These are pictures of East Croydon taken from my phone as I was returning from the CSA exam that never happened. The building in the first picture is where the exam is held. Heavy snow ensured that all the trains / buses / trams to East Croydon were cancelled. It was a real let down as I was psyched up to take the exam that day. I seem to have lost some of the steam, as I am sure have the rest whose exam was postponed. We are taking it in two weeks hopefully.

The failure rate seems reasonably high and reading the college feedback, the areas where candidates are failing seem to be related to " recognizing patient's agenda, not picking up cues, and formulating a shared management plan". I had been worried about getting the diagnosis right and examining correctly but those do not seem to be the problem.

Need to work on these now. Good luck to all taking the exam !!!

I also sat my AKT a week ago. Took it at Pearson Vue in Milton Keynes. I have to comment on the exam centre..Very friendly staff and there were good sized lockers to keep our things. What was not good were the computer screens and the very uncomfortable chairs. To sit on them non- stop for 3 hours made me sympathize with all the folks who come to see us with disabling back pain. To make things worse, we were not allowed any water. In order to get some water, we had to leave the room escorted, go to our lockers, take out our bottles, finish drinking there, relock them and then return to the exam room. Atleast 2 minutes wasted, if not more. I finished my exam with 20 seconds to spare. This was really mind boggling. Why the *&%£ are we not allowed water with us? Apparantly it is to prevent us from damaging the keyboards lest we should spill some water. Give us a break !!!

As for the exam itself, it was the strangest exam I have taken. The first 30 minutes I had no clue as to what I was doing. Then it eased up a bit until I came across a lot of funnel and forest plots. Statistics was well catered for and the questions were such that one could either score 100% in statistics or 0%. There was no in between. There were 3 other candidates at my centre ( more than a 1000 take it across UK) in the afternoon and they all felt the same about the exam. Speaking to the guys who passed it the last time, this is a similar theme. Fingers crossed. I used Passmedicine.com for revision and Innovait ( the college journal) for in depth reading on a few topics. Passmedicine used to be free of charge but £20 for 4 months is still the best value for money in my opinion.