Summer Exams

Preparing for the exams has awful and sadly not because of the stress of exams. Whilst at university, I was informed by my friends at home that a close dear friend of mine had passed away at his university. This came as a great shock to me and I wasn't prepared to process such news as devastating as this. I was fortunate enough to attend his funeral and speak my eulogy that aimed to portray his fun and exciting character that I miss dearly. His funeral was the 6th June, whereas my first exam was the 5th June and my second exam was the 7th June. So sandwiched between the two examinations, I had to travel home promptly within the time to ensure I would make his funeral.

...

But the main question - what were the exams like?

Short answer: Difficult! Haha.

It's nothing like A-Level testing. The exam MCQs give you five possible answers to a question that could be a one line to a whole paragraph describing a patient's history. You guarantee that you will find yourself deciding between two answers and then it's pot luck if you aren't confident to the answer!

The exams were also weighted massively on the delivery of teaching. The majority of the exam was on physiology and function, closely followed by anatomy and then broken up into questions on the sociological, behavioural and ethical aspects of the course.

Here is an example of a medical MCQ! (And how I would approach such question in an exam situation)

Which cranial nerve is responsible for the abduction of the eye?
a) CN II
b) CN III
c) CN IV
d) CN V
e) CN VI

So... the breakdown on this question. You could either work out each individual cranial nerve and what it supplies, but I found it was always quicker to just dissect what the exam question is both asking for and looking for.

I'd begin with a quick sketch of the eye...

A small sketched diagram I would draw next to the question that I've annotated. The line on the left represents the nose, showing that this eye would be the left eye.

On the sketch, I would quickly drawn on the eye movements and the name of the muscles that are responsible for this. I would have learnt this mainly from my anatomy sessions when I located these muscles on cadavers and learnt their functions. Then, in the neuro case, I would've elaborated on each individual cranial nerve and what motor supplies they have.

I would then draw the names of the eye movements:

Another small diagram showing the names of movements of the left eye.

This is important because I need to be able to understand what movement I am trying to identify. In this case, abduction is the lateral movement (meaning the eyeball moves away in a direction away from the nose). Comparing the diagrams, it is clear that lateral rectus is the muscle responsible for abduction of the eyeball.

Then, I would just have to either remember from my revision that the lateral rectus muscle is innervated by CN VI. Or, I could've looked at the answers in turn. Cranial nerve six, CN VI, is actually called the abducens nerve. So this would've saved me time if I had remembered the common name of this cranial nerve! Or I could've worked down the functions and remember that CN II is the optic nerve which provides sensory information of sight etc. Or, remembered that CN VI is the only cranial nerve to supply the lateral rectus muscle ... which causes eye abduction!

It may not make sense now, but you'll be laughing how easy this is to understand when you complete your first months of medical school - trust me!

If you are looking for my opinion of the exams, I would say they were very difficult. They were quite confusing and used a lot of application! I know in the example, I gave an MCQ which would be structured similar to how the teaching would be delivered. But there were a lot of questions on symptoms and a list of possible conditions which we had touched on throughout the year.

I found the second paper a lot harder than the first. Obviously, the circumstance of my friend's funeral being present during my revision time didn't help either, but I will confirm that I did apply for extenuating circumstances. Results day will tell me more!

Good luck to everyone else who has exams at this time!