Primary FRCA pass rate: reading the RCoA's published figures

Primary FRCA pass rate: reading the RCoA''s published figures

The Royal College of Anaesthetists publishes Primary FRCA pass rates in the public domain and updates them after each sitting. That makes anaesthetics unusually transparent — but the tables are easy to misread, because each component has its own rate and each is split by candidate group and attempt number.

Authoritative source, always:

• Examination pass rates — RCoA
• Annual reporting on the FRCA examination

This article covers the pass rate — the percentage of candidates who pass, how it splits by group and attempt, and how it moves between sittings. For the marks required and how the standard is fixed, see how the Primary FRCA pass mark is determined.

What the tables look like

For the Primary FRCA Written (MCQ) exam, the RCoA reports each sitting as rows such as:

Those figures are from the RCoA's published table for the February 2026 Written sitting. Two things follow.

First, the Written paper is not the bottleneck most people assume. A first-attempt pass rate near 88% for UK trainees is high. The Primary FRCA as a whole is demanding, but the MCQ is a gateway you should expect to clear if you have prepared systematically — and the SOE and OSCE components have their own, separate rates that you should look up before drawing conclusions about the exam overall.

Second, quote the sitting. Rates move between sittings. A number without a sitting attached is meaningless. Always name it: "UK trainees, first attempt, February 2026".

First attempt versus all attempts

The gap between the two rows above is the resit effect: candidates on a second or third attempt pass at a lower rate, which drags the all-attempts figure below the first-attempt figure. Nothing about the marking changes on a resit — the standard is the same. The difference reflects the population.

The practical implication is the same one the MRCP data gives: your best statistical shot is your first attempt, so sit when your own data says you are ready, not when the rota happens to allow it.

UK trainees versus other candidates

The RCoA separates UK trainees from other candidate groups. Candidates outside UK training posts typically have less structured exposure to UK practice, guidelines and the specific style of the exam. If you are outside a UK training programme, the UK-trainee row is not the number that describes you — and the fix is to compensate deliberately with UK-guideline-based question practice and full syllabus coverage.

What the data should change about your revision

1. Treat physics and clinical measurement as core, not optional. These are the topics anaesthetic candidates most consistently avoid, and they are the ones that most reliably separate passes from near-misses, because the content is finite and mathematically testable.

2. Do questions in timed blocks. The Written paper mixes multiple true/false items with single best answers under time pressure. Both formats punish untrained reading speed.

3. Find your weak topics numerically. Failure at Primary FRCA is rarely global. It is usually two or three areas — most often pharmacokinetics, physics, or statistics — sitting far below the candidate's average.

4. Use the College's own documents. The annual FRCA reports, published each October, discuss standard setting, reliability and general utility. They tell you how the exam behaves.

Reading the annual reports

Each October the RCoA publishes annual reports on the Primary and Final components, comparing results with historical data and covering standard setting, reliability, quality assurance and examiner training. If you want to understand the exam rather than just its pass rate, these are the documents to read — particularly the sections on standard setting, which explain why a fixed percentage is not the target.

How Examrix helps

Examrix covers the Primary FRCA with syllabus-mapped tutorials, single-best-answer and true/false-style question practice, timed exam mode with 30, 45 and 90-question blocks, per-topic analytics so weak areas surface early, and AI viva practice for the SOE component once the Written is behind you.

• Primary FRCA note previews
• Primary FRCA exam prep hub
• Plans and pricing

Frequently asked

Is the Primary FRCA MCQ pass rate published? Yes — the RCoA publishes it by candidate group and attempt after each sitting.

Does a resit make passing harder? The standard is identical. Group resit rates are lower, which is about preparation, not marking.

Is the pass rate the same as the pass mark? No. The pass mark is the score you must reach in that sitting, set by standard setting; the pass rate is the proportion of candidates who reached it. See how the Primary FRCA pass mark is determined.

Which figure should I plan around? The most recent sitting's UK-trainee first-attempt row if you are a UK trainee, treated as context rather than a prediction.

All figures quoted are from the RCoA's published pass-rate tables for the sitting named. Check the RCoA site for the latest sitting before relying on any number.