SMLE General Surgery MCQs: Practice Questions With Explanations
Sample SMLE MCQs from General Surgery — a core clinical domain in HighYield's SMLE bank without a dedicated practice post yet — covering acute abdomen, hernias, and classic surgical signs, each with the correct answer explained.
General Surgery is one of the core clinical domains tested on the SMLE, alongside Internal Medicine, Ob/Gyn, and Paediatrics — yet it's easy to under-revise if your prep has focused mainly on medicine-heavy content. Below is a sample set of General Surgery MCQs in clinical-vignette style, grouped by theme.
Acute Abdomen
1. Maximal tenderness in acute appendicitis is classically located at:
- A) Murphy's point
- B) McBurney's point ✅
- C) Hesselbach's triangle
- D) The epigastrium
2. Rebound tenderness in the right iliac fossa elicited by palpating the left iliac fossa is known as:
- A) Murphy's sign
- B) Rovsing's sign ✅
- C) Cullen's sign
- D) Courvoisier's sign
Hepatobiliary Surgery
3. Charcot's triad — right upper quadrant pain, fever, and jaundice — is classically associated with:
- A) Acute cholecystitis
- B) Ascending cholangitis ✅
- C) Acute pancreatitis
- D) Choledocholithiasis alone
4. Courvoisier's law states that a palpable, non-tender gallbladder with painless jaundice is unlikely to be caused by:
- A) Pancreatic head carcinoma
- B) Cholangiocarcinoma
- C) Gallstones ✅
- D) Ampullary carcinoma
Hernias & Trauma
5. An indirect inguinal hernia passes through the deep inguinal ring, which lies:
- A) Medial to the inferior epigastric vessels
- B) Lateral to the inferior epigastric vessels ✅
- C) Directly through Hesselbach's triangle
- D) Below the inguinal ligament
6. In blunt abdominal trauma, the bedside imaging test used to rapidly screen for free intraperitoneal fluid is:
- A) Plain abdominal X-ray
- B) FAST scan ✅
- C) Barium study
- D) MRI abdomen
Weighting Your SMLE Prep
General Surgery won't carry the same weight as Internal Medicine on the SMLE blueprint, but it's still a core domain — and classic surgical signs like these are exactly the kind of question that rewards recognition over reasoning from scratch.
HighYield's SMLE question bank is organized to mirror the exam's core clinical domains, with vignette-style questions and every question explained. For the full breakdown of eligibility and syllabus weighting, see our SMLE Exam Full Guide. Your first 20 questions are free.