Auckland OLY1 chat - archive

[Hopefully]

i reckon prof faull would be a great interviewer

As an aside, he is too nice to us for his MCQs

And has this grandpa aura

 

[BC mso]

As an aside, he is too nice to us for his MCQs

And has this grandpa aura

no way will his MCQs be that simple as the sample ones in the lecture, guarantee you that haha

 

[Hopefully]

I can take that as a GOOD thing then, BC The ones he showed us were way too easy without prior review xD

 

[hca12]

anyone else finding the past mcq's on piazza quite straightforward? i get the sneaking suspicion that these are the past questions that had a high proportion of students getting them correct and so they were discarded from the mcq question bank. i hope it doesnt end up like the 1st pop health test where the 'practice' are nothing in comparison to the real thing ..

 

[Hopefully]

Hm, I haven't looked at the past MCQs properly yet...but your hunch is most likely correct. (However, I have to disagree with you that the first pop health was different, I found them much the same )

 

[Rey]

Hm, I haven't looked at the past MCQs properly yet...but your hunch is most likely correct. (However, I have to disagree with you that the first pop health was different, I found them much the same )

Agreed.

Something about the test on the night just seems to stump people. After the test everyone said "Oh that was so easy!" but come results day people were fairly shocked.

 

[Hopefully]

Agreed.

Something about the test on the night just seems to stump people. After the test everyone said "Oh that was so easy!" but come results day people were fairly shocked.

Ahh, do you mean that in the sense that people were pretty confident with their pick of options, but then they found out that their understanding was...off when the results came out? Sounds a bit worrying :S

 

[hca12]

@2nd/3rd years - was last years medsci test difficult?

 

[4everAlone]

@2nd/3rd years - was last years medsci test difficult?

I found it pretty straightforward. Faull's questions were all basic and predictable, everyone complained about Malpas questions (do you still have him?) but if you knew your stuff then they were easily doable, just had to apply knowledge rather than spit out facts. Repro questions were pretty good too. Endocrine was also basic.

All in all pretty fair test, nothing too hard if you 'understood' what you've been taught, rather than just memorized it all.

 

[Rotors]

@2nd/3rd years - was last years medsci test difficult?

They have withheld the MCQ's from the 2011 Medsci paper on ExamBase

I did not find any of the fill in the blank questions to be overly difficult in appearance, I mean apart from a couple of respiratory, renal and cardiovascular questions I didn't know the answer cold off the top of my head but the questions were not "hard" looking

That 20 mark question on orthostatic blood pressure homeostasis looked like it might need little bit of work

 

[Rey]

Yeah I just reckon people underestimate POPLHLTH. Plus it's not a paper that you'd do exceptionally well in just memorizing facts. It is pretty obvious when you have no clue what you are talking about. Very few of the people who "BS" through a POPLHLTH essay actually don't know what they are talking about. The rest have a fair to good concept but just talk down their efforts.

Anyways with regards to MEDSCI, the test is ridiculously easy if you understand the concepts. They dont throw you anything random at you. Last year they added a question no one really got and it was removed from the final tally. Expect the same if anything random comes up. I can't say for sure but I remember the average being quite low.

Remember read the textbook throughly. They definitely draw questions from there and not just from lectures or the workbook.

 

[BC mso]

Yeah I just reckon people underestimate POPLHLTH. Plus it's not a paper that you'd do exceptionally well in just memorizing facts. It is pretty obvious when you have no clue what you are talking about. Very few of the people who "BS" through a POPLHLTH essay actually don't know what they are talking about. The rest have a fair to good concept but just talk down their efforts.

Anyways with regards to MEDSCI, the test is ridiculously easy if you understand the concepts. They dont throw you anything random at you. Last year they added a question no one really got and it was removed from the final tally. Expect the same if anything random comes up. I can't say for sure but I remember the average being quite low.

Remember read the textbook throughly. They definitely draw questions from there and not just from lectures or the workbook.

By textbook, you are referring to this heavy ass, over thousand page anatomy brick arent you..... fml
which section in your opinion was the hardest

 

[Rey]

By textbook, you are referring to this heavy ass, over thousand page anatomy brick arent you..... fml
which section in your opinion was the hardest

Well you don't need to read it all for the test but most of the relevant pages listed in the course book help. Anatomy IMO is much easier than physiology. Something about the physics of biology just trips me up - even though separately, I enjoy each field.

I cannot remember much about MEDSCI 142 but I do know that the latter topics were the most difficult and most hated by the people around me. Musculoskeletal, respiratory etc... As for the test you are doing now, I think neuro would be the most difficult. Cardio is the bestest

Nothing is "hard" per se, I reckon they give you predictable questions.

 

[Hopefully]

Mm, I was looking over the textbook for some of the cardio, and there was a lot of extra little detail like the structure of blood vessels (their 3 tunics) that I presume we don't have to know in as much depth as given :S

[MENTION=14945]Rey[/MENTION], it's interesting that you said that for this upcoming test that neuro is possibly hardest as a subject, because I'm finding it the opposite. It could be that I'm underestimating the topic though, as the MCQs we had shown to us were predictable enough.

 

[Rotors]

Mm, I was looking over the textbook for some of the cardio, and there was a lot of extra little detail like the structure of blood vessels (their 3 tunics) that I presume we don't have to know in as much depth as given :S

There is a question in last years exam about the histology of blood vessels so yes, knowing the anatomical differences is probably going to be handy as the questions tend to repeat themselves, sometimes, not always.

Knowing the difference between a capillary and a fenstrated capillary is bound to come in handy at some point in everyday life too

 

[Worshipppp]

I've only been studying the Medsci course guide book and recordings... Is there heaps of questions drawn from JUST the textbook materials? Theres quite alot of new things in the textbook not covered in the course manual...:cry:

 

[NAMPOLEON]

I've only been studying the Medsci course guide book and recordings... Is there heaps of questions drawn from JUST the textbook materials? Theres quite alot of new things in the textbook not covered in the course manual...:cry:

Integrating lecture slides with coursebook and what the lecturer said in class got me A+ so dont stress too much about the textbook..

I think a good rule of thumb is to refer to the textbook when you dont understand something from a lecture. (Id say for first year courses, this is sufficient)

 

[Rotors]

I think a good rule of thumb is to refer to the textbook when you dont understand something from a lecture. (Id say for first year courses, this is sufficient)

This. For most first year papers the textbook is a "nice to have" and each lecture or topic will have some recommended readings from the text but the text will cover a huge amount more than a first year paper does.

I made it through my first degree having only bought one textbook in my third year and I was pissed at how little we used it, waste of $100, in the end I left it at the Massey library with "free to whoever needs it" or equivalent written on a post it note attached to the front cover.

 

[Rey]

Mm, I was looking over the textbook for some of the cardio, and there was a lot of extra little detail like the structure of blood vessels (their 3 tunics) that I presume we don't have to know in as much depth as given :S

@Rey , it's interesting that you said that for this upcoming test that neuro is possibly hardest as a subject, because I'm finding it the opposite. It could be that I'm underestimating the topic though, as the MCQs we had shown to us were predictable enough.

I didnt enjoy Neuro as a subject so I am biased

But I reckon that people found the other topics marginally easier than Neuro. Again, depends who you talk to.

I've only been studying the Medsci course guide book and recordings... Is there heaps of questions drawn from JUST the textbook materials? Theres quite alot of new things in the textbook not covered in the course manual...:cry:

The is quite a lot but as I've mentioned earlier, they remove questions from the final tally if they are deemed too difficult. It's pretty obvious when people have guessed on a question because ~25% of the class will get it correct.

In any case, be extra familiar with concepts. The course book is just a guide for your further learning and not so much a bible (though it is quite handy).

 

[Hopefully]

There is a question in last years exam about the histology of blood vessels so yes, knowing the anatomical differences is probably going to be handy as the questions tend to repeat themselves, sometimes, not always.

Knowing the difference between a capillary and a fenstrated capillary is bound to come in handy at some point in everyday life too

Yes, of course, it IS in our course guide objectives!

Integrating lecture slides with coursebook and what the lecturer said in class got me A+ so dont stress too much about the textbook..

I think a good rule of thumb is to refer to the textbook when you dont understand something from a lecture. (Id say for first year courses, this is sufficient)

Oh ok, in that case, I can focus much more on the lectures themselves.

I didnt enjoy Neuro as a subject so I am biased

But I reckon that people found the other topics marginally easier than Neuro. Again, depends who you talk to.

The is quite a lot but as I've mentioned earlier, they remove questions from the final tally if they are deemed too difficult. It's pretty obvious when people have guessed on a question because ~25% of the class will get it correct.

In any case, be extra familiar with concepts. The course book is just a guide for your further learning and not so much a bible (though it is quite handy).

For me, neuro was very interesting! To each their own, I guess

Yup yup, I will take that into account when studying from the textbook...I mean, the content is fascinating but I really doubt they can possibly test us on so many little details in the MCQs due to the allocation of the number of MCQs to each lecture being quite small...