Embrace Your NExT Challenge

Pre-PG will be your companion throughout the journey
NExT (National Exit Test) replaces NEET PG, FMGE, and other PG medical entrance exams, Prepare better for NExT 2022

Both houses of the Indian Parliament passed the National Medical Commission (NMC) bill in 2019. Among other changes, the NMC bill recommended a new licentiate exam for Indian MBBS graduates.

This test, dubbed the National Exit Test (NExT), targets getting a bare minimum standard for medical graduates from over five hundred medical colleges in India.

NExT will replace NEET PG as well as FMGE in 2022. It will impact all MBBS students from and beyond the 2017 batch.

It would be ok if it were a simple change in name or a change in the format (think AIIMS-PG 2019.) But the proposed changes are a lot more drastic. 

These changes will impact you even if you are preparing for NEET-PG 2021 or the other major tests in 2021. 

NExT - National Exit Test expected timeline. Replacing NEET PG.

Pre-PG will be ready to help everyone preparing for these tests. Before we get to what we are doing, let’s look at the changed pattern.

What’s NExT?

Two NExT Tests

The proposed NExT pattern will include questions that look a lot like USMLE STEP 1 and STEP 2 Clinical Knowledge pattern. It will have some similarities with the clinical questions asked in the recent AIIMS-PG and NEET-PG tests.

It will have two exams:

NExT 1 will be an MCQ-based test that graduating doctors will require to take before their internship. It will be an online test conducted once a year and doctors will not be able to take it again for a year after taking it. 

If they accept the score, they can go ahead and start their internship. If they don’t accept it, they will have to drop the entire year and reappear in the NExT test the following year. 

Doctors can’t start their internship without clearing NExT.

NExT will also determine which PG branches and colleges they qualify for. The score, likely graded in percentiles, is proposed to be valid for three years.

Pre-PG will help you prepare for the NExT 1 test.

NExT 2 will be a test to test the doctor’s practical knowledge that will be pass or fail. The local college or university will conduct this clinical test.

Pre-PG does not intend to help you prepare for NExT 2, at least not yet.

Going forward, whenever we talk about NExT, we are talking about NExT 1.

NExT Pattern

NExT will have a total of 540 questions, and will be conducted over 14.5 hours over three days:

Day1: Medical & Allied – 120 items (3 hrs) 
+ Pediatrics – 60 items (1.5 hr post-lunch)

Day2: Surgery & Allied – 120 items (3hrs)
+ ENT – 60 items (1.5 hr post-lunch)

Day3: Obstetrics & Gynecology – 120 items (3 hrs)
+ Ophthalmology – 60 items (1.5 hr post-lunch)

About 10% of each stream will focus on the basic sciences. Also about 10% of the questions will be on Preventive & Public Health. These questions will be split across all subjects.

On average, doctors get 97 seconds per question. Compare that to 42 seconds per question in the current NEET PG. These numbers should give you a hint of the direction the test is going on the complexity of problems.

The approximate split of content will be:

  • 60% Problem Solving
  • 30% Comprehension/Analysis
  • 10% Recall

The results will be percentile. NMC has not yet announced the cutoff for qualifying and getting an MBBS degree.

What this means for you

This change impacts you a lot if you intended to take any test after 2021. But the change also impacts everyone, even if you are planning to take the 2021 tests.

Why? NExT is going to highlight the importance of understanding the concepts, deliberate practice, and regular revision. But that’s not different from the past.

What’s different here? Besides practicing questions questions from old tests on Pre-PG, you have to purposefully practice some new clinical questions more thoroughly, and build mental models that help you solve clinical questions.

If you are planning on 2022 tests

If you are planning on taking 2022 tests, you need to start by identifying your weak topics where you lack understanding. 

Use Pre-PG’s PrepDNA to find topics where you are in the orange or red zone. Strengthen your fundamental concepts through deliberate practice. 

Example of Deliberate Practice in Medicine

Most young doctors like you have similar or sometimes better knowledge of medicine than the older, experienced doctors. But you must have come across some veteran doctors who are the real experts in their fields and are known to diagnose complex cases accurately.

How do they do it? These experts assimilate facts of the patient’s condition, recall relevant medical knowledge, and use the facts and knowledge together to identify several diagnoses. They then eliminate unlikely diagnoses based on further exploration and follow-up questions, finally honing in on the correct diagnosis. A doctor right out of medical school may come to the most obvious diagnosis for a medical condition but may end up ignoring critical but seemingly irrelevant information to come up with the correct diagnosis.

Getting to this level of expertise requires building mental models through deliberate practice. It does not mean that expert doctors have just been practicing for a longer time. It says that they have been challenging themselves with complex cases, getting insights on their mistakes, thereby improving their skills.

This is the kind of practice that helps you do well in any test. And its significance increases with a test like NExT.

Why does it matter for 2021 aspirants? If you are planning to take any of the tests in 2021, you can expect an increasing share of clinical questions.

Pre-PG’s NExT Manifesto

We are dedicated to our purpose.

Pre-PG’s purpose is to help every hardworking doctor be successful.

If you are a hardworking doctor, you don’t need to shell out tens of thousands to practice the new pattern of clinical questions. We will give you access to thousands of clinical questions for FREE!

Pre-PG's manifesto for NExT (National Exit Test) - what you can expect from the Pre-PG team

At least 25,000 NExT-standard MCQs by Dec 2020

To be prepared for NExT you need to practice thousands of clinical questions. The explanations should not only provide the concepts to train your mind, but also give you insights into the usual traps.

Clinical questions are NOT HARD. You need to train your brain to get to the question the test makers are testing you on.

Should you also be solving previous years’ test papers? YES! Many of the clinical questions finally test you on the age-old concept-based factual questions. 

PrepDNA to find weaknesses for the new NExT pattern

PrepDNA has always been your trusted source to figure out strengths and weaknesses. 

Based on our preliminary analysis, we have found PrepDNA to be predictive of NExT question analysis. We will update the PrepDNA algorithms to account for your performance in NExT-standard questions. 

Daily Clinical Quiz starting Late-June 2020

We recognize the importance of clinical questions not just for NExT 2022 but also for NEET PG and AIIMS PG 2021.

We have started a FREE DAILY CLINICAL QUIZ with 10 questions. This test will run in parallel with the Pre-PG Daily Test.

New NExT-focused Flashcards

We will add about 5,000 NExT-focused flashcards that will help you grasp the high-yield concepts 

Why flashcards? Not all high-yield facts can be covered in explanations of MCQs and can fit better as flashcards. We looked into research that evaluated the impact of teaching methods on recall, and along with MCQs, flashcards ranked highest.


Please write to us if you have any questions related to NExT. Pre-PG will continue to be your companion in your journey towards NExT.


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