Exam Intelligence

Share in the fruits of my labour.

Read about Pyloric Stenosis in this PowerPoint presentation.

James continues to maintain his blog at PassingTheFinal.BlogSpot.com and has posted up a pointer about the last report into SAQs from the RCOA. They always report back on what the problem questions were in previous papers. As he points out, questions which have been badly answered before have a habit of sneaking up on you again (and usually for good reason!).

We would like to thank him for his kind words….

PS:Watch out for the “Ex-Girlfriends Guide to Coping with His Exam Stresses…” series, coming soon….

Image by Indian Boy via FlickrWell, the new site is coming along nicely, and hopefully we’ll have some interesting content to go with the blog as well!

Do come back to see when it’s up, which should be very shortly!

FINAL FRCA Short answer questions by James Nickells, Maan Hasan, Vino Ramachandra and Neville Robinson (ISBN: 0-7279-1289-5; Publisher: BMJ Books)

Published way back in 1998, this book is looking a bit dated now, and that’s not just in terms of it’s cover, but also it’s typeface (better known as font, nowadays). The layout is in the form of nine exam papers which are the same format as the current paper, and include some old favourites, such as writing notes on statistical tests, describing the anatomy of the trachea, stress ulcers in ICU and anaesthetising in an MRI. From this point of view it gives you the opportunity to set a timer, and sit down and do “a practice paper under exam conditions”.

The model answers are simply laid out with bullet points and subheadings given to show a suggested framework, and the explanations are generally short and sweet. The questions chosen for inclusion were quite cleverly chosen for the principles of management and principles of answering, and answers are still applicable today. However, because the book is from 1998 some of the answers can be out of date and/or dated. For example magnets are no longer recommended for routine use (Anaesthesia 2006) with pacemakers. After a prolonged re-read, however, no massive glaring problems were discovered, and any issues there are with answers are fairly obvious, on the whole, and should only cause a minor irritation to the reader.

Less wordy than some other SAQ books in its answers, this proved a useful revision aid for it’s simle layout and simple answers. There are no “for extra bonus points” points, instead the authors stuck to the KISS principle. (Keep it simple, silly - Ed.)

Would we recommend it? Difficult one. Questions in this book are covered in other books which also cover more topics. I preferred the style and layout of the answers in this to some of the other books, but not everyone will do. Overall, it wouldn’t be top of the list, because other books have slightly more to offer, but it’s a useful adjunct to revision.