My exams start tomorrow, and I reckon I know a smaller proportion of the stuff I need to for these exams than for any exams I’ve ever done before. There’s no way on earth that anyone can learn everything we’ve covered. But I only need to pass, and I did OK in the January exams and the assignments, so I don’t really need more than about 50%. Manageable, maybe, but I’m still not exactly confident.

Tomorrow is the DIPSE exam (the big, long A-Level Science style paper). How I do will largely depend on what they ask (well, duh).

Tuesday is my first ever Clinical exam (ie with patients). Having never done anything remotely like this before, I’m not sure how it’ll go. It’s a bit of a funny one in that you can get full marks, and still fail if you do something drastic (like start swearing or wearing inappropriate clothes).

Wednesday is the OSCE exams, which most people hate but I quite like. Bascially, it consists of lots of little papers which you have five minutes to complete. You do the paper, they blow a whistle and you move to the next desk and do the next paper. I like them because if you haven’t got a clue, you can just waffle for five minutes and write complete guesses, and you’re not sat there for a long time wondering about it. You just go with your gut feeling. This is also the exam with the anatomy in it, where you have thirty seconds to answer the question before you move on. This is particularly confusing because you have to remember which way to move round the room, as well as the few things you actually know. Everyone also knows the anatomy staff really well, so you just know they’ll be laughing at your answers if they’re totally useless. That bit, I don’t particularly like.

Then it’s Friday, which is the multiple choice paper, which includes multiple choice questions (surprisingly), some of which have up to 15 different options (though most have only four or five), and also true or false questions. These aren’t too bad, because you either know it or you guess, UNLESS they decide to set a negatively marked paper, in which case I’ll probably wet myself and cry (at the same time).

If I pass, then everything is rosy. If I fail, it’s a bit of a kick in the nuts because it means I have to come back in August and do everything again. But if I’m borderline, then I face the head-exploding concept of a viva, where a panel of three/four people fire questions about ANYTHING on the course at me, and expect me to sit there and answer. Worse still, I won’t find out if I’ve got a viva until about an hour before they start. Major eek. This also means I’ll be having nightmares from now until June 10th, the day of the vivas.

Luckily, though, shortly after June 10th I should (hopefully) be going away with some friends to the weekend. The destination is as yet to be confirmed, but Dublin looks likely. Which will be nice.

So that’s what this week will be like for me.

Originally posted on The LBSC