Otago HSFY chat - archive

[Cathay]

[offtopic]Not joining us in hatbox, froot?[/offtopic]

 

[brin]

Although to be honest I think everyone (except demi-Gods and people who over-estimate themselves) walks out of UMAT feeling like it chased them down a dark alley and had it's wicked way with them.

Woah woah woah.. demi-god's a bit far..

 

[qbob]

I quite enjoyed UMAT, right up until section 3 - probably at least 1/3 of the questions I couldn't spot a pattern to save my life. Hopefully I guessed a few correct. Sections 1 & 2 were 95% sweet though, I hope.

I sat the umat last year and I walked out feeling a very similar way. I ended up getting in the 87th percentile for S1, 70th something percentile for S2 (I think 76??) and then 51st percentile for S3 (lol)

 

[brin]

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. Can't do any better than I'm able though.

 

[Cathay]

Woah woah woah.. demi-god's a bit far..

Not really... It's not unusual for people to come out feeling worse than any other test yet get a good score. Generally, people who score highly are also used to scoring highly and have high expectations of themselves, so when they find themselves struggling, even though they are outdoing a lot of people, they won't necessarily feel like they're doing well. I'm not talking about being a melodramatic perfectionist, either, UMAT is not an easy exam, and the percentile ranking is relative, so "getting raped by UMAT" and "ranking highly on the percentile scale" aren't mutually exclusive. Also we aren't told how many questions we got right, so for all I know, I could've gotten half the questions wrong and still walked away with a fairly decent score.

Another reason for self-impressions to be a bit off is the fact that the raw score we're given is difficulty-adjusted (ACER officially says the raw scores are difficulty-adjusted and can be compared from year to year,) quite possibly on a question-by-question basis (where each question has a different value depending on the amount of people getting it right), in which case one guy walking away feeling confident he got (the easy) half of the questions right and another walking out feeling bummed out he didn't see the obvious solution like everyone else in some easy questions, and only got half of the questions right (but a mix of easy and hard) can end up with wildly different scores.

Not to rain on anyone's parade (I must sound like it), but I don't believe we can make valid predictions on our results based on our impression of how it went, and I'm not sure I believe it's a worthwhile discussion, either, but that's just my personal opinion. I'm just saying that getting 95th%ile doesn't necessarily mean someone was being melodramatic when they said they had to guess quite a few, because our impressions of how we went in UMAT can be surprisingly deceiving. Also, I haven't stopped believing in post-exam debriefing, so please don't interpret this as a "cathay doesn't like UMAT discussions what a douche"

 

[brin]

The way I see it, UMAT is as you said, a test where the behind the scenes marking process is so convoluted that one's impression of how well one did can probably not possibly have any accurate foundation. It'll be what it'll be.

 

[Cathay]

I believe that UMAT prep courses don't do anything, maybe you believe they do something, but if you don't take 2 minutes to fill in a simple UMAT survey (waiting in your UO email inbox), then the scientific evidence collected will be biased towards me (near-zilch prep associating with good score). Make YOUR story/belief/opinion count, DO the UMAT survey.

@GG: Regardless of whether writing the above passage and posting it to facebook is effective or not, at least I tried

 

[greenglacier]

@GG: Regardless of whether writing the above passage and posting it to facebook is effective or not, at least I tried

Haha, thanks

 

[frootloop]

Am I the only one for whom HUBS seems to take up >50% of their study time? It was like that in semester one as well...

 

[Cathay]

Am I the only one for whom HUBS seems to take up >50% of their study time? It was like that in semester one as well...

Don't think you're alone on that one... Last semester PHSI didn't require constant going over (because it's a matter of putting stuff on the sheet and solving problems), CHEM was semi-familiar (thanks, ChO), CELS I didn't pay much attention to, and HUBS was the big one... This semester, BIOC seems to explain itself pretty well, I don't take an 8th paper, and HEAL is all vague and "big ideas" (so I'm gonna trust them on that one), so once again HUBS is the big one for me as well...

Edit: also the fact that HUBS feels like it's what we're here to learn - it's the one we feel we should be learning if we're to head into med...

EDIT2: Nice sig bar, froot.

 

[frootloop]

Yeah, I did like zero work for CHEM and PHSI (surprise surprise, they're my lowest two grades...), CELS just made sense to me, and HUBS required the bulk rote-learning.
This semester BIOC is, like you say, reasonably self-explanatory, pretty much just learn just the examples and you're set. And HEAL and MAOR aren't (yet?) exactly time-consuming....
Good thing I enjoy HUBS then

 

[Cathay]

Apparently with HEAL the first module is to set us up with some background and what not, and it gets intense when we head into study designs and all that...

 

[frootloop]

Good thing the first terms test is on module one then
Not sure I'm looking forward to the rest of HEAL then...
[OFFTOPIC]Random: Realised that the reason I had to spend 6 hours of my Sunday in a library is because I did nothing all week. Moral of the story, it'd be easier just to do it during the week...[/OFFTOPIC]

 

[xyz]

Do you actually do the GLM booklets? They tend to just sit in my room lol can't be bothered with them

 

[frootloop]

Do you actually do the GLM booklets? They tend to just sit in my room lol can't be bothered with them

I did the very first one, then realised just how utterly useless and time-consuming they are

 

[Cathay]

Do you actually do the GLM booklets? They tend to just sit in my room lol can't be bothered with them

I used to last semester... I would have continued, except today I was like "ah f**k it" and sat the GLM online test straight away...

 

[greenglacier]

Haha, HUBS may be the paper that feels the most like med (though, rest assured, HUBS =/= med), but it's HEAL that'll be the most useful to you if you end up in med.

 

[frootloop]

Ah, but HUBS=very little actual thought, so very easy to study for (if somewhat time-consuming...) Plus, anatomy interests me (so far), so the rote-learning doesn't seem too monotonous.

EDIT2: Nice sig bar, froot.

lol thanks.
Edit: Don't bother doing the HUBS GLM booklet unless you're really interested, I sat the online test without having done it, and got 10/10 (not really a big feat, it's a HUBS GLM... )

 

[Pineapple]

some of the fetal circulation stuff is examinable

 

[Cathay]

some of the fetal circulation stuff is examinable

Although to get that 10 in the GLM test you would've had to know your fetal circulation anyway...