Online open book exam tips?

[IMG69]

Hi so i've just found out my exam is open book and it's 100% of my grade which is a joke compared to all the other Uk universities approach with Covid.

Any tactics or tips i've never really taken an open book exam like this before - my exam material is basically similar to step 2 with lots of ddx and treatment questions. It's also not the University's questions, they're using a company which does have several practice papers available and has been used by other medical schools.

Thanks 🙂

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[deleted915325]

We just started doing open note/book online too. I use my computer to take the exam and use my fiance's computer for my "notes" (aka looking things up from lectures etc). I study just like I would normally in preparation. I make a mental note of where I can find information that I am having trouble retaining so I can just look it up without issue. On exam day, I have everything on my fiance's computer ready so I can find things quick and easy without having an excessive number of tabs open. When going through the exam, I do all the questions I can without "notes" and flag the ones I don't know off the top of my head. After I do a full pass through the exam, I answer all the flagged ones that are easy to to look up. If there's still time left, I start trying to figure out the 4th or 5th order questions that I wasn't sure about and couldn't reason through with my base knowledge by scanning through journal articles on google scholar.

So far I've taken two exams like this. The one that I got the grade back on was Neuro, which is historically one of the hardest exams at my school and got a 98%, so this method seemed to work and really wasn't as much effort as it might sound (we only get 72 seconds per question and I still finished a few mins early).

I'm sure there are other ways to go about it and they will undoubtedly vary depending on what your goal is, but as someone shooting for AOA, this way worked perfectly. Hope it helps!

 

[IMG69]

Oh you have single subject exams, that's insane. I have my whole year in one exam Surgery, Medicine and General practice for all fields. We have about 90 seconds per question which is a little intimidating. Thanks a lot for your tips, I plan to basically use the browse function on my anki deck for keywords if I do get hung up on some questions. Sadly they've said these questions won't exactly be searchable which I doubt because at my level it basically has to be otherwise it's way above our level. We also base basically all our learning off the British online resources which I can easily scroll through during the exam.

It should be fine honestly but just looking for anything I may forget.

Thanks a lot 🙂

 

[deleted915325]

Oh you have single subject exams, that's insane. I have my whole year in one exam, Surgery, Medicine and General practice for all fields. We have about 90 seconds per question which is a little intimidating. Thanks a lot for your tips, I plan to basically use the browse function on my anki deck for keywords if I do get hung up on some questions. Sadly they've said these questions won't exactly be searchable which I doubt because at my level it basically has to be otherwise it's way above our level. We also base basically all our learning off the British online resources which I can easily scroll through during the exam.

It should be fine honestly but just looking for anythings I may forget.

Thanks a lot 🙂

Ah yes, they said all ours wouldn't be searchable too but they 100% were. I guess if you have no base of knowledge then they aren't searchable, but say its a 4th order question and you know orders 1, 2, and 3, then its easy to search for that last piece of info. If you didn't know the first 3 orders though, then getting to the answer would be impossible so I think that's what they mean. For instance, say they describe to you the presentation of medullary thyroid cancer without actually telling you the diagnosis and they ask you what cell secretes a measurable biomarker for this disease. Maybe your able to recognize that its medullary thyroid cancer and know calcitonin is the biomarker but can't remember the cell that produces calcitonin. Then you just google "what cell type produces calcitonin in medullary thyroid cancer" and boom, you got your answer. That's more basic science but the same thing applies for clinical oriented questions.

The breadth of info you have on your exam might make my method a little more challenging but you might be able to adapt it. Best of luck!

 

[IMG69]

Ah yes, they said all ours wouldn't be searchable too but they 100% were. I guess if you have no base of knowledge then they aren't searchable, but say its a 4th order question and you know orders 1, 2, and 3, then its easy to search for that last piece of info. If you didn't know the first 3 orders though, then getting to the answer would be impossible so I think that's what they mean. For instance, say they describe to you the presentation of medullary thyroid cancer without actually telling you the diagnosis and they ask you what cell secretes a measurable biomarker for this disease. Maybe your able to recognize that its medullary thyroid cancer and know calcitonin is the biomarker but can't remember the cell that produces calcitonin. Then you just google "what cell type produces calcitonin in medullary thyroid cancer" and boom, you got your answer. That's more basic science but the same thing applies for clinical oriented questions.

The breadth of info you have on your exam might make my method a little more challenging but you might be able to adapt it. Best of luck!

Sounds spot on with what my initial plan was which is great to hear. Hmm I should be fine i've been studying for forever and just combined Step 1 and 2 decks and taken the relevant cards from that and it's lined up with all my teaching so far.

Thanks again.