which is a far better guide to readiness than any single number.
Is an AMC trial exam the same as a mock exam?
Yes. Candidates use "AMC trial exam", "AMC exam mock test" and "AMC online test" for the same thing: a timed, full-length run of the exam. What matters is that it follows the real rules: 150 questions, 3.5 hours, forward-only.
Sit your first AMC mock exam with AMC Academic
Three steps, and the first two are free:
Try 20 questions free. Start now, with no account or card. Every option is explained the moment you answer, and you finish with your weakest topic named.
Create your free account. Sign up and your answers carry over. Nothing is charged until you choose a plan.
Unlock every mock when you're ready. Three high-yield mocks, seven full-length month-specific mocks you won't find anywhere else, more than 2,800 original AMC Part 1 questions, results by specialty and topic, Astra and IELTS Academic, from US$19 a month. Every plan runs for a fixed term with no auto-renewal and comes with a 7-day money-back guarantee.
Building your plan? Read our guides to the AMC question bank and AMC recalls, or prepare for IELTS Academic alongside the AMC.
Disclaimer: AMC Academic is an independent educational platform and isn't affiliated with or endorsed by the Australian Medical Council. Our cases and questions are written by our own team as original material. They're based on commonly recalled exam topics, but we don't use, reproduce or distribute AMC examination material or recalled exam questions, and our content doesn't replicate or preview any actual exam. Read our full disclaimer.