Most candidates walk into the AKT confident about clinical medicine and quietly dreading the statistics. That is exactly why this domain is worth your time: it is small, predictable, and very learnable, and strong performance here is one of the cleanest ways to lift your overall mark.
How much statistics is on the exam?
The AKT is built to a fixed blueprint. From October 2025 the exam is 160 single-best-answer questions in 160 minutes — one minute per question — with no negative marking, so you should answer every item even when you are guessing.
The blueprint
- 80% clinical medicine
- 10% evidence-based practice — this module (statistics, epidemiology, critical appraisal, research methods)
- 10% organisational / administrative general practice
Ten percent of 160 is around 16 questions dedicated to the material in this module — roughly the weight of a major clinical system. Statistics is also repeatedly flagged in RCGP AKT feedback reports as an area where candidates underperform, which means well-prepared candidates gain a relative advantage here.
What the examiners actually reward
The RCGP is explicit that the AKT tests higher-order problem solving rather than recall of basic facts. In practice that means a statistics question rarely asks "what is the formula for sensitivity?" Instead it gives you a clinical scenario and a 2×2 table and asks you to calculate a number and act on it — or to spot the flaw in a study, or to choose the right measure for the design described.
How this module is built
Eight short sections take you from first principles to exam fluency. You do not need to read them in order, but they are sequenced so each builds on the last.
- Foundations of data — data types, averages, spread.
- Distributions & probability — the normal distribution, standard error, odds vs probability.
- Measuring disease — incidence, prevalence, risk, NNT.
- Study design — RCTs, cohort, case-control, meta-analysis.
- Diagnostic tests & screening — the 2×2 table, sensitivity/specificity, PPV, screening.
- Inferential statistics — p-values, confidence intervals, errors and power.
- Critical appraisal & bias — reading a paper, bias, confounding.
- EBM in practice, audit & QI — guidelines, health economics, the audit cycle.
Every page follows the same rhythm: a clear explanation, a diagram or worked example, an interactive calculator where there is a calculation worth playing with, and two or three exam-style questions with full explanations. The module ends with a timed 20-question mock drawn from across the whole domain.
Check your understanding
Check your understanding
3 questionsQ1.Approximately what proportion of AKT questions are drawn from the evidence-based practice (research and statistics) domain?
Q2.A candidate is unsure of the answer to several questions with two minutes left. What is the best strategy?
Q3.Which best describes how the AKT typically examines statistics?