two down, three to go

And so the exam season kick started with the most daunting of all our exams: Medsci205 aka Physiology of the Human Organ Systems. With that beast down and over, I cannot absolutely say I'm a 100% relieved. Let's just say it wasn't the best of exams. And whilst it wasn't 'disguting' as Indah puts it, something inside me just wished I had done more to prepare for it. In terms of preparation, everyone ensured they completed past year papers after the hint that a lot of MCQs were likely to be repeated and after spending a precious four hours in total going through past papers, I was somewhat annoyed that a mere 4/5 out of the 60 MCQs were repeated. The essay topics were not to say unpredictable, but I went into the exam, yearning to write a full-blown essay on fetal physiology or at least a whoping good one on respiratory physiology and was still undecided to do either fluid or cardio..but surprise surprise... neither fetal circulation came out, or hypoxia or oxygen cascade...and two minutes into the reading time, I was unsure of which second essay question to write, but dead sure that I was going to do Paul Donaldson's fluid transport instead of ECG. After much contemplation, I chose to do the carbon dioxide transport which I must say wasn't too good an essay but then again, to write an entire essay on amniotic fluid reabsorption? I was at a lost. As mentioned, most of the MCQs were new qs and they were so-so, some answers were obtained with elimination and some after hard contemplation. Finished the MCQs well before the allocated time. But that having been said, did not have time to come back to check. Rather silly. But went straight to the SAQs. All throughout the exam, I could have kicked myself for not going through trivial things more throroughly...for example, not looking through the Bainbridge reflex in the ECG lab..cos voila, sinus arrhythmia came out. Or not paying attention to that mechanism chart Marie Ward showed us over and over again..cos voila, it came out. Oh well, you learn from your mistakes is what they say. Let's hope I don't have to pay a bigger price.

Two days before physio exam, we Biomed anatomy kids had our 30% practical test. The test was not until late in the afternoon but the MDL labs were opened throughout the day for revision and an old test screened on the telly. Having to study for anatomy and physiology meant a lot of people were already very grouchy. But no one was going to miss a chance of revising their lab stuff in the once-only tutorial and to get their knee and upper limb anatomy sorted..and so to everyone's surprise, nearly everyone turned up. I was literally shocked when I arrived at ten and saw the lab FULL. For goodness sake, not so many people turn up for lectures! And you'll reckon just two days before medsci205, no one would turn up for an optional tutorial..but I guess with 30% of your final grade at stake... even Peter Riordan said he was impressed. Like in his own words, 'This is the first year I've seen such a response. It really shows how studious you people really are. I am absolutely flawed.' So yes even with everyone dragging themselves out of bed and into Grafton so early in the morning, we had a good start to what was promised to be a long day. Two of the old tests were played on the TV and most of us had our eyes glued to it and trying to figure out the answers to past questions. By mid noon, we were all pretty exhausted from watching telly and looking through slides and by two, we were sent away from the lab so they could set up for the practical test.

So that gave me approximately 3 hours to do my final revision. When the hour came, all of us were locked inside a room so we had no contact whatsoever with the earlier group who would have just finished their test. It just made eveything so formal and daunting. To cut a long story short, the test had two parts: one screened on the TV and where we had to answer questions regarding histology slides and the other which is a 'round robin' type, where we were given a fixed amount of time at a station and had to answer questions regarding the specimen in front of us. The video test, which my group started of with first, was so bloody confusing. I was so unsure of my answers and to which structure they were pointing to..what cell, what layer of muscle..argh. Having Colin Quilter as our invigilator did not help one bit. Then came the round robin part. Basically, at every bench, they had one specimen, may it be fresh bovine knee joints, plastinated torsos, limbs, reproductive tract etc etc and we had to answer three questions about them in 90seconds. The time limit wasn't too pleasant because everytime when I moved to a new station after the alarm went off, my heart rate would just sky rocket. And having started at the knee stations meant for approximately the first 5 minutes, my SNS was constantly activated. The questions weren't hard..it's just the orientation that was challenging. Trying to differentiate between medial and lateral aspect is usually not hard but try doing it with blood and muscles all over the joint. Not too easy. And everytime I moved to a new station, I was forever aware of the ticking 90seconds..when I glanced up, it'd be ok 42s, then 27s, then 03s.then the alarm would go.. the beauty of things was that we had four rest stations to contemplate our answersm and boy did I always look forward to those stations and boy did time fly when you were there. The thing that struck me as funny was that at a station, we had this laptop showing us an animation of the flitration barriers of the glomerulus..you wouldn't have imagined though, in an anatomy lab test, that a man-made equipment would be used as one of the specimens..I almost cracked up.

And well, that was the prac test in a big nut shell. Looking back, I kinda enjoyed it but thinking of how I might have screwed up my answers...not such a wonderful prospect. Just yesterday we got a mail from Peter saying that a lot of people of contemplated on not sitting for the exam cos they're sure they must have failed the practical and hence would be destined to fail the entire paper, so what's the point anyways? He very reassuringly said, not to give up and do the best for the exam and hopefully, they'll do something about the prac test marks. Fingers crossed on that. :)

So good night everyone. It'll be anatomy all the way till Tuesday for me.