Best PLAB 1 Question Bank 2026: PLABable vs MedRevisions vs Passmedicine vs Pastest

If you're choosing a PLAB 1 question bank in 2026, the shortlist is PLABable, MedRevisions, Passmedicine, Pastest, Quesmed and MLA Prep. There is no single winner. PLABable wins on community and volume, MedRevisions on content-map alignment and mocks, Passmedicine on explanation depth, Pastest on transparent low-cost plans, and MLA Prep on one-off pricing with unlimited full mocks. The right choice depends on your sitting date, your budget, and one question almost nobody asks — which we'll come to.

That question matters more in 2026 than in any previous year, because the exam moved twice underneath the resources. Most "best PLAB 1 Q-bank" advice you'll find was written for an exam that no longer exists.

We make MLA Prep, so read our own section with appropriate suspicion. Everything below about the other platforms was checked on their own product pages in July 2026 — not copied from other comparison posts, which in this niche mostly recycle each other's numbers. Where a provider doesn't publish something, we say so rather than guessing.

Table of contents

1. The two changes that make old advice wrong
2. What actually matters when choosing a PLAB 1 bank
3. PLABable — the community default
4. MedRevisions — the content-map play
5. Passmedicine — the explanation library
6. Pastest — the transparent budget option
7. Quesmed — the multi-exam platform
8. MLA Prep — our own, honestly described
9. Feature matrix
10. The one question to ask before you pay
11. Free and freemium options
12. Recommended stacks by profile
13. Choosing after a fail — and the attempt limit
14. FAQ

1. The two changes that make old advice wrong

Change one: PLAB 1 stopped being its own exam. Every PLAB 1 paper sat on or after 8 August 2024 is built on the GMC's MLA content map — the same map, the same standard, and the same content as the UKMLA Applied Knowledge Test that UK finalists sit. The standard is set at the level of a doctor completing their first foundation year. PLAB 1 is, in substance, the AKT with a different name on the booking page. We cover the full picture in UKMLA vs PLAB.

The practical consequence is blunt: a Q-bank built against the old PLAB blueprint is preparing you for a retired exam. The old blueprint was organised around a smaller condition list; the MLA map is organised around clinical presentations and covers substantially more ground.

Change two: the map itself was replaced. An updated MLA content map applies to all MLA exams and assessments — PLAB 1 included — from September 2026 onwards. Papers sat up to and including August 2026 use the previous version. The update expanded the condition list considerably, dropped the old cross-reference mapping grid, and reframed the list as indicative and non-exhaustive rather than a closed syllabus.

That last phrase is the one to sit with. "Non-exhaustive" means the GMC has explicitly reserved the right to test something that isn't on the list. A bank that sells you "every condition on the map, ticked off" is selling a comforting fiction. See what changed in the September 2026 content map for the detail.

So there are two different questions depending on your date:

• Sitting before September 2026? You're on the previous map. Most banks are fine here.
• Sitting September 2026 or later? Ask every provider, in writing, whether their bank has been rebuilt for the updated map — and treat a vague answer as a no.

A third change is coming for 2027: fewer international test centres and fewer sittings per year. If your plan involves a 2027 attempt, read PLAB 1 in 2027 before you build a timeline, because your margin for a resit is shrinking.

Before you pay anyone, get a baseline. Answer ten free AKT-style questions — no account, no card. It takes five minutes and it tells you which of the options below you actually need.

2. What actually matters when choosing a PLAB 1 bank

PLAB 1 candidates are not UK finalists, and the criteria are genuinely different. A UK student is often handed a Q-bank subscription by their medical school and revises with a whole cohort around them. As an IMG you pay for everything yourself, on top of the GMC exam fee, English-test fees, travel and — if you're sitting in the UK — a visa. Choosing badly costs money you can't easily replace.

Criterion 1 — Content-map alignment, stated explicitly. Not "PLAB-focused". Not "updated for 2026". You want the provider to name the MLA content map and say which version. This is the single highest-signal thing on a product page.

Criterion 2 — UK practice, not generic medicine. The exam tests UK management pathways: NICE and NICE CKS, the BNF, Resuscitation Council UK, UK safeguarding and consent law. This is where IMGs lose most marks — not on medical knowledge, but on which correct-looking answer is correct in the NHS. Explanations that cite the UK source are worth more than explanations that are merely long. See NICE guidelines for the UKMLA.

Criterion 3 — Full-length timed mocks, plural. The paper is 180 single-best-answer questions in 3 hours — one minute per question, with no reading time set aside. That pace has to be rehearsed, not read about. A bank with two past papers lets you rehearse twice. Candidates who fail on timing rather than knowledge are common, and entirely preventable.

Criterion 4 — Analytics you can act on. An overall percentage is close to useless. You need accuracy broken down by clinical area, on first attempts only, trending over weeks.

Criterion 5 — Total cost across your real prep window, and what happens at the end of it. Compare the whole 10–24 week window, not the monthly headline. And check the renewal behaviour: a subscription that auto-renews after your exam is a quiet extra cost, especially if your sitting slips.

Criterion 6 — Offline and mobile. Most PLAB revision happens on a phone in gaps, often on unreliable connections. If the app needs a live connection per question, you'll do fewer questions.

What is not a criterion: raw question count above a few thousand. For a 12–16 week plan you'll attempt a few thousand SBAs with review built in, and coverage plus review quality decides the outcome. We work through the numbers in how many questions you need.

3. PLABable — the community default

Verified from their site (July 2026): "more than 5000 questions that mimic the level of the PLAB part 1 exam". Per-question comment threads. WhatsApp groups organised by exam location and date. Revision guides by topic and clinical category. Native iOS and Android apps. A free trial is offered; the plan pricing isn't shown until you have an account.

Strengths. PLABable is the closest thing this market has to a default. The per-question discussion threads are genuinely valuable — when a question is ambiguous, twenty other candidates have usually already argued it out, and you learn from the disagreement. The location- and date-based WhatsApp groups are a real advantage if you're revising alone in a country with no PLAB cohort around you; that isolation is the single most under-rated difficulty of PLAB prep.

Weaknesses. Their public product page does not state alignment to the MLA content map. That is not evidence of misalignment — but given that every paper since August 2024 is built on that map, its absence from the pitch is worth a direct question to their support before you pay, particularly for a September 2026 or later sitting. Pricing isn't visible without signing up, which makes honest comparison harder. And a community-driven bank inherits the community's habits — including a strong pull toward treating recalled questions as the syllabus, which is a strategy that has aged badly.

Best fit. Candidates who want volume plus people. If you are revising in isolation and would benefit from a cohort, the community access is a legitimate reason to choose it.

4. MedRevisions — the content-map play

Verified from their site (July 2026): 5,400+ exam-style questions described as aligned to the MLA content map, with questions added after each exam cycle. 30+ mocks with unlimited resets. Flashcards. A "Study Essentials" mode of roughly 1,800 high-yield questions. Analytics broken down by Areas of Clinical Practice. A PLAB/UKMLA readiness score. An AI study assistant. Subscription tiers starting at $10.99/month, priced in US dollars. Free account available, with progress carried over if you upgrade.

Strengths. They say the words: MLA content map, explicitly, on the product page. Combined with 30+ resettable mocks, that's a strong match to criteria 1 and 3 — the two that matter most. The dollar pricing is a small but real signal that they've thought about a non-UK customer base, and the reduced "essentials" mode is a sensible answer to the real problem of a 6-week runway.

Weaknesses. A readiness score is a model, not a prediction — no platform's score can tell you that you'll pass, and treating one as a green light is a known way to under-prepare. Subscription pricing means the cost keeps running if your sitting moves, which for IMGs it frequently does. And "aligned to the MLA content map" needs the follow-up question of which version, given the September 2026 switch.

Best fit. Candidates who want map alignment stated up front and intend to run many timed mocks. Probably the strongest conventional subscription choice for a PLAB-1-specific bank in 2026.

5. Passmedicine — the explanation library

Verified from their site (July 2026): a dedicated PLAB Part 1 module with "over 5,000 questions" and a PLAB-focused textbook. Separately, their medical student finals / UKMLA resource lists "over 11,000 SBA questions". Revision notes sit under each question. Timed tests, performance analysis, question review, personal notes, and a histogram comparing your score against other candidates. Pricing isn't shown on the homepage.

Strengths. The explanation and notes library is the deepest in this comparison, and the reason Passmedicine has been the UK default for over a decade. The peer histogram is a genuine benefit of scale — the comparison cohort is effectively everyone. Two of the biggest banks here are theirs, and if you later sit MRCP or the MRCGP AKT you'll be back on the same platform.

An arbitrage worth knowing: their finals/UKMLA module is the larger bank and is built for the same content map your PLAB 1 paper is built on. If you're deciding between their two modules, the finals/UKMLA one is not obviously the wrong choice for a PLAB 1 candidate — ask them which they recommend now that the exams share a map.

Weaknesses. No MLA content-map alignment claim on the pages we checked, for either module. The UKMLA material is a long-standing finals bank extended to cover a new exam rather than a ground-up rebuild, so specialty weighting won't necessarily track the current map. The interface is dated. Pricing is invisible until you're in the funnel.

Best fit. Candidates who learn by reading and want the deepest explanations, and anyone who values the peer-comparison data. A strong primary if depth is what makes things stick for you.

6. Pastest — the transparent budget option

Verified from their site (July 2026): "over 3,500 questions" for PLAB 1. A learning textbook with 3D imagery. Two curated past papers. Analytics. An AI "tutor mode". A PLAB 1 Exam Essentials course included with paid plans. A limited free tier giving 6 months of access to 100 questions plus the full textbook. Paid plans are published openly: monthly rolling, 3-month and 6-month options, with the longer plans cheaper per month.

Strengths. Pastest publishes its prices openly, without an account — as does Quesmed. Passmedicine and PLABable don't, on the pages we could load, which makes honest comparison harder and is worth noticing about how each expects the transaction to go. Pastest's free tier is also unusually generous in duration: six months of textbook access costs nothing, which makes it a reasonable free reference to run alongside a paid bank. The brand carries weight with senior doctors, having been a postgraduate staple for decades.

Weaknesses. The smallest PLAB 1 bank here at 3,500 questions, and only two past papers — which fails criterion 3 if you want weekly timed mocks. No MLA content-map claim on the page we checked. Their centre of gravity has always been postgraduate exams, so PLAB 1 is not the flagship.

Best fit. Budget-first candidates, and anyone who wants a cheap textbook reference alongside a different primary bank. Not the pick if mock volume is your priority.

7. Quesmed — the multi-exam platform

Verified from their site (July 2026): covers PLAB 1 and PLAB 2 alongside UKMLA, MRCP, MSRA, UCAT and OSCE/interview material. A Knowledge Library of clinical notes integrated with the question banks. Mark schemes for OSCE and PACES stations with progress tracking. iOS and Android apps supporting offline revision. On their MLA question bank page they publish 11,000+ clinical questions, 15,000 flashcards, 450+ OSCE stations, 12 UKMLA mocks, annual pricing, and an explicit statement that their questions and knowledge library are "fully aligned to the MLA content map". A PLAB-1-specific question count isn't published separately.

Strengths. The strongest case for Quesmed is PLAB 2 and CPSA. It's the only platform here with a serious OSCE station library and mark schemes, so if you want one subscription covering both parts of your route to registration, this is the one that does it. Integrated notes mean you don't need a separate reference. The mobile apps with offline support are among the best in the market.

Weaknesses. PLAB 1 is one product among many rather than the focus, and the specifications they publish are for the MLA/UKMLA bank rather than a PLAB 1 build — so you're inferring your PLAB 1 experience from a neighbouring product. More importantly, at the time of checking their MLA page describes coverage of "all 311 conditions and 212 presentations". 311 is the previous map's condition count; the map applying from September 2026 is considerably larger. That may simply be un-updated marketing copy on a bank that has since been rebuilt — but it's precisely the thing to ask about if you're sitting from September 2026, and it's a good illustration of why the question in section 10 matters.

Best fit. Candidates who want PLAB 1 and PLAB 2 in one place, and who value integrated notes and a polished app over a PLAB-1-specific build.

8. MLA Prep — our own, honestly described

What we offer: 7,000+ SBAs and 11,118 spaced-repetition flashcards across all 694 topics, written against the GMC MLA content map — the same map PLAB 1 has used since August 2024. Every answer explanation cites the UK source (NICE, NICE CKS or the BNF). Unlimited full-length 200-question timed mocks. Per-specialty analytics on first attempts. Fully offline on iOS. A one-off purchase rather than a subscription, so nothing renews after your exam. Free tier: two full topics plus a complete 50-question mock, no card. Current pricing.

Why the one-off model matters for PLAB specifically. PLAB sittings move. Visas are delayed, centres change, dates get rebooked — and in 2027 there will be fewer sittings, so a slipped attempt could mean months of waiting. On a subscription, every month of delay costs more money or a lapse in access at the worst possible moment. Paying once removes that failure mode. It is also the reason we can't compete on the metric subscriptions win: we have no incentive to keep you revising forever.

Weaknesses — plainly.

• iOS and web only. There is no Android app. If you're on Android you use the web app, which works well but isn't a native offline experience. For a large share of PLAB candidates this is a real disadvantage, and PLABable, Quesmed and Pastest all beat us here.
• No community. No discussion threads, no WhatsApp groups, no peer histogram. If you're revising alone and want people, PLABable is the better answer and we won't pretend otherwise.
• Newer, so thinner third-party review coverage. Fewer forum threads and Reddit opinions than the decade-old brands. You should weight that.
• Lighter notes library. We put the depth into per-question explanations rather than shipping a separate textbook. Passmedicine and Quesmed go deeper as reference libraries.
• CPSA/PLAB 2 is not our strength. We cover communication frameworks and station structure, but Quesmed's OSCE library is more complete. For PLAB 2, look elsewhere or add a dedicated resource.

Best fit. Candidates who want map-native questions with UK-source citations, unlimited timed mocks, and a cost that doesn't run while their sitting slips. Especially IMGs whose gap is UK pathways rather than medicine.

Don't take our word for it — sit the free 50-question mock and judge the explanations yourself before spending anything, here or anywhere else.

9. Feature matrix

Everything in this table was read off each provider's own pages in July 2026. "Not stated" means exactly that — the provider doesn't publish it — and not that the answer is no. Verify anything decision-critical yourself, because specifications and prices in this market change often.

Read it by your own priority, not ours. Mock volume matters most → MedRevisions or us. Community matters most → PLABable. Reading depth → Passmedicine. Lowest cost → Pastest. Both PLAB parts in one place → Quesmed.

10. The one question to ask before you pay

Email support, or ask in the chat widget, before you enter a card:

"Which version of the GMC MLA content map is your PLAB 1 bank built against — the one applying up to August 2026, or the updated map applying from September 2026 onwards? And how much of the bank has been rewritten for it?"

Then judge the reply, not the marketing:

• A specific, dated answer — the version, what changed, roughly how much was rewritten. Buy with confidence.
• "We're fully up to date with the latest GMC guidelines." That's about NICE and BNF currency, which is a different thing. Ask again.
• A vague answer, or a pivot to question count. For a September 2026 or later sitting, that's your answer.

Two provider-independent facts to hold onto. First, the map is free: the GMC publishes it as a PDF at gmc-uk.org, and reading the version that applies to your date costs nothing and takes an evening. Second, because the updated list is explicitly non-exhaustive, no bank can promise complete coverage — so treat "covers all conditions" as marketing and judge on whether the explanations teach you UK practice. Our content map guide walks through how to use it as a revision spine, and there's a checklist version if you want to track coverage as you go.

11. Free and freemium options

Worth knowing before you spend:

• i-Medics publishes a free UKMLA AKT bank of 3,000 MCQs with detailed feedback, a score tracker and topic search, with paid Silver and Gold tiers above it. They describe the content as created by two UK GMC-registered doctors and updated to current GMC guidance. No MLA content-map claim on the page we checked. Genuinely free at the entry tier.
• Pastest's free tier — 100 questions plus six months of full textbook access — is the best free reference here.
• UWorld offers a UKMLA AKT product with a 7-day free trial and 25 free sample questions. Their explanations are excellent, but the wider UWorld catalogue is built for US exams where first-line management often differs from NICE. Useful for reasoning practice, risky as a primary source for a UK paper.
• Quesmed publishes free practice papers on several exams.
• Ours: ten questions with no account, or a full 50-question mock with a per-specialty breakdown.

Free banks are a good way to test explanation quality and a poor way to run a whole prep. Almost all of them are shallower on analytics and mocks, which are the two things that change what you do next. Full list in free UKMLA resources.

12. Recommended stacks by profile

Tight budget, 12+ week runway. One primary bank plus free references. NICE CKS and the BNF are free and authoritative; the content map PDF is free. Add Pastest's free textbook tier as a reading reference. Spend your money on exactly one bank with good analytics — not on three.

Working full-time, 8–12 weeks. Prioritise mocks and analytics over volume: you don't have time to attempt 5,000 questions, so you need to know precisely where your gaps are. MedRevisions or MLA Prep. Sit a timed mock every 10–14 days from week 3, not just at the end. Our IMG study plan sequences this.

Revising alone, no cohort. PLABable as primary for the community, plus one map-native bank for coverage and mocks. The isolation is a genuine risk factor and worth paying to fix.

Doing PLAB 1 and PLAB 2 back to back. Quesmed for the OSCE library, plus a PLAB-1-specific bank for the written paper. Don't try to make one platform do both well.

Deep reader who retains by explanation. Passmedicine primary, plus somewhere to run unlimited timed mocks. This is a good pairing and we're not the only option for the second half.

What to avoid. Three subscriptions at once — you'll use one and resent the other two. Recalls as your primary source. And banks bought on question count alone; 3,000 well-explained, map-aligned questions you actually review beat 10,000 you skim.

13. Choosing after a fail — and the attempt limit

Know the rules before you plan, because they're stricter than most people realise. You may sit PLAB 1 until you have four failed attempts. After a fourth fail you must apply for a fifth and final attempt, and the GMC requires at least 12 months of additional learning and development after that fourth fail before it will consider the application — you can't apply immediately. After five failed attempts you are no longer eligible. The same structure applies to PLAB 2. Check the current rules on the GMC's own "additional attempt" pages, since policy detail is theirs to change, not ours to summarise definitively.

That arithmetic should change how you use resources. Attempts are a finite resource and the fourth one is expensive in time as well as money.

Practically, after a fail:

1. Read your feedback before buying anything. The GMC breakdown tells you where you actually lost marks. Buying a new bank before reading it is buying blind.
2. Don't switch platforms reflexively. If you failed on timing, a new bank won't fix it — timed mocks will. If you failed on UK pathways, you need better-sourced explanations, not more questions.
3. Change one thing deliberately. Usually mock frequency, or explanation sourcing, or both.
4. Watch the calendar. With fewer sittings from 2027, the gap between attempts is widening. Plan the resit date first, then the revision.

Our retake guide covers the diagnosis process in detail, and how the pass mark is set explains why a near-miss score is not the same as a knowledge gap.

14. FAQ

Is a UKMLA question bank fine for PLAB 1? Yes — and after August 2024 it's arguably the more correct choice. Both exams are built on the same MLA content map to the same standard. A bank built for the current UKMLA AKT is built for your paper. A bank built for the pre-2024 PLAB blueprint is not.

How many questions does PLAB 1 have, and how long do I get? 180 single-best-answer questions in 3 hours. That's roughly one minute per question with no separate reading time, which is why timed rehearsal matters as much as content.

What's the pass mark? There isn't a fixed one. The GMC sets the pass mark for each paper using the Angoff method and includes one standard error of measurement, so it moves with the difficulty of your specific paper. Published figures from third parties vary — we've seen ranges quoted in the low 110s through to the 120s out of 180, which tells you how unreliable a single quoted number is. Prepare to be comfortably clear of the low 60s in percentage terms rather than aiming at a threshold. More in how the pass mark works.

Which bank is cheapest overall? Pastest and Quesmed are the two that publish rates openly, so start by comparing those directly: Pastest's short rolling plans are the cheapest way to get a few weeks of access, while Quesmed's annual bundle undercuts most short plans on a per-month basis. Over a long or slipping prep window a one-off purchase can beat any subscription — that's our model, and you can check it against their published rates yourself. Compare the total for your real window, including the months you'll lose if your date moves. See the cheapest way to revise.

Do I need more than one question bank? Usually not for PLAB 1. One bank with good analytics plus free UK sources (NICE CKS, BNF, the content map) covers it. A second bank makes sense only if you exhaust fresh questions in a weak area.

Are recalls a substitute for a question bank? No, and less so every year. Since the move to the MLA content map the exam rewards applied reasoning over pattern-matching, and memorising recalled questions teaches you one paper rather than UK practice. Details in PLAB 1 recalls.

I'm sitting in late 2026 — does the new content map affect me? If your paper is in September 2026 or later, yes: you're on the updated map. If it's in August 2026 or earlier, you're on the previous one. This is the single most important thing to establish with any provider before paying.

Does my bank need Android? Only you can answer that, but be honest about where you'll actually revise. If it's a phone on unreliable data, native offline access is worth more than a longer feature list. PLABable, Quesmed and Pastest have apps; we're iOS plus web.

Is a readiness score meaningful? As a trend, yes. As a guarantee, no. No platform can predict a criterion-referenced exam whose pass mark is set per paper. Use consistent above-threshold performance on full-length timed mocks as your signal instead.

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Benchmark before you buy. Sit MLA Prep's free 50-question mock — content-map aligned, every answer referenced to NICE or the BNF, per-specialty breakdown, no card. It's the fastest honest way to judge any of the options above, including ours.

The summary: PLAB 1 and the UKMLA AKT are now the same exam on the same map, and the map changed again for September 2026 onwards. That single fact should drive your choice more than question counts or brand familiarity. Establish which map version a bank is built on, make sure you can run real timed mocks, insist on UK-sourced explanations, and then stop shopping and start revising.

The platform matters less than the review loop you build on top of it. Pick one, use it properly, and put the saved decision-time into questions.

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Further reading

• UKMLA vs PLAB: what's the difference in 2026?
• PLAB 1 in 2027: fewer centres, fewer sittings
• PLAB 1 recalls: why they stopped working
• The UKMLA question bank comparison (UK-student view)
• Best UKMLA resources for IMGs

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