Does anyone feel that their classmates are holding out on old exams and material?

My classmates are not like that at all! Everyone is happy to share old exams, answers to study objectives, etc. Our academic chair has even put everything up on a website so we can access it all. Med school is hard enough--you need teamwork.

 

Either you go to a sh**ty school or you are a paramoid freak. Either way I'm glad I'm not in that position. Hang in there.

 

There will always be people who will turn school and work into a competition even if it isn't. Most people when I was in first and second year were eager to help each other out by emailing the class helpful info. But there were those who kept to themselves or to their little group and refused to help others. As much as I dislike it, it's their right, so just feel sorry for them and do what you can with what you have. I always found that there were way too many sources to get through in the first place, so do what you can with what you have. Good luck to ya!

--Brendan--
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These sort of folks run rampant at Baylor. I know of at least 5 or 6 students who hoard a lot of the "prime" material (tests, etc). It doesn't bother me so much because we have a ton of resources as it is, and it's not worth getting bent out of shape over.

I can recall an incident last year just before the end of our first semester. A student took it upon himself to email the class regarding a certain "private" website that was hosting class objectives. At Baylor, we are given a list of objectives before every lecture, and this is where most of the testable material is supposed to come from. I was personally in charge of running a sort of "study group" composed of about 15 students that would get together and complete these objectives. One person would handle 1 or 2 lectures per week and submit them to the group via email. We had a nice email system going, but I decided it would be best to archive these objectives on the web for future reference in case anyone misplaced an old objective.

At any rate, I thought it was ridiculous to make this website well-known and open to the world since this was OUR intellectual property that we were submitting (thoughts, etc about the material), so I simply password-protected the site to make sure everyone's name, etc was kept confidential. Granted, we didn't want to do the work for everyone, so password-protecting the site wasn't a bad idea. All in all, it was just a simple study group, nothing more. One classmate became rather irrate over this situation and demanded that we work together, etc etc. I didn't see the big deal with having the site password protected in the first place since it was a study group and our completed objectives could easily be reproduced by looking at the syllabi/textbooks.

Apparently, we weren't the only ones hosting a sort of objectives list. At least two-thirds of the class were exchanging emails regarding these objectives. We were the only ones archiving, though.

What really gets me is the fact that the person who accused me of not playing along with "the team" is one of the biggest exam/information-whores in our class. Med school is full of hypocritical lame-os

 

I'd probably feel the same way. We can buy all the old tests at the beginning of the year for like $100, so everyone is on the same level in terms of access to test questions. The problem is that there are so many damn practice test questions that I can't even get through half of them before each exam. There just isn't enough time! Not having another practice test to look at is the least of my worries.

 

You guys are lucky you have access to old exams. At my school the closest thing we have are formative quizzes online that add up to about 30 questions.

In my class, most people share study materials. Personaly, after the second test, I joined a group of other frustrated people in a review group. We share websites, quizzes, summaries, everything and anything that might help out other people. It also helps to study around them on the weekends so that if a question comes up, it's resolved in 5 minutes instead of 2 hours. You just have to find a group of people who you are comfortable with. As for those people who don't share, it just demonstrates their character. If that is the nature of their personalities, it will eventually bite them in the rear. You can't be in this profession by yourself. You have to know how to work in a group.

 

At my school, the students have kept a large test file in the basement in the OPP lab that had old tests in them. At the beginning of this year, someone in our class stole all of the first year tests!!!

Needless to say, everyone was ticked, including the second years because no one had ever done that before. Luckily one second year had a copy at her house. She gave our class a tongue lashing and replaced the files. So, it does happen

 

Geez, that's so dishonest. Whoever did that will have a hard time later on. He/She obviously needs to be #1 and that is not always the case in life. And to top it off, he needs to step over others to succeed. I wouldn't want someone like that as my or a loved one's physician.

 

one pretty cool thing i saw at JH when i was visiting was a stack of old exams that someone had copied for the whole class by the copy machine. i usually think of that place as a super competitive environment - but i definatley didn't get that impression when i went. i guess med shcool is enough to process even with tests etc... cool to some cooperation in a class

 

Man, you really are a prick....

Are you even in Med school yet?


Hiding good stuff (Old Q's , hot topics etc.) is the oldest trick in the book.

This runs rampant all over the world, and I would disagree w/ Diogenes, and say that if it DOESN'T go on, it means you are at a sub-par medschool.

If you put 100 competetive people in a program, this is bound to happen. (fact hiding)

The way to get around it is
1) Make good friends who are smart, and will share

2) Dont believe the hype--Study for yourself.

 

our school has the 2nd years selling the complete old test packet to everyone. so we all have access to it.

 

Bad, and recent, story from the pediatrics rotation at my med school:

Peds quizzes are a good portion of the rotation grade, are given twice during the rotation and are next to impossible to pass, so many copies of old quizzes are floating around. However, they are not equally shared when one person gets their hands on them. The course director got lazy and gave a quiz that was an exact copy of an old one that 1/2 the people on the rotation had possession of and had refused to share with the other 1/2. So they had 100's and the others got around 50%. The course director denied responsibility and told the ones that failed that it's their own fault for not having all of the resources, and the grades stand.

We were very good about sharing old materials as a class during the first and second years. I guess third year definitely brings out the worst in people.

 

that sounds awful. these people are supposed to be colleagues.

 

also this is for a peds rotation. ped docs should be nice!

 

I'm at a p/f school, and they provide us with online access to old exams, so it kind of takes the competitiveness out of it. We also have online access to former class notes, and are allowed to add our own notes if we feel they need updating.

My class is really great about sending links to additional resources, mnemonics, study notes, etc.

Of course, there are people here who are very competitive, but i find the relationships to be primarily collaborative and supportive. Part of why i came here in the first place.

Take care,

PCL

 

Fear not people, none of this will matter when you're a practicing physician. You'll look back and wonder why you were so concerned about getting old exams, back-stabbing classmates, etc. This kind of stuff means next to nothing in the long run.

 

True, it may not matter in the long run, but understand a couple of things about the story that I posted. A couple of the people that were "holding out" were good friends and classmates that I trusted and never expected that kind of behavior from. In fact, I gave them all of my old materials with the understanding that they would be shared (which they weren't). And at least one of them is applying for the same accelerated residency program that I am, so I may very well have to deal with similar self-absorbed behavior for the next three years. In any case, people rarely change, especially when their main focus is "me, me, me," and someone down the road, be it residency directors or fellow physicians, has to deal with that.

 

DrDaisy, I also did not realize just how many self-absorbed people there would be in med school. There are a lot of people in med school who think of themselves first and the patient as well as all others second at all times. You will have to deal with this kind of attitude and behavior throughout med school, and more so once you begin to practice medicine. Personality clashes and differences in opinion are nothing but main stream in medicine...ask anybody who'se been through med school. There is no shortage of dishonest or morally corrupt physicians out there, and I don't see that changing any time soon. I suppose the best thing would be to try to stay the same moral and kind person you are now and not let your experiences in med school or medical practice change that.

As far as exams go, don't get anxious about having "inside" info like others seem to do. At the end of the day, no patient will care if you got 100% on your biochem test or just passed. I know what I've said may sound like trite advice, but believe me when I say not a single person will care about your medical school grades in the future...they will care much more about the way you carry yourself and help patients who are ill and facing a very tough time.

 

it's true, most of this stuff does not matter, in the long run. on the other hand, if you're dead set on getting a nice match, or maybe into AOA, then i think it can help/hurt you. I think that directors and patients are becoming more concerned with a physician's credientials; and honors or a good quality residency will help determine where & how you practice medicine..

 

So you think its okay for people to backstab others? I don't agree with that. Yes, your patient might care where you trained. But they will also care about your moral character. No one wants to have a doctor who only cares about themselves; these behaviors only shows what kind of doctor they are going to be. I have come across a few of these people and when its convinient, they suddenly "forget" that I have helped them before. And guess what, the next time they need help, would I help them again? They can fail for all that I care.

If someone is truly briliant, do phenomenal on tests, and get into unbelievable programs based on merit, then I will respect that person. But if someone need to hide tests and backstab others so others will get a lower score, making their score relatively higher so they can get into "better" programs, then they are not only unworthy of being in the career of medicine. They are @#%$#@ in my mind. And these reputations will follow them for the rest of their lives, whether they want or not.

 

although I may have complaints about my classmates at times, I can honestly say that people are great when it comes to providing old exams, information, study guides, etc.. Everyone is given the opportunity to purchase an old exam packet via AMWA, and this tends to get rid of any backstabbing in the old exam dept. Also, before exams, the 2 representatives selected for each course use the class listserve to forward a correspondenc from the course director about what the exam format will be and what materail will be covered (or more often, encourage people to put their questions up on the internet discussion board for the profs to answer, or schedule review sessions). At least a few students send out notes via the listserv as well in the days before exams, and one guy was putting huge files online for the class to look at on his webpage. Many old exams are also available in the library. While Tufts may not be perfect; it is a great place to learn via shared information and cooperation.