UKMLA CPSA marking criteria: how the CPSA is scored
You search for "the CPSA mark scheme", read a dozen pages that describe one national sheet, and none of them looks like the form your examiner will hold on the day. If you have been Googling ukmla cpsa marking criteria, you are not alone.
Each UK medical school sets, delivers and scores its own CPSA, and the GMC quality assures those assessments against published requirements.
This page separates what is national from what your school decides, shows how a station gets marked generally, and points you to where your school keeps its own criteria.
Is there a national CPSA mark sheet?
No, there is no single national CPSA mark sheet. UK medical schools design, run and score their own CPSAs, choosing their own scoring approach. The GMC doesn't provide a central mark sheet, it quality assures each school against published requirements for quality, consistency and fairness.
The GMC is explicit: "UK medical schools set and deliver the CPSA for medical students in their penultimate or final year of study." It also says, "Our role is to quality assure these CPSAs against a set of requirements for quality, consistency and fairness." Both are on the GMC's own CPSA page.
The requirements document even footnotes that they apply "Irrespective of the format that each assessment provider has chosen to use", naming OSCE, OSLER and PACES. So station format isn't fixed nationally either.
One popular article, the most-read CPSA explainer, says, "The exact standard-setting methodology for the UKMLA CPSA is determined by the GMC." It's a useful overview, but on this point the decision sits with each school, not the centre.
What the GMC actually standardises
There isn't a single national CPSA mark sheet. What is national are two things, the requirements every school's CPSA must meet, and the content map that frames what can appear in stations. Your school owns the rubrics within those guardrails.
- Requirements for building and running a CPSA Local, set by schools: Station checklists and scoring rubrics
- MLA content map for scope and emphasis Local, set by schools: Standard setting method and pass standard
- Quality assurance against the requirements Local, set by schools: Station writing and approval, examiner and simulated patient training, candidate info and feedback, psychometrics, external examiners
The GMC's Requirements for the MLA Clinical and Professional Skills Assessment carry 20 numbered requirements, first published September 2019, re-issued as an annex in March 2021, updated October 2024. Its purpose, verbatim, is: "This document specifies the requirements that each assessment provider's CPSA must meet." You can read the full set in the 20 published CPSA requirements.
Start with the MLA content map, which "sets out the core knowledge, skills and behaviours needed for UK practice as a doctor" and "provides the framework for the content of MLA applied knowledge tests (AKTs) and clinical and professional skills assessments (CPSAs)". Themes include readiness for safe practice, managing uncertainty, and person-centred care. Domains span clinical practice, professional knowledge, capabilities, procedures, presentations, and conditions.
Timing matters. An updated content map landed in October 2025, but the original remains the live reference for assessments sat during the 2025-26 year. Schools must align assessments delivered from 2026-27 onwards to the update.
How a CPSA station actually gets scored
There is no single national mark sheet. The GMC asks each provider to explain and defend how they score, not to use any one template. Requirement 3 asks providers to "Describe the rationale for the approach to scoring candidate performance", listing "domain/checklist/overall global judgement" as the within-station options.
These are alternatives, which is why your friend at another school describes a different feel to the station.
- Domain marking What is scored: Grouped areas of performance are judged as domains.
- Checklist marking What is scored: Discrete items completed or omitted are ticked.
- Overall global judgement What is scored: One overall verdict on the encounter is recorded.
The same requirement asks schools to describe "how results are aggregated at the level of the overall assessment" and "any marks or judgements given by the simulated or real patient, and how they contribute to the overall score". If your school uses patient input, how the patient felt counts because it is literally marks.
Standard setting is also local. Requirement 4 asks providers to "Describe and demonstrate how standards are set for the first take and resit", including the "standard setting method at station and overall assessment level" and "any additional passing criteria". Read requirement 4 on standard setting before you assume there is a single pass mark, there is not.
Professionalism is handled explicitly. Requirement 5 covers how professionalism is assessed and how unprofessional behaviour is captured and followed up.
People matter because scoring is human. Requirement 11 requires schools to describe how examiners are "recruited, trained, briefed and calibrated", including "details of marking calibration". Requirement 12 does the same for simulated or real patients.
History reps, anytime You can practise taking a history from an AI patient by voice or text on your phone or laptop. Talk to a patient free
How to find your own school's marking criteria
You're marked on what your own school sets and publishes. The only legitimate places to get that are your school's candidate information and briefings, and the GMC's public compliance report for your school.
- Your school's CPSA guidance. Requirement 9 says providers must give candidates advance information and day briefings covering "assessment format, including the criteria for achieving a pass", "expected standards of performance", and "how the CPSA will be run on the day". Requirement 10 covers "what results and feedback are given to candidates and how the quality of any feedback is assured, as well as what support is given to unsuccessful candidates".
- The GMC's compliance report for your provider. "All assessment providers' recommendation reports on MLA compliance are published here in full." Find your school's compliance report. The page went up on 30 November 2023 and is organised as Medical School A to L, Medical School M to Z, and the PLAB test. Each report records the GMC's "review of, and decision on, whether an assessment provider is compliant by meeting the requirements annexed to the framework". It won't print your mark sheet, but compliance "must be achieved and maintained" for your CPSA to count.
If you want station format refreshers, Geeky Medics is still decent. It can't tell you your school's sheet, because nobody outside your school can.
If you're mapping all this into an exam plan, here's the rest of your finals plan.
CPSA and PLAB 2 are not the same exam
They sit under the same GMC requirements, but they're run and scored by different providers. UK students sit their own medical school's CPSA, international medical graduates sit PLAB 2, which is set and delivered centrally by the GMC.
The GMC is explicit that "PLAB 2 meets the Requirements for the MLA Clinical and Professional Skills Assessment (CPSA)", and explains the link in how PLAB maps onto the MLA.
One line gets misread a lot. "These requirements relate to how we construct and deliver the test, not to individual candidates. UK medical schools also meet these requirements in how they deliver the MLA to their students."
The GMC also says "The questions and stations used in PLAB are based on the MLA content map". And "The PLAB test will keep its current name for now."
The practical split is simple. If you're a UK student, your school sets your CPSA and your school's mark sheet is what you pass or fail against. If you're an international medical graduate, you sit PLAB 2 and get a centrally published description of the exam. See the GMC's PLAB 2 guide, which says "The exam is made up of 16 scenarios, each lasting eight minutes", then read how to prepare for PLAB 2.
What you can rehearse at home, and what you can't
A CPSA can include physical examination and practical procedure stations. You cannot rehearse those with a voice product, ours included. Nothing here elicits a sign. For those stations it is a partner, a tutor and a real ward.
Second boundary, because it matters. Diagnosica's rubrics are being calibrated to the published mark sheets for PACES, MRCEM, RCGP SCA, USMLE Step 3, PLAB-2, MCCQE, RACGP AKT and NEET-PG. The UKMLA CPSA is not among them, so you get reps and a transcript against our own rubrics, not a CPSA score.
What transfers is the asking, since information gathering is marked in any CPSA, and the difference between a strong and a weak history is whether the specific question got asked out loud.
Every fact carries a disclosure setting, some are volunteered, some surface on a general question, some only on a specific probe. Ask nothing, hear nothing. In Chest pain and fever, 30M, the AI patient volunteers the pain is worse lying flat and better sitting forward. Two must-elicit screens only appear if you probe, no severe breathlessness at rest, no pre-syncope and no leg swelling, and no drenching night sweats, weight loss or foreign travel.
In Belly pain and fever, 24M, he volunteers migration from the umbilicus to the right iliac fossa over hours. The two must-elicit facts sit behind a specific probe, that it earlier felt like it was spreading across the whole abdomen, and that the pain and fever have steadily worsened over several hours.
In Thirsty and breathless, 24M, three details are must-elicit. The one that flips your differential only appears if you ask about treatment adherence, he stopped taking insulin two to three days ago because he was not eating and felt too sick.
Diagnosica gives you an AI patient you talk to by voice or text. It doesn't give advice about real patients, and it's not a diagnostic system. Treat every output as educational.
There are 74 cases across 14 specialties, every one written and signed off by a doctor, and the free tier is one case a week.
If you are set on rehearsing without a partner, this is one way to train the asking. For context on tools that sit alongside your school's CPSA, see the UKMLA tool roundup.
Two things worth doing this week
- Get your school's own CPSA information in writing. Requirement 9 means it exists, including assessment format, the criteria for achieving a pass, and the expected standards of performance. If you haven't been sent it, email your assessment lead and ask. That document beats every page on the internet about CPSA marking criteria, this one included.
- Rehearse the asking, out loud, on cases where the key fact doesn't appear unless you pull for it. That's the bit reading won't fix. Do it on a timer, record yourself, and listen back for missed lines.
If you're sitting in 2026-27 or later, the content map is being replaced, so confirm which version your school is running.
Educational use only. Not medical advice. AI-generated; verify clinically against primary sources.
Last reviewed: 14 August 2026.
Clinical review pending.
Two paths, one app For international medical graduates sitting PLAB 2, you get rubric scoring calibrated to the published PLAB 2 mark sheet. For UK students sitting a school-set CPSA, you get history-taking reps against an AI patient, and there is no CPSA rubric here. Start free
