Old Exams

[Agent Splat]

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How many of you, at your schools, routinely use old exams from previous years in a class to study/prepare for exams? Also, how does your faculty/administration feel about it?

I'm wondering how common it is at other schools and if it's ever become a "big deal."

 

[MartianOddity]

How many of you, at your schools, routinely use old exams from previous years in a class to study/prepare for exams? Also, how does your faculty/administration feel about it?

I'm wondering how common it is at other schools and if it's ever become a "big deal."

About all of us. Our faculties and administrations don't like it, but they know it's a right we have, so they don't say anything. But on the other hand, it's nothing we bring up to them anyways, so that's maybe why they don't mention it.

I think it's ok, the Polish division of the school uses old exams, so we automatically presumed that we would have the same possibilities as they have, so we started our own exambank as our school never created one for the English program as they did for the Polish.

 

[adrenalitis]

UTHSC-San Antonio second years sell a CD to the incoming class with study materials and old exams from every course going back sometimes seven or eight years. The administration is not just aware, they tell us to use it. Very few of the questions repeat on our exams, but it gives you a good idea of the depth of knowledge on a subject that the professor expects you to have. I love it.😀

 

[jbrice1639]

About all of us. Our faculties and administrations don't like it, but they know it's a right we have, so they don't say anything. But on the other hand, it's nothing we bring up to them anyways, so that's maybe why they don't mention it.

how exactly is it your right? we have no access to old exams at our school (our exams are all computerized, so there's no old exams to be had even if you wanted them). i certainly don't think that our rights are being oppressed...

 

[Doctor Bagel]

We don't get to keep our exams, so no one studies from old exams as far as I know.

 

[logos]

How many of you, at your schools, routinely use old exams from previous years in a class to study/prepare for exams? Also, how does your faculty/administration feel about it?

I'm wondering how common it is at other schools and if it's ever become a "big deal."

Strictly prohibited here (Ohio State).

 

[Ms. Lippy]

SELL!!??

UTHSC-San Antonio second years sell a CD to the incoming class with study materials and old exams from every course going back sometimes seven or eight years. The administration is not just aware, they tell us to use it. Very few of the questions repeat on our exams, but it gives you a good idea of the depth of knowledge on a subject that the professor expects you to have. I love it.😀

 

[PenguinHead]

We maintain a web site that each class adds too as they pass through that year. We have tests and study materials going back for years. The faculty doesn't mind. It's a huge help.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

SELL!!??

My guess is that they're just charging students for the cost of producing the cd. It would be a little weirder if they were selling it to make a profit. 😱

 

[Bubb Rubb]

We maintain a web site that each class adds too as they pass through that year. We have tests and study materials going back for years. The faculty doesn't mind. It's a huge help.

same here. we have scanned pdfs dating back to the early 90s for many subjects. the curriculum has changed much over the years, however, so often only the last few years are remotely helpful.

 

[snoozer]

My guess is that they're just charging students for the cost of producing the cd. It would be a little weirder if they were selling it to make a profit. 😱

I'd hope so, of course there are exceptions where professors try to sell you their books by making it a required part of the course.
As for the old exams thing, our school stopped releasing exams a couple years ago so we use stuff that's a couple years old and the faculty don't seem to mind. But because exams are never released, they have to put up practice exams before each test and eventually we're putting those into a bank too. Haha.

 

[Sophie]

At my school they reuse most of the exam questions from year to year. Thus there are no old exams to study from. The second years sometimes tell us topics they remember being on their exams, which is helpful, but I don't think the administration looks upon this very favorably.

 

[Pontifex Maximus]

We don't get old exams as they are all computerized, but sometimes they do give us practice exams which are generally way off base but occasionally have a question or two on the real thing.

They re-use questions too, so much so that they made the same miskeying errors as last year 🙄

 

[45408]

well, Splat knows this for our school.....but we've got lots of old exams. Some professors make them available online or on reserve in the library, although some of them are pretty old (for anatomy and embryology though, it's a moot point - the same people taught the class 10 years ago 😛). Physiology and biochemistry give us very recent exams though.

 

[med_heidelberg]

Old exams always end up leaking out, technically they aren't supposed to and we shouldn't have access to them, but it always happens. I am sure the profs know about it though. I wonder how they get out, because we have to turn in the exam and write our name and student ID number on it, so if you turn in a scanton without an exam, I am sure that wouldn't go over too well. So someone out there is pretty smart. I think they grab a copy before the exam starts, cause they are lying on the desks when we walk in. Once one exam leaks, everyone copies it. Having old exams is really helpful. Occasionally the professors will reuse a question, and doing the old exams before the real exam helps you know what kinds of things might be asked and how well you would do. But somehow, the real exam ALWAYS seems more horrendous, hehe.

 

[Bertelman]

My guess is that they're just charging students for the cost of producing the cd. It would be a little weirder if they were selling it to make a profit. 😱

Nope, it's a profit, and a handsome one at that. Before you all go ape$hit and talk about how crappy that is, consider a few things...

If you could pay, say, $50 for a CD that contained several years of old exams for every MS1 class, would you?

If your class guaranteed that you would sell the same CD, and make the same profit when the incoming MS1s arrive, would you?

Of all the books you purchased during your MS1 year that cost about $50, with the exception of maybe First Aid, how many do you really believe provided as much return as a test bank for every single class?

btw, our classes generally do not charge any kind of membership fee. I have heard of schools which charge upwards of $100 annual fees for crappy parties. Tell me that doesn't suck.

It's funny how each med school has its own set of traditions that are taken for granted, as though we believe it is the same everywhere.

 

[Tired]

My school has multiple copies of old exams floating around, although personally I've never felt the need to hunt them down.

It's interesting. The faculty that are the best teachers are the ones who kind of wink & nod at old copies of tests, because they are also the ones who change their exams the most from year to year. The "less interested" faculty who reuse the same exams over and over again are the ones who threaten to expel students they catch using old exams.

 

[akpete]

well, Splat knows this for our school.....but we've got lots of old exams. Some professors make them available online or on reserve in the library, although some of them are pretty old (for anatomy and embryology though, it's a moot point - the same people taught the class 10 years ago 😛). Physiology and biochemistry give us very recent exams though.

Prowler, there's some crap going down right now with old exams, leading to Splat's post. See the 2009 thread for a hint to what's going on.

 

[lilnoelle]

We have some old exams back from a few years ago, but the school has gone computerized in the last couple of years so nothing we have available to us is new. The school is making every effort to ensure that we will not give current testing material to future students. I imagine they will get the same material we have (tests from 2000-2003) but nothing more recent.

 

[bjackrian]

Depends on the class. Some classes have strict policies that looking at exams for the last twenty years is a violation of the honor code. About half the classes put old exams on reserve in the library that you're free to copy (anatomy and histo come to mind there) or post a representative old exam or two on our Blackboard sites.

 

[SoCuteMD]

Some of our classes have old exams, some don't. I did just about the same in the classes that did as I did in the classes that didn't (although it did require me to change my study strategy). As nice as it is to have them, I think I LEARNED the material better when I didn't have them.

 

[Anastasis]

I know there's a website advertising UT-H old exams but I have no idea if people actually use it or not. Seemed steep to me: over $100 for the CD.

 

[MartianOddity]

how exactly is it your right? we have no access to old exams at our school (our exams are all computerized, so there's no old exams to be had even if you wanted them). i certainly don't think that our rights are being oppressed...

If the polish students have those rights, as expressed in our regulations, so do we. They keep an open archive with exams for any student to look through in the polish division, so it's logical to assume that their rules apply to us as well. And they do.

EDIT: It's a right we have in our school. Just because you don't have it it doesn't mean that your rights are being oppressed, as the specific right wasn't there in the first place.

 

[vtucci]

we do not get our exams back and do not have any sample exams to study from.

 

[Shaun0479]

Personally, the students at my school thrive off old exams and it is very frustrating to see. Many of the new exams have 50% or more of the questions repeated and students get by on tests knowing minimal information. Many of my fellow students have disagreed, but I have approached the professors on many occasions and requested that new questions be written (at least the majority of questions).
Especially when it comes to courses that are not pass/fail, it really can be unfair for the students that actually put a lot of effort forth on knowing the material. Sure, the true reward should be actually just learning the information, but unfortunately grades can matter when it comes application time.

 

[OHMAN0125]

Personally, the students at my school thrive off old exams and it is very frustrating to see. Many of the new exams have 50% or more of the questions repeated and students get by on tests knowing minimal information. Many of my fellow students have disagreed, but I have approached the professors on many occasions and requested that new questions be written (at least the majority of questions).
Especially when it comes to courses that are not pass/fail, it really can be unfair for the students that actually put a lot of effort forth on knowing the material. Sure, the true reward should be actually just learning the information, but unfortunately grades can matter when it comes application time.

If they are just memorizing the answer then it'll come back at them when they study for the boards. They'll have a much harder time learning it for the first time at that time. So in the end, you'll have an easier time during Step 1 since it's mainly review for you.

 

[Tired Pigeon]

Many professors choose to make old exams available to the entire class. The idea is to level the playing field. If old exams were not freely available, a few individuals would probably somehow get their hands on them anyway and would enjoy a significant unfair advantage. Of course, if there is a serious honor code, this isn't as much of an issue. Unfortunately not every school has an honor code.🙁