Monday 12 May 2008

What a Ridiculous Exam

- If you're going to insist on asking us a load of microbiology questions, please tell us in advance so we can learn it. Alternatively, you could, you know, actually teach us something rather than making us do it all ourselves in PBHell.

- If pt x has so and so wrong with them, my 'initial management' would probably include the answers a, b and e. Please don't make me guess what Dr Jones wanted as the correct answer, based on how he was feeling when he wrote the question, when all 3 are potentially correct.

- To all of those studying a PBL course, unsure what exactly you need to know, the answer is everything. Yes, absolutely every last possible detail of every conceivable thing. You must know every textbook inside out and be prepared to answer questions on everything.

- I've done this exam 5 times now, and this time was by far the hardest in my opinion. At least most people seem to have found it rather difficult.

- I pity the poor 1st years who did the same exam, they must have literally had to guess all but a couple of questions.

- I've got a headache.

- OSCE tomorrow.

- Onwards and upwards

7 comments:

Anna said...

I hate those exams. The intial management questions are always awful. And you're right, I would always do at least 3 of the things on the list. I think there ought to be a tiered system - 2 points for the bext answer, 1 point for an answer that would be in the management, 0 for a wrong answer and -1 for a potentially harmful answer.

5 times eh? So you're at the famed medical school of the same exam for all years. We've heard tales of such things at our backward medical school with no PBLs and many lectures. We couldn't get our heads round it.

Anna said...

Oh, and good luck for the OSCE! I hope all the practice as a 'patient' syands you in good stead!

Anonymous said...

heh heh the results of our prgress test are available, eek, hope I know more than I did last year.

Lollipop xx said...

It really was crap. Microbiology?! I remember one session in first year about gram stains and that's all I've ever done. Joy of joys. 6th progress test and by far the hardest. I'd love to see how our marks have 'progressed'.

Although it was nice to see that the medical school are capable of producing an exam paper without a single typo. First one I've ever sat. The semester tests were always worse, I think our highest was 9 in one paper...

Good luck with the OSCEs!

Anonymous said...

"I pity the poor 1st years who did the same exam, they must have literally had to guess all but a couple of questions"

Pretty much spot-on. I used a system where the most impressive-sounding word was the most correct. The slight flaw is that I have absolutely no idea how well I did. Even when the results get released, a percentage is no way of telling where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

Ah well. Only 4 years of progress tests left. Hope the OSCEs went well.

Anonymous said...

- To all of those studying IN MEDICAL SCHOOL, unsure what exactly you need to know, the answer is everything. Yes, absolutely every last possible detail of every conceivable thing. You must know every textbook inside out and be prepared to answer questions on everything.

Fixed that for you. Maybe you don't have much experience with a non-PBL curriculum but I can tell you that our teachers are just as delusional as yours. Evidence: we have people here writing questions based on the footnotes because after I have read the 500 pages of pathology you said you taught in the last ten weeks, what I'm really going to commit to memory is the footnotes. Well theoretically read 500 pages, I barely got through half that. Of course, it only re-emphasises how delusional they were to think I was going to finish all that.

David said...

Call me stupid, but why are the 1st years doing the sanme exam?