George Paul - Altruisianz 2017 Batch

Disclaimer: Everyone is different so their habits will differ,but this is just my two cents on how u can prepare

1. If you haven't picked up the book yet, and you have 2 months(60 days) I would suggest u try to cover the topics 3 times in the following manner 

       (i) 12days to quickly go through all the important topics in anat, physio, biochem u dont have to do detailed reading, in this instance i would recommend using slideshare or watching a video on 2x speed to quickly grasp the idea behind a concept then swiftly reading through the book,underlining any points that stand out. You can identify the important topics by going through the past 10years worth of question papers

      (ii) In the next 24 days,u can devote to a more thorough reading of all the important topics that u covered in ur first reading,u can split each subject into 8 days each or do a little of each subject every day its ur choice.

      (iii) Now u have another 12 days to revise the topics u had covered in these past 36 days as well as learn some miscellaneous topics,with this 48 days have been completed,in the last 12 days devote ur time to revision by testing urself in a mock test as well as solidifying whatever information u have learned so far

2. The method to approaching a question will naturally depend on the question, however most subjects have a general format to answering the questions,for example in a question about the shoulder joint,u will have to write under the subheadings such as location,articulating surfaces,muscle attachments,type of joint,clinical significance etc ,u can ask ur professors for specific advice on the order to write the subheadings in.

3. As i myself have not written the exam in this pattern i cannot be sure how much time to devote per question but i wouldn't recommend more than 40min on the 15mark question and more than 10min on the 5marks,do take this advice with a grain of salt

4. In preparing for the exam it is important that u set realistic goals for ur timetable and u try to follow it as much as possible, a word of advice: "If u dont stick to ur schedule for the day, do NOT try and carry over, reset ur schedule according to amount of work left over."

What to study

 For each subject,it is imperative that u learn the from the past years question papers,make a note of repeated questions and know how to answer them flawlessly

What to omit

Ideally everything should be covered, its only a matter of how detailed everything is studied,topics which are rarely asked or dont have much clinical significance can be omitted at your own risk

GENERAL ADVICE

ANATOMY

Try and get a mental picture in ur head,i recommend the youtube channel " viva voce of anatomy " to get a reminder of how organs are positioned in the body, remember to draw and label pictures with colors

PHYSIOLOGY

Try to correlate what u learn with clinical significance and relate to anatomy and biochemistry wherever possible especially topics related to endocrine,git and cns,try to write in concise points and use flowcharts

BIOCHEMISTRY

Remember to go through all tables and charts in ur first reading,focus on understanding general principles that govern metabolism (example: Insulin activates all anabolic pathways and causes dephosporylatio  of enzymes,these kind of basics will apply across all metabolic pathways)

   

Apart from that i would suggest u focus on learning metabolism (including chemistry) before u learn vitamins,if u have tables in ur book for vitamins i would suggest quickly learning from those.

A list of which pathways are anabolic,catabolic and where they take place(ctyoplasm/mitochondria) are also useful,once again make sure u create as many flowcharts and tables as u can to neatly present ur answer

Lastly remember to write neat legible answers,underline the important points in ur answer and make sure u use appropriate subheadings for every topic to give off the impression that u know what ur talking about

 

Take special care of your health and always remember to revise what u learnt the previous day