Exam

So. The exam.

Bleurgh.

I (and others) think parts of the paper were pretty difficult, but I'm also kicking myself for not being at the required standard. I've realised that the way I revised for these exams doesn't work. I wish I'd realised this earlier, I should have done considering how much the med school have gone on about it.

These exams are different from my undergraduate exams, in that the papers are integrated, so that the separate modules aren't examined separately = cramming doesn't work. My problem is though, that I really struggle to learn large quantities of material. I did a lot of revision before Christmas, but come this week most of it had disappeared from my brain and I had to try to re-learn it all. I definitely know that next term I need to make revision notes and learn the material week by week. There were 4 questions of several parts, each worth 20 marks. You have to get approx 12/20 to pass each question, and to pass the exams you have to get 5/8 questions right (out of today's exam and my next exam). The first question was nice (and lulled me into a false sense of security), but after that the exam went downhill. On the next 3 questions I could answer parts of each question, but there were also sections were I struggled to write anything sensible at all. I'm pretty sure that I've passed the first question and failed one question. I'm hoping that I may have scraped a pass on the other 2 questions, but I'm worried that I'm deluding myself.

I think I'm being quite hard on myself, as other people seem to have found the paper the same as myself and don't seem to be overly stressed about the possibility of not passing, but in my mind I think that maybe they're just being modest and they'll still scrape a pass. I'm a perfectionist and really don't like not doing well on things. If you fail you also have to go in front of a group of people from the med school to get grilled about why you didn't do very well, and apparently this isn't very pleasant.

I guess the point of these formatives are to kick you up the ass (and boy, it's worked) and to show you what works revision wise, but I just can't stop feeling shitty about them, and myself, right now. I guess I'll just have to try to put this exam past me and concentrate on my next exam on Thursday.