I had block exams yesterday and they went fine. I'll be more than happy to share my scores with you once the final grades are up, but from the raw scores I can already tell you I didn't do as well as I thought. Going into all three exams, I thought I knew the material inside/out and I was going to ace all of them. Wrong.
Immunology was my best exam, but it turns out I know next to nothing about "Immunological Techniques." Of the total 40 questions, 5 pertained to this particular lecture and I missed 4 of them. I just stopped by my professor's office hours to go over my missed questions and I really did have gaping holes in my understanding of the different immunological tests and what they mean. Hopefully those gaps are filled now. In all, Dr. B's exams are extremely fair and I feel thankful to have her as a teacher.
The same can't be said for my current MCB professor, unfortunately. Of the three classes, I felt like I knew MCB the best. And I believe if I actually had a reasonable and fair professor, my exam grade would have reflected that. Irrelevant is the term that comes to mind when I think of this last MCBII exam and it's a crying shame too since I know all the material that is actually important. I could write the pathways for glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, glycogenesis, I knew all the enzymes, their coenzymes, their activators, and inhibitors, how/when/why they were phosphorylated, the amino acid residues that get bound, all the details about the diseases, and that was not nearly enough. I knew the important concepts and details he emphasized in his slides and in class .... but noooooo the detail that he mentioned once in passing is what ends up on the test. Example: He would have a slide and all the important material is bolded or in colors and what not. What ends up on the exam? The little black letters at the end of the page that are in parenthesis. Yup. He fucking did that.
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH IMPORTANT!!! KNOW THIS FOR The Rest of Your Life!!!!! THIS WILL CURE AIDS (but this is what I'll test you on)
Do I sound petty right now? Probably. I think I even sound petty complaining about a grade that I know isn't actually that bad. It's just frustrating to put all your effort into something and not get the outcome you think you deserve. There is literally nothing more I could have done for this exam. What I knew going in was the most I was ever going to know regardless of whether I spent an additional day or another week learning the material. The problem with putting your all into something and not getting anything out of it is you start to lose hope; you question why put this much effort when it doesn't make a difference? And that attitude is poison to a student, especially a student in medical school when failure really isn't an option. If I hadn't studied as hard as I did, I would have most likely failed this exam and where would I be? In a hole. I need to try and stay focused now. I've aired my grievances and I thank you all for listening to this rant. It's just very disconcerting to find out that my best may not be good enough.
Immunology was my best exam, but it turns out I know next to nothing about "Immunological Techniques." Of the total 40 questions, 5 pertained to this particular lecture and I missed 4 of them. I just stopped by my professor's office hours to go over my missed questions and I really did have gaping holes in my understanding of the different immunological tests and what they mean. Hopefully those gaps are filled now. In all, Dr. B's exams are extremely fair and I feel thankful to have her as a teacher.
The same can't be said for my current MCB professor, unfortunately. Of the three classes, I felt like I knew MCB the best. And I believe if I actually had a reasonable and fair professor, my exam grade would have reflected that. Irrelevant is the term that comes to mind when I think of this last MCBII exam and it's a crying shame too since I know all the material that is actually important. I could write the pathways for glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, glycogenesis, I knew all the enzymes, their coenzymes, their activators, and inhibitors, how/when/why they were phosphorylated, the amino acid residues that get bound, all the details about the diseases, and that was not nearly enough. I knew the important concepts and details he emphasized in his slides and in class .... but noooooo the detail that he mentioned once in passing is what ends up on the test. Example: He would have a slide and all the important material is bolded or in colors and what not. What ends up on the exam? The little black letters at the end of the page that are in parenthesis. Yup. He fucking did that.
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH IMPORTANT!!! KNOW THIS FOR The Rest of Your Life!!!!! THIS WILL CURE AIDS (but this is what I'll test you on)
Do I sound petty right now? Probably. I think I even sound petty complaining about a grade that I know isn't actually that bad. It's just frustrating to put all your effort into something and not get the outcome you think you deserve. There is literally nothing more I could have done for this exam. What I knew going in was the most I was ever going to know regardless of whether I spent an additional day or another week learning the material. The problem with putting your all into something and not getting anything out of it is you start to lose hope; you question why put this much effort when it doesn't make a difference? And that attitude is poison to a student, especially a student in medical school when failure really isn't an option. If I hadn't studied as hard as I did, I would have most likely failed this exam and where would I be? In a hole. I need to try and stay focused now. I've aired my grievances and I thank you all for listening to this rant. It's just very disconcerting to find out that my best may not be good enough.
why didn't you just study every detail? well from what i learned so far from shadowing my mentor over the past year, you have to be specific about everything you do.So by noticing that, I have realized that you need to know everything that is thrown at you in med school.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like I'll have to for this class. Just to put it in perspective though, we have three weeks to memorize roughly 1000 slides for block exams. Asking us as student to memorize every meaningless detail just doesnt work. 95% of professors know it's not feasible and make sure we learn the concepts and the *important* details that will actually bare relevance to the medical profession. Asking me to remember that the only water insoluble coenzyme (lipoic acid) of pyruvate dehydrogenase of glycolysis is actually susceptible to the binding of arsenite via A SULFONYL BOND... is ridiculous. All those words before SULFONYL BOND I knew during exam time. But no, he wanted to know which bond connected arsenate to lipoic acid. Meaningless! No mention of it in class, no mention of it by the tutors, and the only place it appears is in parentheses at the end of a slide once.
ReplyDeleteI hope this doesnt scare you any. Most of the professors aren't like this guy. They actually give you a chance to succeed and master the information youll need for the Boards and Clinicals... This particular guy... he just wants to give people a hard time.
lol he sounds like a jerk, good luck with the rest of your semester!
ReplyDeleteI've been following your blog (thanks to clicking on a link in Benji's other blog section) and have been a quiet reader but I just had to say a few things.
ReplyDeleteGood job on passing Dr. B's test. I did really bad (50%) and had to fight back the rest of the semester, in the end I missed passing the class by 1.5% or 5 points on an exam. I can empathize with you as his first test is a bunch of bs. Don't try going to him for help as he is totally useless. (I went to him multiple times and he forgot my name every time and drew me the same diagram of how to study.) If you have access to the tutoring slides by Jared N they really helped me out the 2nd time (I really wish I had those the first time round). The tutoring slides point out those itty bitty details that he tests on. Good luck with the rest of your courses you've been doing really well.
-Sonobe
Hi Sonobe,
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting. It's funny that you mention Jared's tutoring slides because a couple people just said the same thing to me yesterday. It looks like I'll have to use them this block and see what happens. The alternative is memorizing his slides verbatim and I'm not sure if it's even worth spending the time to do that. Thanks again for your advice and visiting my blog.
~Andrea
I have a question for anonymous-what happens when you fail a course?
ReplyDeleteYou have to retake that course the following semester. If you fail the same course again, you must leave AUC. Also if you fail more than two classes, you will most likely leave AUC pending a decision from the administration. When you fail a class, the classes for that particular time slot get pushed back by a semester. You end up staying on the island for 6 months rather then the standard 5.
ReplyDelete