The big joke
13th January, 2009 1.05 pm With Medicine paper-1 answered somewhat satisfactorily, I was now faced with the task of preparing for the ever dreaded Medicine paper-2 scheduled for the next day. “Tomorrow’s exam is going to be one big joke” retorted my friend on my way back home. I wanted to start preaching about optimism, but found myself nodding my head in agreement with her instead. She had a point. There was less than 20 hours left for the exam and a mammoth portion of the syllabus to read. It wasn’t going to be easy.
2.00 pm Ready to face the challenge, I opened the textbook to the page of contents. I quickly decided upon a plan. I would read the unimportant small topics first and dwell on the big essay question topics later on. Finishing the small topics first would give me a lot of confidence and let me concentrate on the more important ones. I estimated it would take me roughly 3 hours to do so. Setting myself this time limit, I proceeded with the short topics.
5.00pm I wasn’t even half way through the set target. I decided to speed up and soon ended up merely turning pages.
6.00 pm I finally decided the short topics as being adequately dealt with and shifted my focus to the central nervous system.
7.30 pm Motor neuron disease…who in his right mind was going to ask this? I decided to skip that…..Multiple sclerosis…skip…..transverse myelitis…skip…skip
8.00 pm After a lot of skipping and jumping, I decided I couldn’t take it any more. I decided to yield to my groaning stomach’s plea and have dinner.
8.30 pm I couldn’t concentrate on anything more. I badly needed some sleep. I walked to my bed, switched on the fan at the highest speed and slipped into bed with the blanket over my head, having set the alarm for 4.00 am. I was troubled by thoughts wondering if I was the only person among the 250 odd people giving the exam the following day, who was in bed so early. I waited to fall asleep as I nervously tossed and turned in bed amidst an obsession and compulsion routine of checking the time repeatedly.
10.45 pm The last time I remember checking the time
14th January 2009
4.00 am Beep…beep beep…I quickly killed the alarm sound and walked sleepily towards my textbook. Endocrine and metabolic system it was going to be. I skipped through pages and more pages of hormones. I spent five minutes hoping, wishing and praying that they would ask Diabetic ketoacidosis. I could rattle out the amount of fluids, units of insulin and millimoles of potassium to be administered accurately even in my dreams.
6.30 am With only Liver and Gastrointestinal tract left, laziness swept over me like a tide. I decided to sleep for some more time and get back to it later and walked back towards my bed to fall asleep in no time.
7.45 am What was I still doing in bed?! It was late. I was having nausea, functional dyspepsia and panic attack at the same time. The smell of breakfast made my want to puke. I swallowed everything on my plate amidst ‘you are disgusting me’ glances my mum was throwing at me.
9.00 am Yeah, having a bath and getting ready takes a lot of time. I was now faced with the challenge of pushing people all around to get into the least crowded bus to reach college.
9.20 am I was skimming through hepatitis, cirrhosis and malabsorption syndrome with sweaty hands.
10.00 am This was it. I nervously walked into the exam hall. I was having a first hand experience of the panic disorder my textbook had described so animatedly. Thoughts Liver and GIT were my source of phobia.
10.10 am As usual, the invigilator in the block opposite mine had already handed over the question paper to the examinees, while we were still left to chew on the mind boggling MCQs. There was an unprecedented outburst. Everyone seemed to be talking all at once. The ever silent exam hall resounded with harsh whispers. There was the sound of something crashing in the block behind mine, like someone had fallen off the chair. Did someone have a heart attack? Was the paper that bad?
10.15 am Having finally got my hands on my own copy of the question paper, I realized what all the commotion was about. The university had messed up. The question paper was wrongly printed. More than seventy five percent of the questions were from paper-1.
10.20 am The chief superintendent announced that we would have to continue writing the exam. Nothing could be done now.
12.55 pm I was answering the last question as the chief exam incharge walked towards the microphone. “This exam has been cancelled. A re-exam will be held at a later date” was his announcement. The exam hall came to life once more. Sounds of people banging their fists, some their heads and shoes on the table echoed from every corner. I wanted to set the building on fire. Reading the whole thing all over again was a nightmare. My friend joined me on the procession of a bunch of very angry young people walking down the stairs. “You were right” I told her. “Today’s exam was one big joke”.
2.00 pm Ready to face the challenge, I opened the textbook to the page of contents. I quickly decided upon a plan. I would read the unimportant small topics first and dwell on the big essay question topics later on. Finishing the small topics first would give me a lot of confidence and let me concentrate on the more important ones. I estimated it would take me roughly 3 hours to do so. Setting myself this time limit, I proceeded with the short topics.
5.00pm I wasn’t even half way through the set target. I decided to speed up and soon ended up merely turning pages.
6.00 pm I finally decided the short topics as being adequately dealt with and shifted my focus to the central nervous system.
7.30 pm Motor neuron disease…who in his right mind was going to ask this? I decided to skip that…..Multiple sclerosis…skip…..transverse myelitis…skip…skip
8.00 pm After a lot of skipping and jumping, I decided I couldn’t take it any more. I decided to yield to my groaning stomach’s plea and have dinner.
8.30 pm I couldn’t concentrate on anything more. I badly needed some sleep. I walked to my bed, switched on the fan at the highest speed and slipped into bed with the blanket over my head, having set the alarm for 4.00 am. I was troubled by thoughts wondering if I was the only person among the 250 odd people giving the exam the following day, who was in bed so early. I waited to fall asleep as I nervously tossed and turned in bed amidst an obsession and compulsion routine of checking the time repeatedly.
10.45 pm The last time I remember checking the time
14th January 2009
4.00 am Beep…beep beep…I quickly killed the alarm sound and walked sleepily towards my textbook. Endocrine and metabolic system it was going to be. I skipped through pages and more pages of hormones. I spent five minutes hoping, wishing and praying that they would ask Diabetic ketoacidosis. I could rattle out the amount of fluids, units of insulin and millimoles of potassium to be administered accurately even in my dreams.
6.30 am With only Liver and Gastrointestinal tract left, laziness swept over me like a tide. I decided to sleep for some more time and get back to it later and walked back towards my bed to fall asleep in no time.
7.45 am What was I still doing in bed?! It was late. I was having nausea, functional dyspepsia and panic attack at the same time. The smell of breakfast made my want to puke. I swallowed everything on my plate amidst ‘you are disgusting me’ glances my mum was throwing at me.
9.00 am Yeah, having a bath and getting ready takes a lot of time. I was now faced with the challenge of pushing people all around to get into the least crowded bus to reach college.
9.20 am I was skimming through hepatitis, cirrhosis and malabsorption syndrome with sweaty hands.
10.00 am This was it. I nervously walked into the exam hall. I was having a first hand experience of the panic disorder my textbook had described so animatedly. Thoughts Liver and GIT were my source of phobia.
10.10 am As usual, the invigilator in the block opposite mine had already handed over the question paper to the examinees, while we were still left to chew on the mind boggling MCQs. There was an unprecedented outburst. Everyone seemed to be talking all at once. The ever silent exam hall resounded with harsh whispers. There was the sound of something crashing in the block behind mine, like someone had fallen off the chair. Did someone have a heart attack? Was the paper that bad?
10.15 am Having finally got my hands on my own copy of the question paper, I realized what all the commotion was about. The university had messed up. The question paper was wrongly printed. More than seventy five percent of the questions were from paper-1.
10.20 am The chief superintendent announced that we would have to continue writing the exam. Nothing could be done now.
12.55 pm I was answering the last question as the chief exam incharge walked towards the microphone. “This exam has been cancelled. A re-exam will be held at a later date” was his announcement. The exam hall came to life once more. Sounds of people banging their fists, some their heads and shoes on the table echoed from every corner. I wanted to set the building on fire. Reading the whole thing all over again was a nightmare. My friend joined me on the procession of a bunch of very angry young people walking down the stairs. “You were right” I told her. “Today’s exam was one big joke”.
Comments
your blog was bang on target!
It is equally frustrating when even after 2 papers they dont ask about psychiatry & skin i prepared for it wasting so much of my time.
I believe it is the most draining experience preparing for these exams! by the end of almost four weeks of exams most of us were like let this get over I cannot take more of it!
Well written
Hope you are enjoying your internship.
Regards
Dr. Deepak
Dammam
I understand the long void in between your recent posts is due to your exams. Internship is the best time to put everything into practice. Hope to see more of your posts
Deepak uncle
Saudi
Really liked your blog and excellent post. Hope you keep writing more.