Question about NBME 7 question

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xanthomondo

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I'm not going to post the question on here (for obvious copyright reasons), but did anyone else taking this test notice this question? It was one of the first few questions in the exam, it depicted a cross section of the spinal cord and was asking something about loss of pain/temperature. Everything was OK until I looked at the picture and the word "RIGHT" was on the right side of the screen (which would have been the patient's left). I was so confused by this I had no idea if I was supposed to reverse my answer or they just made a dumb error and I should go with the corrent side.

Did anyone else catch this? I took a screen shot if you took the exam and didn't notice it.
 
yea i also noticed this and u had to reverse your answer considering which side they considered right, kinda annoying but i just went with it and got it right
 
i remember that too, it's nice that they do orient you on the real thing too. But actually, it's not a mistake--in neuropathology sections are viewed from the top down by convention.

So in a picture like this, the patient's right arm's muscles would be controlled by the side of the picture with two boxes? I think that goes against everything I learned in neuro.

04101hoa.jpg
 
which way was it on the nbme? but the point is that on the usmle they orient you--it's not some b.s. test that tries to f you up based on whether you know if spinal cord sections are viewed from the top or the bottom.

actually, come to think of it, what I said above is really more correct in terms of gross sections. I don't actually know which way those stained sections are viewed. It's not bottom up like CT scan, nor is it top down like your looking from the specimen's point of view. My bad
 
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