Best Free PRC Board Exam Reviewer 2027: Tools and Mock Exams

Review centers cost a lot, so most reviewees go looking for a free board exam reviewer first. The problem: most "free" tools are free to download but expensive in time. You end up building the reviewer yourself before you can study from it.

This post compares the popular free options for PRC licensure exams, and the catch with each one. Free-plan limits are as of October 2026 and change often.

The short answer

If you want…	Use
A fun, game-like way to drill your own cards	Gizmo
The strongest spaced repetition, and you don't mind setup	Anki
Quick definitions and terms	Quizlet
Someone to explain a topic you're stuck on	YouTube
Board-exam-style questions ready to answer today, with progress tracking	prepPH (I built it)

The question nobody asks: who makes the cards?

Flashcard apps don't come with your board exam inside them. Someone has to write the questions. You have two choices, and both have a cost.

You make them yourself. This is the honest way to use Anki, Quizlet, and Gizmo. But think about the math. Say you write one card per minute. A 500-card deck for one subject is over 8 hours of typing, before you answer a single question. And most board exams have several subjects.

You use someone else's. Shared decks and sets save that time. But you don't know who made them, when, or whether the answers are right. In my experience, most free ones are bad. A deck from 2019 might use an old standard, an old law, or a coverage your board no longer follows.

Keep this in mind as you read the list.

	Ready-made board exam questions	Setup	Progress per subject
Gizmo	No, you type cards or upload your own material	Easy	XP and streaks, not per PRC subject
Anki	Only shared decks from strangers	Hard	Raw stats, not per PRC subject
Quizlet	Only shared sets from strangers	Easy	Progress per set, not per PRC subject
YouTube	Not questions	None	None
prepPH	Yes, organized by PRC subject	Sign in	Yes

1. Gizmo

Gizmo is a popular study app that feels more like a mobile game than a reviewer. You type your own cards, or let its AI make them from notes, PDFs, or photos of your handouts. Then you drill them with spaced repetition.

A Gizmo quiz round. The 15 hearts at the top are the free-plan limit. They refill, but you wait.

Pros:

• The UI is genuinely nice. Streaks, levels, and quick rounds make it easy to open every day.
• You choose how to build cards: by hand, or with AI from your own material.
• Spaced repetition schedules your reviews.

Cons:

• The free plan runs on hearts. When I tried it in October 2026, losing all 15 hearts stopped me until they refilled, unless I upgraded to Premium. On a hard subject, you burn through them fast, which is exactly when you need to keep going.
• No board exam questions built in. You either type the cards yourself, which takes hours, or need handouts for the AI to work from.
• Making cards from a reviewer PDF gives you junk cards. The AI turns everything in the file into questions, including the cover page and intro. I got cards like "What is the title of this reviewer?" and "What is the goal of this reviewer?"
• AI-made questions tend to be simple recall ("Define X"). Board exams test application: computations, cases, and situations.
• The AI can get details wrong, like an outdated standard or law. You need to know enough to catch it.

Best for: drilling your own notes in a fun way, if you can live with waiting for hearts to refill.

2. Anki

Anki is a free, open-source flashcard app. Med and nursing students swear by it for its spaced repetition.

An Anki review. The times above each button show when the card comes back.

Pros:

• Free on desktop, Android, and the web. (The iPhone app is paid.)
• Excellent long-term memory scheduling. No daily limits.
• Shared decks exist for some professions.

Cons:

• It's not ready out of the box. You download it, learn how decks and note types work, tweak settings, and often install add-ons to make it pleasant. Plan an evening just for setup.
• Making your own cards takes hours per subject (see the math above).
• Shared decks are made by strangers. Nobody checks them against the current PRC coverage, and many are built for foreign exams like the USMLE, not ours.
• The design is dated. Stats exist, but they won't tell you "you're at 60% in Taxation."

Best for: high-volume memorization (drugs, laws, definitions) if you're patient with setup.

3. Quizlet

Quizlet has a big library of user-made flashcard sets, including some for Philippine board exams.

A Quizlet multiple choice round from a user-made set.

Pros:

• Easy to use. No setup.
• Lots of ready-made sets to search.

Cons:

• Finding a good set is hard. Most of the free sets I opened were bad: wrong answers, outdated content, or cards copied straight from a PDF with the formatting broken. Nobody checks them.
• Most sets are term-and-definition. Few have computations or situational questions like the real exam.
• If you can't find a good set, you're back to making your own cards.
• Flashcards are free, but Learn mode and practice tests are limited on the free plan. Even the cheaper paid plan caps you at 20 Learn rounds and 3 practice tests a month, as of October 2026.

Best for: quick definitions and terms.

4. YouTube

Many reviewers and teachers post free lectures and problem walkthroughs.

YouTube search for "cpa board exam review," screenshot taken October 2026.

Pros: Free explanations of hard topics. Good for visual learners.

Cons: Watching isn't practicing. You can watch 10 videos on a topic and still freeze on the exam question. Quality varies, and it's hard to follow as a full program.

Best for: the topic you just can't get from reading.

5. prepPH (I built this one, so I'm biased)

I've tried to be as hard on it as on the others. prepPH has free board-exam-style multiple choice questions with explanations and spaced repetition. You don't make any cards. You sign in, pick your exam, and start answering. Exams covered as of October 2026: CPA, Mechanical, Electrical, Electronics, Chemical Engineering, Medical Technology, Nutrition and Dietetics, Psychometrician, Psychologist, and Architecture.

A prepPH question from Nutrition and Dietetics. The copy button is at the top right of the card.

Performance tracking. The dashboard shows your mastery per subject, plus how many you got right out of how many you tried. So instead of "I feel weak in Thermo," you see a number, and you watch it move week to week.

My Mechanical Engineering dashboard. The topic scores under each subject are part of the paid per-topic breakdown.

Filter your card set. Questions are grouped by PRC subject, then by topic. On the paid plan, you can filter down to just the topics you want, like only "Taxation" or only "Power Plant." That's how you drill a weak spot instead of shuffling through everything.

Built to work with AI. Every question has a copy button. It copies the subject, question, and choices. Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini to get a step-by-step solution, ask "why not B?", or get more practice on the same concept.

Pros:

• No setup and no card-making. Questions are ready from day one.
• Organized by PRC subject, with the PRC weights shown on each exam page.
• Per-subject mastery tracking and spaced repetition are on the free plan.
• Explanations are included, and AI follow-ups are one paste away.

Cons:

• The free plan is 30 questions a day. That's enough for a steady daily habit, but not for long cramming sessions.
• Topic filters and the per-topic breakdown need the paid plan.
• Doesn't cover every board exam. No LET or Nursing yet.
• It's a practice tool, not a full review program. If you need to relearn a subject from zero, you still need lectures or books.

Best for: daily practice when you'd rather answer questions than build a deck.

A note on free "mock board exams"

Many review centers post free mock exams. They're useful for timing practice. But their difficulty varies a lot, so don't panic over one bad score, and don't relax after one great score. Track your trend across several mocks.

My verdict

If you only have time for one tool, pick one that already has questions in it. Every hour spent typing cards is an hour you're not answering questions.

A good free setup for most reviewees:

1. One source of ready-made practice questions you use every day.
2. An AI chat tool to explain every wrong answer, checked against your books.
3. Anki or Gizmo only for the small set of facts you keep forgetting, not the whole syllabus.
4. YouTube for the topics that won't click.

If you can afford a review center, it adds structure and updated materials. If you can't, this setup plus a strict schedule can still work. No reviewer can promise you'll pass.

For the full study method, read How to Review for the PRC Board Exam.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a free reviewer for the board exam?

Yes. Anki, Quizlet, YouTube lectures, and free question banks like prepPH are all free to start. Some have limits on the free plan, and flashcard apps need you to make or find the cards.

Is Anki good for the PRC board exam?

For memorization, yes. But it takes time to set up, and you'll either make your own cards or trust a stranger's deck. It works best as a side tool, not your main reviewer.

Can I pass the board exam without a review center?

Some people do. It takes a solid plan, enough practice questions, and discipline. A review center helps with structure but doesn't guarantee a pass.

Is prepPH free?

Yes, there's a free plan. It gives you 30 questions a day, with explanations, spaced repetition, and mastery tracking per subject. Topic filters and the per-topic breakdown are on the paid plan. See the plans page for what's included.

Which board exams does prepPH cover?

As of October 2026: CPA, Mechanical, Electrical, Electronics, and Chemical Engineering, Medical Technology, Nutrition and Dietetics, Psychometrician, Psychologist, and Architecture. There's no LET or Nursing yet.

Do I need an account to try prepPH?

No. Each exam's reviewer page, like the CPA reviewer, has free sample questions you can answer without signing up. To practice daily and track your progress, sign in with Google or email.

How do I use prepPH with ChatGPT or other AI tools?

Every question has a copy button. It copies the subject, question, and choices. Paste that into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini and ask for a step-by-step solution, or for more questions like it. Check the AI's answer against your books, since it can be wrong.

Can prepPH replace a review center?

Not fully. prepPH is for practice, not lectures. If you need to learn a subject from zero, pair it with books, YouTube lectures, or a review center.

Sources

• Professional Regulation Commission, checked October 2026
• Gizmo on the App Store, checked October 2026
• Anki, checked October 2026
• Quizlet plans, checked October 2026