Your school's testing schedule

[NREMTP]

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I was wondering what your exam schedule is like at your school. My school is on the "block" system meaning we take all of our exams on the same day, always a Monday. This semester we have 3 block exams and a final + the biochem/genetics shelf for MS1's. The admin decided to break it up as exam 1 after 6 weeks, exam 2 and 3 after four weeks and the final is 10 after exam 3 with the shelf in between exam 3 and the final.
Last semester we had our exam evenly spread out with 5 exams each 3 weeks apart.
What is everybody else's schedule like?

 

[PeepshowJohnny]

First Year: Exams follow the anatomy schedule (i.e. finish a section, take exam). Other classes follow this schedule regardless of how many lectures you have (i.e. only three behavioral science lectures given in pelvis section, you're only tested on those three lectures. If you had a ton of physio lectures during chest, you get a TON of physio questions). Some classes have their own unique "comprehensive finals" at the end of the year.

Second Year: Organ system approach. One test at the end of each. Works out nice and easy.

Third Year: Shelf exams at the end of every clinical rotation.

Fourth Year: Depends on your electives.

 

[indo]

1st year we had exams every other day for a week. 2nd year's 1st semester was crappy; an exam every other week from October until Christmas. It was really crappy for student morale.

 

[Slide]

First semester of M1 was atrocious. Gross Anatomy exams were at the end of each block (4 total), and developmental anatomy was on the same day, so we would have tests from 10AM to 5PM during anatomy test days. Biochem and histology gave out tests at the end of their own respective block (molecular bio, muscle, metabolism & GI, etc.) which was usually every 2-3 weeks, while Physiology would test us after each organ block. At mid-October this roughly worked out to a test each week, either on Monday or Friday. Head/neck, Anatomy board and biochem cumulative were on M/W/F of the last week, while the other two subjects had their tests on the previous Thursday. Morale among the student body was the lowest the entire year.

Second semester works out to having two/three tests every two-three weeks, with the occasional back-to-back test weeks.

 

[pseudoknot]

First year (subject based) we usually have exams every 2-3 weeks, non cumulative. M2 is organ system based and they have exams after each block, about 1/month.

I wish they were always every two weeks, personally. Less that you have to know for each test.

 

[NREMTP]

Yeah I wish we went back to the every 3 week schedule instead of 6 weeks of biochem, physio and immuno all on the same day! That really sucked.
Thanks for those that replied. I guess more people would like to talk about their favorite pens rather than "publishing" their school's testing schedule.

 

[DoctaJay]

We have 5 weeks of classes, and then a whole week of tests. Then it starts all over again...again and again....and again.

 

[katiekate]

PBL cirriculum:
M1 - 3 units (12-14 wks each) with two days of clinical exams (5 OSCEs and two SP/CCXs), anatomy practical, histo practical, and Friday morning is the comprehensive written final.

M2 - 4 units (6-10 wks) with two days of clinicals (3-5 OSCEs, 3SPs/CCXs, timed HPI, timed OCP), computer based USMLE style comprehensive final.

It's nice to only have an exam every couple of months, but when they are here, there is so much information to know.

 

[pseudoknot]

I think this is an interesting thread. Exam schedules probably make a much bigger difference in one's happiness during the preclinical years than a lot of other crap premeds look at, yet nobody ever seems to pay any attention to the timing of exams until they arrive at orientation. I feel like I lucked out in this but I'm sure that isn't the case for everyone.

 

[spilledmilk]

I was checking out the exam sched for Rosalind Franklin/Chicago Medical School this weekend and they get a week of vacation after every onslaught of finals

Seems like a great idea to me.

Anyone else get a break after exams?

 

[NREMTP]

Only the one I take personally.

 

[nightowl]

M1- tests all the freakin' time. Terrible. I hated it! 😡 first semester, anatomy dictated when the tests were, at least for histo, anatomy, anatomy lab, and developmental. Usually all crammed into one or two days. But then we had Biochem tests, too, and then they threw in physiology on top of that, and it was a complete and total nightmare For me, at least. I much prefer M2 year. No comparison. On a scale of one to ten as far as happiness in med school, M1 averaged about a 2, M2 about an 8.

M2- six week blocks. Five weeks of school, one week of tests. Nice and spread out. I normally take the week after tests OFF because we don't have a mandatory attendance policy 😛 Then, it's studying, but for me, the stress is so much less, and studying without the stress isn't all that bad. Time to sleep, time to go out, time to LIVE. I love it. The week of tests are very stressful, but I have literally taken a full week vacation (as in, leave town) after a test block. Doesn't get much better 😍 My hubbie is a M3 and I'm dreading his schedule compared to mine now. It's going to be good-bye freedom for oh, until retirement? 😱

excuse all of the emoticons.... I'm in an especially expressive mood tonight.

 

[SeventhSon]

M1- tests all the freakin' time. Terrible. I hated it! 😡 first semester, anatomy dictated when the tests were, at least for histo, anatomy, anatomy lab, and developmental. Usually all crammed into one or two days. But then we had Biochem tests, too, and then they threw in physiology on top of that, and it was a complete and total nightmare For me, at least. I much prefer M2 year. No comparison. On a scale of one to ten as far as happiness in med school, M1 averaged about a 2, M2 about an 8.

M2- six week blocks. Five weeks of school, one week of tests. Nice and spread out. I normally take the week after tests OFF because we don't have a mandatory attendance policy 😛 Then, it's studying, but for me, the stress is so much less, and studying without the stress isn't all that bad. Time to sleep, time to go out, time to LIVE. I love it. The week of tests are very stressful, but I have literally taken a full week vacation (as in, leave town) after a test block. Doesn't get much better 😍 My hubbie is a M3 and I'm dreading his schedule compared to mine now. It's going to be good-bye freedom for oh, until retirement? 😱

excuse all of the emoticons.... I'm in an especially expressive mood tonight.

ditto for me, minus the emoticons 🙂

 

[arsenewenger]

I was checking out the exam sched for Rosalind Franklin/Chicago Medical School this weekend and they get a week of vacation after every onslaught of finals

Seems like a great idea to me.

Anyone else get a break after exams?[/quote


I take my breaks every time since I rarely go to class anyway.

 

[cofcemt]

M2- six week blocks. Five weeks of school, one week of tests. Nice and spread out.

This is how my school does it, 5 weeks of school and 6th week is exam week. But we do it a little different than most. We do all of are exams on Friday in one 6 hour block (they try to aim at making it like the marathon day for Step 1). Kind of nice cause we get the M-Th off for studying and the like and Friday is exam day. We do this for all of M1 and M2.

 

[AK_MD2BE]

Here at Saint Louis University, we have an organ systems approach and generally take about 4-5 weeks per organ system with an exam at the end of each system.

 

[oxeye]

Tons of exams first year here. First semester we had 8 classes simultaneously (2 that didn't have traditional exams so really 6 "real" classes). There were only two weeks (after the first couple weeks) that we didn't have an exam and often we would have 2 exams in one week. There was a period in October when we had 7 exams in 3 weeks. Talk about burn out .....

This semester we have 7 classes (minus 2 without exams) and still have exams constantly. It's pretty similar to last semester, tests just a little less frequenty but we are in lecture more often and the tests cover a lot more material.

Second year has significantly less frequent tests fortunately! They have fewer classes also (though they are much bigger classes).

I wouldn't recommend this type of test schedule to anyone. I knew it would be bad going into this school and I applied early decision anyway because I didn't want to relocate my family but it really is a lot worse than I'd anticipated.

 

[lilnoelle]

I love my school's testing schedule. We generally have one test every 4 weeks about the previous block's material. We usually have a day off before the test and then we have a "retake" test two days later (with a day off between). Its a beautiful thing.

 

[SnowTown]

2 tests every monday, tuesday, wednesday, and thursday

5 tests on fridays

makeup tests on sundays

for every week of the month

and every month of the year

now that would really suck

we're actually on a block schedule

each block is about 8 weeks

midterm on the 4th week

final on the 8th week

 

[swoop]

Integrated curriculum, read as, a couple of lectures on anatomy some on histo some on physio, etc. A test every two weeks on Monday with an anatomy practical too.