1. You do not address whether Babloo's statements regarding the trickery and hidden tagging on this particular anatomy exam is true. As you mentioned, of course, I would hope that any physician who is operating on me will understand anatomy. But I do not think that understanding anatomy entails trickery and hide-and-go seek with the tags. If what Babloo is saying is true, I personally think that kind of trickery and games on the anatomy exam actually detracts from a student's ability to learn and absorb the information because they must be paranoid and on-guard with their teachers methods. But if you happen to know from inside information that what Babloo is saying is not true, please say so because that would change things.
I have replied to this in several forums, and that is why I did not elaborate. Anatomy lab is tricky. I am not going to say that it is going to be a cakewalk. They require you to know very detailed things. I highly doubt that they tagged things that were not in the list, but what I can say is that the lab was manageable last year. The learning that you do in anatomy lab is not when you are taking the test, the learning is done when you are in the lab studying on your own and doing your own dissections for the hours on your own and during scheduled lab time. I am not an M1, I did not take their test, and I DID hear that it was difficult. The ppl I talked to DID NOT describe it as impossible. The several ppl who I spoke to were successful on the test, although they said it was difficult.
Several days before the lab practical, the Anatomy department takes the time to go through all of the bodies and sets up a practice practical for the students. The way that they tag things does not change. The department does make you look at things from a different perspective (tag something from the back that you would often look at from the front), but if you properly study for the exam--you are going to be successful.
2. Instead of addressing the veracity of Babloo's accusations, you defend the NSU by pointing out the elevated class average AFTER appeals. As a person who interviewed and is really considering NSU, I would like some reassurance beyond the fact that the tests are in fact poorly written (tagged) and but then after you fight the fight, you will get your grade readjusted. I would assume that the faculty members having been doing this long enough that they should know a little better how to write/tag for anatomy exam. I mean, for the class average to go from a 65% to 87% because the students basically rioted and went through formal appeal process is certainly not reassuring. As you mentioned, first year is hard enough without being forced to fight for fair grading and testing.
I have NEVER seen the average really be a 65%, but I don't have inside information about this--all I know is what I was told the average was as of today. The assumption that you made about faculty members doing this for a long time was faulty, the specific teacher who the students complained about the questions on taught this for the first time this year. I am not saying that there were not a few bad questions, but for a few bad questions on one exam to be a reason to not go to a school absurd.
The practicals tags are not always easy, once again--they require you to know your information WELL...and sometims you just can't know what they are asking for. However, there are continually students who are very successful on these exams.
There are RARELY any questions thrown out M1 year, and M2 year there are maybe 1-3% of the total questions thrown out. That all being said, as of this year the school is the first year in a transformation to a testing question bank. The great majority of questions that they will be using in subsequent years are questions that have been tested and have been proven to be sound questions. In the future, there will probably be NO questions thrown out.
I really liked the school, but Babloo's posts did make think twice. I appreciate that you are trying to get an another view - a positive one -of your education at NSU. I also appreciate the fact that people who happy with their school do not come back to SDN to write about it...it is often when people have complaints that they will take the time to vent, so I really do appreciate your opinion.
You are correct, I come on here for another reason at this point in time, and just drop by here to see what is said about my school from time to time.
I will say it again: NO school is perfect. I didn't address it, because I don't know how good or bad the test was. All I know, is that in the end everything is fair. There are bad questions from time to time, but I am getting a GREAT education.
If you have any other specific questions, let me know--I'll try to answer them between studying for my GastroInterology final.
