Exam Intelligence

Past Vivas are now up online, thanks to my ISPs…timely…intervention.

Click here to get the link.

Do you waffle when telling stories?
Does your partner tell you to get to the point when you’re explaining about something that happened at work?
Do your family hold their heads and groan when you start off by saying “A funny thing happened the other day….”, or something similar?

Then you may be a waffler, and I’m not talking about someone who bakes light crisp battercakes in a waffle iron, rather, I mean the other type of waffler, who speaks or writes in a vague and wordy manner (The Free Dictionary).

You may not even realise you are doing it, unless some particularly harsh person in your vicinity tells you about it, or you do one of the things I will come to shortly.

To realise you waffle will take some getting used to. There will have to be acceptance on your part that you are using empty “filler” words as previously discussed, which simply waste your time, as you are not scoring points. Remember back to the SAQ. The key was to transmit as much information as possible in the most succinct, legible manner possible (A remarkable achievement you got a viva then - Ed.) Yes, thanks, I know my handwriting is terrible… Anyway, BACK TO THE POINT: in the viva, you have to do the same, but in the spoken word, so to speak (ahem).

To help you on your way out of denial, try doing one of the following:
1. Pop down to your nearest Lidl and buy yourself a £15 dictaphone with 15minute blank tape, or failing that, blow all your money on one of these dinky gadgets, and practice talking about, say, “What are the changes in physiology in a runner’s body from 30 minutes prior a marathon race, until some time after the race?”
2. Better yet, borrow a video camera and do the same.
3. Sit down with two really harsh consultants from your department and practice being viva‘d by them on the above topic, whilst recording the whole thing with one of the above devices, or just get them to feed back to you whether you waffle or not.

If it is the case that you harp on without going anywhere, then you only have a few days in which to hone your technique to eliminate waffling. Nil desperandum, as they say. It is all perfectly feasible.

The key is in practicing with yourself, in front of a mirror, with your wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend, with a dictaphone or video camera, or in front of pairs of consultants (or even one will do, at a pinch) in your department.

• Try using the Five Word Viva Game to cut out absolutely everything extraneous, then flesh out your answers a little bit to build up to a sensible answer.
• Don’t repeat yourself: “The main concerns are residual nerve block, excess opioid and residual narcotisation, incomplete recovery of neuromuscular function, hypoxia and metabolic/endocrine derangement, are the main concerns.”
• Try to cut out saying “Er, um, ar, ah, aer” etc. Try a pause instead.
• Elongate vowels in starts of sentences slightly “Weeelll”, “Theeeere aaaarre” and “Iiiiii wooouuullld” for example (you get the idea, I hope?).
• Be confident about your knowledge when you are sure about it, and make the examiners feel you are confident. Remember that you are not about to become a consultant (this isn’t an exit exam, as one of my consultants put it), but they are looking for someone who is a good Registrar (Specialist, Specialty or otherwise) to whom they could entrust a case in the middle of the night whilst they cosy up back to sleep, and not worry about it (unless worrying is really necessary, in which case they’ll probably come in anyway).

Keep at it: one way or another it’ll all be over bar the drinking in a 10 days time…