Surviving hell

This post is about surviving stage 4 MBBS course in Newcastle University.

I just finished my second and last exam paper today. It was freaking' harder than yesterday's paper, which was already difficult enough that it could make my go bald just from sheer stress. What makes my uni's exams so bloody difficult to pass is that they used Single Best Answer style, also called as Best Of Five. 125 questions over the course of 3 hours are not something that most students can deal lightly, and during exams we have tendencies to think in a way way way so differently than what we normally do like, 

"ERGHH SHIT I ALREADY KNOW ERYTHROMYCIN IS AN INHIBITOR WHY THE FISH DID I PICK CARBAMAZEPINE DIDN'T I NOTICE THERE'S PHENYTOIN AS WELL IT WAS SOOOOOOOO OBVIOUS THOSE TWO CAN'T BE THE ANSWER THEY ARE THE INDUCERS YOU MORON EEERGHH".

And anyway, what pissed me off is that the learning outcomes of what we should cover in stage 4 are so vague and not specific. You might as well change all the learning outcomes into something like:

To be able to memorise the entire chapter of endocrinology in OHCM because clearly we like to toy with your feelings. Those questions are not covered in lectures? Oh, boo! Read the learning outcomes reallly carefully please. 

Anyway, enough with all this. If I passed, I passed, and if I failed then there is resit exam to think about. So, I'm gonna give personal tips on how to survive stage 4. Be warned, I am a sub-par, mediocre level student. If you are the genius type of guy then buzz off! I hate you all HAHAHA kidding. You may want to listen to other students about what kind of questions will come out in the exams because like a tradition, everyone will say that the stage 4 exams are the hardest but not a freaking soul ever tell it clearly on how to prepare for the exam. Now that I know and have gone through it firsthand, I will try my best to put it all here. Also, this post is going to help me prepare in the likely event that I failed, I need to remember what I need to do to revise for the resit exam come next August. Okay, here we go:

1. The preparation for exams (and the likely for a resit) actually starts sooner than you think. It involves planning your SSC and electives really carefully that IF you failed the exams on December, you can gain ample time to study for the duration of 8 months for the resit exam.
2. Lectures - Dead important. Do not skip any of it because a lot of the questions came from the lectures. Also, the lecturers are the one who set up the questions so they have to take it from the materials that they teach. However it doesn't stop them from giving us bloody difficult questions.
3. The symposiums are DEAD important. Memorise everything and do background reading on all topic. Make sure to understand all those stuff rather than just memorising.
4. Please learn how to calculate relative risk reduction.
5. Please learn how to do prescription dose calculations.
6. Signal transduction pathway is so bloody annoying to learn but it's gonna come out so please learn all cell signalling types and their examples. (ERGGH!)
7. For pharmacology, THE BEST BOOK THAT IS BETTER THAN YOUR GIRLFRIEND IS Lippincott Illustrated Reviews: Pharmacology. 
8. 
9. A lot of questions is about interpreting results of an investigation. They will give you readings of biochemistry markers, liver function tests, renal profile and etc. MAKE SURE YOU REMEMBER / UNDERSTAND WHICH CONDITIONS OR DISEASES WILL CAUSE HYPO/HYPER NATREMIA/KALEMIA/ETC. BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T THEN THOSE STUFF WILL COME BACK AND BITE YOU IN THE ASS DURING EXAMS.
10. Read about all inherited disease that you can find because they will give you diseases that YOU ARE DOUBTING THEIR EXISTENCE BECAUSE WHAT THE FISH MAN YOU DIDN'T MENTION A THING ABOUT THIS DISEASE IN YOUR LECTURE.
11. Just memorise all the side effects of all drugs. In fact, memorise everything about pharmacology.
12. The Pretest exercise books are beneficial. There is no harm in doing those books.
13. READ ALL ENDOCRINE DISEASES, MULTISYSTEM DISEASE AND DERMATOLOGY BECAUSE BLOODY HELL I THINK I WAS RAPED BY THE QUESTIONS IN THE EXAM JUST NOW.
14. BASICALLY, READ EVERYTHING. UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING.

O God, I pray that I will pass this exam. I think I had worked hard enough to pull this off and although the questions are hard I don't think I will get a very low mark. I know it is impossible to get a 70%, but at the moment I really wish just to pass. I had made a nazar and I really wish my nazar got accepted amiiiiinn~

Okay, that's it for now. Dear future me, please be strong. You can do it. Now that you know what to expect, (pray that you don't have to resit) you can pass the year! GAMBATTE!!