Exam Intelligence

Well, I didn’t post anything for a while, because I felt it was unfair to do so when I might not even have passed the written Final FRCA part.
But I did.
Now all I have to do is pass the viva voce exam and I’ll be done….hahahaha! Oh how I laugh.
All uphill from here then.
My friend Tasha N. pointed out that having found out you passed the SAQ/MCQ gave you an extra confidence boost that might make you feel “Oh well, I can coast it from here on in”.

NOT the case at all.

I have just spent a few hours sitting with a clinical viva book and going “Yes, but I would anaesthetise him, because I’ve anaesthetised patients like that in real life” and then finding that, actually, the book says “No you jolly well don’t“. Ah. Okay.

Anyway, I think as fellow blogger James S. points out over at Passing the Final, the most important thing is probably to talk lots.

By the way, if you want a nice sieve for differential diagnoses, try this one “VINDICATE“.

Happy revising….

Well that was an interesting experience.

I felt happy with the SAQ. If I don’t pass it will be because I simply didn’t put the correct things down, not that I didn’t know the subjects being asked about.

The MCQ on the other hand was a lot more tricky than I was expecting.

DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE the MCQ.

Questions on the specifics of bradykinin, atropine (and not necessarily things you would expect), diseases associated with elevated cholesterol levels were all in there, amongst others….

One of the things that came out of the last 7 days spent doing an SAQ and MCQs every day for for a total of about 80 SAQs and about 150 MCQs. One of the benefits has been from marking those SAQs ourselves, against an “ideal answer” sheet.

I actually tried quite hard to give credit for some answers that were difficult to read, but it really was frustrating. And that’s what you want to avoid the examiner feeling to get maximum marks.

Here is a much nicer answer to mark than some of my first attempts.

Note the open spaces, capitalisation and clean underlining of “MANAGEMENT” on the right, and compare with the “Blood glucose” sub-point of “Metabolic derangement” closely followed by the “Malnutrition” sub-heading, and see how different it appears.

For comparison, here is a bad layout in an answer about venous air embolism.

If you want to learn more about how to do this, then you need to go on one of Dr David Gray’s Courses in Liverpool. There is NO substitute for the stress you go through on the course, such that by the time you get to the exam it will worry you less. It is, of course, done in a safe environment, and no trainees came to any physical harm except exhaustion.

Please understand that at the request of the organisers and the time and effort they put in, I can’t put more information about the SAQs or MCQs on this page!

Well, I’m on a course in Liverpool at the moment, and it’s quite interesting.
We’re not sure where to aim our standard of answers, but right now we think that doing an SAQ and an MCQ a day with some, erm, interesting questions with interesting (highly detailed) answers, is pushing things a bit.
One of the things we’ve been hearing a lot about is Cardiac. Someone pointed out that there hasn’t been a cardiac question the last couple of years. I haven’t checked, but if that’s the case, then there is a high probability of one coming up in the SAQ this time round.
1 week, days to go.

Well, it basically means trying to figure out what are the hot topics in the run up to the Final FRCA, and keeping that information somewhere central that I can access from pretty much anywhere with an internet connection.
If it helps someone else, that’s great, but that’s not what it’s entirely aimed at!
I’m compiling a list at the moment, so if you are keeping tabs, don’t expect to see it immediately, and just because it’s on here, doesn’t mean it will come up, and just because it isn’t, doesn’t mean it won’t!