In MMI acting stations, the whole task is to talk to the person rather than about them. Walk in and speak to them from the first sentence. Find out what is actually going on before you decide anything, because the prompt outside the door gave you the situation and not the person. Say the hard thing plainly if there is a hard thing to say. Stay in the discomfort instead of reaching for a fix within twenty seconds, which is what almost everyone does. Then offer one concrete piece of help that costs you something, and do not claim it makes the problem equivalent to solved.

Why do candidates fail acting stations?

Not by saying the wrong thing. By never entering the station. The commonest failure is the answer delivered in the conditional: “I would acknowledge their feelings, and I would explain that…” The candidate is narrating an interview answer while a person sits in front of them. Assessors see it constantly and it is instantly recognisable.

The second commonest is speed. Someone is upset, the discomfort is real, and the candidate reaches for a solution because solving is a way of leaving the feeling. Announcing a plan in the first thirty seconds of a station about a person’s distress reads as competence to the candidate and as evasion to the assessor.

What should the first thirty seconds contain?

Depends on which of two stations you are in, and knowing which one you are in is the highest-value judgment you make all day.

If you have bad news or a failure to confess, lead with it. Do not warm up. Do not ask how their week has been. Say the thing, plainly, without the softening clause that makes it sound smaller. People can tell when you are approaching something sideways and it costs you their trust before you have said anything.

If you do not know what is wrong, find out. Open, short, and then be quiet. The prompt gave you a headline. The actor is briefed with the reason underneath it, and the reason is usually not what the headline implies. Candidates who start solving the headline problem spend four minutes on the wrong thing.

How do you handle anger, tears or silence?

Anger is usually the station, not an obstacle to it. Let it be said. Then acknowledge the specific thing, not the emotion in general: “You spent six months on this and I am the reason you are not racing” lands, and “I can see you are frustrated” does not, because the second one is about you observing them.

Tears mean stop talking. Offer the room a moment. Nobody has ever been marked down for waiting.

Silence is a tool, not a gap. Candidates fill it because four seconds feels like a minute when you are being assessed. Practise letting it run. It is the single most improvable thing in the format and it takes one rehearsal to notice you do it.

What about the solution?

Offer one, near the end, concrete and costly to you. “I will call them tonight and I will pay for it” is a solution. “I would look into what options might be available” is a sentence. And say what your offer does not fix, because pretending a substitute is equivalent is how a decent apology collapses in its last line.

A scenario, and two answers

An original station, not a real item from any school.

Prompt. “You are a supervisor at a community gym. A member’s account is 90 days overdue and head office has cancelled his membership as of today. He is in the room and does not know yet. He has been a member for eleven years.”

A weak answer. “I would greet the member and explain politely that unfortunately his membership has been cancelled due to non-payment of fees over 90 days. I would apologise for the inconvenience and explain that this is a head office decision that I am not able to reverse. I would let him know that he is welcome to re-join once the outstanding balance has been settled, and I would provide him with the contact details for the billing department so he can discuss payment options.”

A strong answer. Spoken to him. “Ray, I need to tell you something before you go in and find your card does not work. Head office cancelled your membership this morning. The account has been unpaid for 90 days and that is the trigger. I am telling you myself because eleven years is eleven years and finding out at the turnstile would be a lousy way to hear it.” [pause, let him answer] “Okay. Can I ask what has been going on? Because in eleven years this has not happened before, and if there is something going on, that changes what I can do rather than just how sorry I am.” [listen] “Right. Then here is where I am. I cannot reverse this from the front desk, and I am not going to tell you I can and then not deliver. What I can do is call Priya in billing myself this afternoon, not give you a number to call, and put it to her that this is an eleven-year member with a first lapse and ask what a payment arrangement looks like. I will call you tonight either way, including if the answer is no. Until then, come in today. If anyone asks, that is on me.”

What separates them. The weak answer is not rude and it gets the facts across, but it does every hard part at arm’s length. It leads with the policy, apologises for an inconvenience rather than a loss, hides behind head office, and ends by handing him a phone number, which is the gym equivalent of pointing down the hall. It also never asks him a single question, so it never learns the thing that might matter.

The strong answer uses his name, gives him the news in the first ten seconds and says why he is hearing it from a person, then stops and lets him react. It asks what is going on and says why it is asking, which is the difference between curiosity and process. It states the limit of its own power honestly rather than promising a reversal. Then it does something that costs it: makes the call itself, commits to reporting back even with bad news, and takes personal responsibility for letting him train today. That last line is the whole station. It is small, it is slightly against the rules, and it is what an assessor remembers.

Key numbers

  • Speak to the person from sentence one. Conditional narration means you have left the station.
  • Bad news goes first, without softening clauses. Unknown problems start with a question and silence.
  • Wait before you solve. Most candidates offer a fix within about thirty seconds; that is too early.
  • One concrete offer near the end, and it should cost you something.
  • Not all schools use acting stations and none publishes its station types in advance.

If you want acting stations run with someone playing them properly, that is interview coaching.

Related: MMI practice questions with answers and how to handle an interview question you cannot answer.

Last reviewed 17 September 2026. Written by Arvin Ardakani, final-year medical student, 4th quartile on CASPer four times.