Guide to Professional Exam Preparation

Guide to Professional Exam Preparation

Laiba Khalid (2nd Yr)

 SEND-UPS:

-          They are basically your training for the prof, so don’t exhaust yourself. Spare a lot of energy for the prof !

-          Passing them should be your goal.

A common reaction 

BOOKS :

-          Go for the recommended / standard books like Guyton for physio, mushtaq for biochem, bd for gross etc. Consult short books only for viva prep.

NO CRAMMING :

-          This is not FSc , you don’t have to cram each and every word/paragraph , just get the concepts.

TIME MANAGEMENT:

-          Remember : The more time you have, the more you will waste it, the more you will drag you prep, the more relax you tend to get & the more energy you will waste…

The less time you have, the less you’ll waste it, the more you will study with concentration…

-          Get a size big calendar to put near / above your study desk, write the entire plan down on it so that every time you look at it, it will remind you how well or bad you are doing. It helps a lot !

-          Sleeping hours: 6-8 hours, not more than 8.

-          Time Table: You think you can make a strict one, then follow it till the end, well that will never happen. Make a rough idea in your mind or paper of when you will be studying during the day. Make sure it’s a very flexible one. Take breaks for prayers, meals, exercise, family & fun. Come on you can’t just study all day !

KEEP YOUR CALM:

-          That’s the most important part ! Because once you freak out, you will not be able to think straight & it might ruin all the efforts done that far ….

-          Avoid all the pessimistic depressing sort of friends, don’t let them discourage you. Try talking to seniors who’ll guide you well, friends who are just your kind. Keep your morale high!

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Yes avoid that kind of so-called friends !

-          For the jittery ones: Have confidence in the hard work that you’ve been doing the entire year! You passed stages, most of the tests, then why be fearful?? It’s just another test, not the end of the world.

- Remember : You are a KEMCOLIAN ! nuff said.

SOCIAL NETWORKING :

- De-activate your Facebook accounts only if you think its a major distraction & that you will study better if you do it. 

Otherwise you might miss important updates,test results, questions, mcqs & other study discussions done in class groups.

EID OR NO EID :

-          Locked up in your room, staring blindly at the open book in hands, envying all your folks who are having fun, cursing the time you entered this field, regretting is SO NOT a good idea ! Go out & join the party! 

PRAYERS :

-          A must! With or without exams !

-          No lame excuses, consider namaz breaks a time to refresh & forget all the stress for a while… In Ramadan, its best to study during the night if you think you will not have enough stamina in the day while fasting…

-          Pray for success, not just for yourself but for your friends & class-fellows too!

-          Get a print-out & put it on your desk/board/wall --à  http://blog.iloveallaah.com/2010/10/duaa-for-exams/

- Pray for us if this post helped you out :)

A Few Commandments

McFearless (Final Year)

Thou shalt not be confused by the overwhelming number of books.

If it's 2-3 months before prof, and you still haven't identified your signature books for the game, then it's not a good sign. Yes, they come in all shapes and size, for all kinds of brains [big or small]. Yes, the nerd next to you might be studying the most fancy title, but YOU DONOT HAVE TO CAVE IN TO PEER PRESSURE! Resist the urge to buy all the books in the market of a particular subject. Instead get one from library, try it, and if it suits you [after reading a couple of chapters] go for it... and most importantly stick to it! Compliance is very important. Otherwise you will keep switching and in the end, your basic knowledge would be poor.

Thou shall demonstrate panache in your time-management

Time-management is an art. And if you're a master of this art, you will sail through med-school stress-free. Everyone has his style. KNOW YOURSELF.

If you know that you've wasted the whole year in societies, extra-curriculars or in plain sleeping then you must shut yourself in a room, go on a journey of discovery with nothing but your books.

You must seek the ultimate discipline. Inculcate in yourself the ability for prolonged hourly sessions with your books. Don't just sit with books open and let your mind roam free in different places. You've done that all year and now you must pay. Set targets for each hour, and make it a do or die matter to achieve that goal. If you cant, get out of your study room. Take a break, meditate and think what's going wrong. Identify your potential Achilles heal and know why your plan is not working. Then come back and go for it again. Practice will make your perfect. Bad habits of wasting time and slacking of the whole year will take some time to correct and the key is to be patient. Be determined to let go of the bad habits and adopt this new discipline.

If it's the other way around and you were a diligent worker throughout the year, then you must get your act together for the final strike. Revise, review, repeat.

Thou shalt not despair

Professional exams are a game of nerve. Only the strong shall survive.

"We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey".

Hopelessness will dawn upon you. Seek solace by talking to your comforters [Family/Friends]

Depression is very common in these days. Don't be overwhelmed by other's preparations. The bitter truth is that medical students have a very ugly competition amongst themselves. It's hard to identify your well-wishers from your saboteurs. You can only trust one person - and that is yourself. Only you yourself can be the best judge of your own preparation. If Bashir has done more topics in Anatomy, and you're still clueless about the regions, then dont forget that maybe your physiology is better. 
In the time of hopelessness, concentrate on your strengths, not your weaknesses. And that will keep your morale sky-high.

Moeed Ahmed (2nd Year)

Practicals

 - Practical notebooks: Writing down each and every practical in your copy during or just before prof isnt a good idea. You can afford to miss some of them but make sure that you've written most of them.

- Practicals preparation: You get an ample time to prepare for the practicals once you're done with the theory, so just focus on the theory and vivas during prep leaves (conditioned to datesheet).

Vivas

- Help and get helped. Share the viva qs with your friends and class fellows and try to go through all the qs that have been asked before you turn up for the big day.

Nailing the prof or just passing it

- Its not possible to determine the amount of prep you need to nail the prof or just pass it. It really depends on luck. So keep up the hard work and leave the rest to Allah.

Sidrah Latif (4th Year: Topper 3 times)

- If it is for first years or second years, my advice is to start prep season with physio, do biochemistry in the mid and finally the last 15 days should be for anatomy. Although there is no need of doing biochemistry, but still for those who havent done it yet, give 4 days now to biochemistry. In physiology do the chapters, concentrating more on topics that you left in sendups. Don't freak out if you can't follow the schedule or if you arent able to revise everything, because none can achieve this feat. In anatomy keep the last 4 days for a grand revision. That leaves almost 11 days for you to do regions and embryology. Do one or two diagrams of histology daily instead of keeping aside whole day or days for it.

-Some very important instructions and golden points: Until and unless prof is a day away, daily watch TV, a movie, surf around, enjoy tea rounds with family, go out for a snack or icecream. Do not make yourself a zombie, the real prof days are for that purpose! Keep a track of your sendup marks, and check which subject you are lacking in and try to make up for that one in particular. However, do not worry about the marks too much since sendup was a warmup ground.

-Go to photocopier and get the past question papers. Just looking at old professional papers takes the fear out of you quite much. And it gives an idea too as to what sort of questions are you going to face in prof.

Be Afraid , Be very very Afraid

By Annum Faisal(Final Year)

- If you have read this post so far , you are desperate and in deep trouble. Cutting out every ounce of sympathy ,here are the facts . There is a pretty good chance you are going to fail ! And it IS going to be the end of the world -at least for you. There are no Newtons or Einsteins in Medicine so you can give your I-am-a-smart ass-I -can-pull-it-off attitude a break .

- Stop fretting over books . They all have more or less the same content . Grab any book and make sure you read all of it . Dont skip modules . All papers designed now tend to cover pretty much everything so you need to know everything .

- Get hold of the past papers and solve them . Write down the answers . You may consult different books for this . Be systematic . Once you are done , you wont need to open your books again . Not only is it a great memory aid , it ll help you immensely in your revision especially during the actual prof days when it's impossible to go through everything .Similarly solve MCQs .Think of them as our videogaming break .

- Stuff your room with junk food , my personal favourites are Lays and Fruitella . Find and stream or download sesaons that have only 20 mins long episodes, Take regular breaks . Make sure everybody at home know you are going through an ordeal and they have to treat you like a princess .

- Amazingly you are still reading this crap ... even a cretin would know by now that time is of essence here . Go study because we are certainly not going to do that for you .