They are done.
Finally.
And just when I think I have a moment to catch my breath, the force feeding begins again. Block II has officially kicked off with the usual round of classes this morning and lab in the afternoon. I also already have the results for my exams, but I think I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, so let's take a moment and backtrack.
At AUC, each semester is divided into 4 blocks. At the end of each block, everyone takes 3 or 4 exams pretty much back-to-back. As a first semester student, I took:
--Anatomy Lab exam, 40 questions, one hour beginning at 9:15 a.m. For this exam, the anatomy professors tag different arteries, veins, muscles, and nerves of the cadavers and you have to identify the structure or state what that tagged structure is associated with, or even apply it to a clinical situation. There's also another room (the dry lab) where x-rays/CT scans are displayed, as well as bones and you have to identify the structures. Each student is stationed at one question and we rotate around the room every 30 seconds or so. I suppose this is an efficient way of doing things, but once you pass a question you are done with it. There were some tags that I knew within 5 seconds and others where I wished I had more time (BPS of the lungs!!)
I was out at 10:15 and spent the next few hours reviewing histo, MCB and anatomy. The next round of exams started 1:00 and they were suppose to go till 4:00, but the thing I *really* liked here is that you could take whatever exam you wanted and spend as long as you liked on it within those three hours. The professors allocate an hour to complete each exam, but the thing is if you finish Histology in 30 minutes like I did, you use that extra half hour for the MCB exam. Roll over minutes at their greatest.
-- Histology exam, 50 questions, 1:00-1:30. I felt like this was going to be my easiest exam so I decided to take this one first and man did I burn right through those questions! I felt like I knew every answer and that never really happens to me during exams.
--Molecular Cell Biology I exam, 40 questions, 1:30-2:15. I took a little longer on this one. I felt fine throughout, but not like how I felt during histo. I could see which questions I was missing and I felt like I could have done better if it weren't for my laziness with detail in DNA replication. I saw what special enzymes and proteins I had to memorize the day before and decided I didn't feel like exerting the extra effort. No bueno
--Anatomy written exam, 40 questions, 2:15-3:00. Anatomy is my achilles heel and I knew if I took this one first I would probably lose a lot of my confidence going into the exams. I felt lost throughout this exam. I was frustrated because I felt I knew about the structures and subjects that were most stressed in class and lab, but for whatever reason there weren't many questions on what the professors spoke most of! For example, Dr. G spent the most time of any of his other slides discussing the Tetralogy of Fallot during his heart lecture. NOT ONE SINGLE exam question about it. Because there were 3 professors teaching this block, each got to write at least 12 questions. I was so frustrated towards the end of the exam I think I was just blindly choosing C for every question I skipped over and preying I got a few hits. All I wanted was to just get out of there and enjoy a few hours without having to worry about studying. I thought to myself that tomorrow would be a new day, a new block, and I'd have to implement new studying techniques.
RESULTS:
RESULTS:
Histology- seems like Histo is everyones favorite subject since we all did pretty well in it
Class Average: 84%
Me: 92%
MCB I- Another good average for our class, but it kills me to think that if I had studied a little better I could have gotten somewhere in the 90s.
Class Average: 80%
Me: 80%
Anatomy- a 69.5% and above is what's considered passing at AUC and I'll tell you right now, the average of our class was a failing grade at 68% (the written and lab are averaged together) The professors decided to throw out a couple of the questions in attempt to raise the average, which now stands at 74.5%. With that being said, I scored below the minimum passing grade for this exam and *gulp* I failed. Yes folks, I failed with a 65%. I needed an additional three or four questions to pass, but there you go. You know what this means? Study regiment overhaul. I need to actually follow my own rules I've already put forth on this blog and then sprinkle a little UMich every night with a heavy dose of BRS anatomy. From this moment on, I vow to do this every single day. Failing is simply unacceptable.
Lastly, when you're done with blocks please go all out Monday night. I went to Tantra with a bunch of my fellow first semesters/second semesters and I had a fantastic night. A little craziness is essential for the preservation of sanity.
