About to start serious prep for the FANZCA written exams and I'd love to hear realistic numbers from people who've been through it. How many hours a week were you studying, and how far out did you start? I've heard everything from 3 months of light review to 9 months of full-on intensive prep and I honestly can't tell what's typical versus exceptional.
I'm a registrar with about 2.5 years of anaesthetics experience, which I think puts me in a reasonable position content-wise, but the exam structure is unlike anything I've done before. The MCQ component with the true-false format is particularly unfamiliar. I'm told the negative marking changes how you have to approach uncertain questions, which adds a strategic layer on top of content knowledge.
Pass rates I've seen cited are around 55–60% per sitting, which is sobering. I'd genuinely rather take two full sittings and do well than rush the first one and deal with the psychological toll of a failure on top of training demands. But I also don't want to delay sitting if I'm already at a point where I could be ready.
Primarily curious about the pharmacology SAQs — is that where most people struggle? I find the physical principles section more straightforward to study but the pharmacology scope feels enormous.
My study group all found the physiology integration questions harder than pure pharmacology. They'll give you a clinical scenario and you need to apply basic science across multiple systems simultaneously. Content knowledge alone isn't enough for those — that type of thinking takes dedicated practice.
The negative marking on the MCQs changes everything. I left about 8% of questions blank on my first sitting because I wasn't confident, and in hindsight some of those I could have reasoned through. By my second sitting I had a much better feel for when I was genuinely uncertain versus when anxiety was making me second-guess solid knowledge.
Pharmacology SAQs were my weakest section too. The trick is that they're not just asking you to list drug classes — they want mechanism of action, clinical application, side effect profiles, and comparative pharmacology all tied together. Treating each agent as an isolated fact won't cut it.
I sat twice — failed the first sitting, got through the second about 8 months later. First attempt I started prep 4 months out doing about 10 hours a week. Second time I started 6 months out doing 15–18 hours a week and it made a real difference. The pharmacology scope is massive but the exam tests depth not just breadth.
Took me two sittings on the written, and honestly the biggest thing I changed between attempts was stopping myself from just circling the right answer and moving on. If I got a question right, great, but I'd still work out exactly why the other three options were wrong. That shift took way longer per question but it's what actually made concepts stick. I spent a lot of time on resources like fanzca/questions/airway management and techniques doing exactly that, reading the explanations for the distractors not just the correct choice.
Six months out I was doing maybe 8-10 hours a week, then ramped hard in the last two months. That timeline felt right for me but I've seen people pass on less if they're surgical about weak spots rather than just grinding volume. Whatever you do, don't skip the "why was B wrong" part. That's where the exam actually lives.
I started about 6 months out and studied maybe 15-20 hours a week, but honestly the biggest shift for me was stopping the passive re-reading and actually drilling questions where I'd get something wrong and force myself to understand why it was wrong before moving on. That changed everything. The fanzca/questions/airway management and techniques section wrecked me at first because I kept second-guessing myself on the physiology, but once I stopped memorizing answers and started thinking through the mechanism it clicked.
It took me two sittings to pass the written, and I'm not embarrassed about that. Plenty of people I know needed two or three goes. If you're someone who learns by understanding rather than just pattern-matching, give yourself the full 6 months minimum and don't rush it.
Just passed my written in April so I'll share what actually worked for me. I started about 6 months out doing maybe 10 hours a week, then ramped hard to 20+ hours in the final 8 weeks. Honestly the turning point wasn't the textbooks, it was drilling questions by topic until I stopped second-guessing myself. I spent a solid week just on fanzca/questions/airway management and techniques and it showed up everywhere in the exam, way more than I expected.
The hours people quote vary so much because it depends how recently you've been doing clinical anaesthesia. If you're mid-training and seeing complex airways regularly, 6 months is doable. If you've been out of the mix for a bit, start earlier. Don't underestimate the written, it's genuinely hard, but it's passable if you're consistent.