Exams

Morning all,

It’s been a while since my last post. I have finished the second term at university and am now back home for the Easter holidays. I have three weeks off and am spending all of the 3 weeks at home. I have no plans to catch up with friends or anything and as my first year summative exams are in May I am using these holidays to revise as much as I can for my exams.

My biggest fear at the moment is that I will not pass first year. We do have resit exams if we fail but I really want to pass first time round.  We had formative exams in January. These were mock exams to help us familiarise ourselves with the exam format and get used to what OSCEs are like. We have two OSCE exams and two written papers and we have to pass all four exams to pass first year.  It’s a hurdle. For my formatives I passed two and failed two which at the time didn’t worry me as they were only mock exams but now that I know I failed them it means that I have loads to work on for the summative exams.  I worked a lot for the formatives but still that wasn’t enough to pass. I passed two exams and failed two so failed overall. I need to work much harder to pass. I heard that last year 20% of the year failed their summative exams and had to re sit in the summer. That’s scary. 20% is a huge proportion of the year. And if you fail second time round, then you get chucked out. I have worked so hard to get here and that would be just devastating.

I have heard that people started their revision last month and were staying up till 11pm in the library revising. That’s usually me but this year I have been much more relaxed and now the fear is eating away at me. Instead I have been watching TV in the evenings on my laptop or a movie and having an early night. But every time I think of exams it makes me feel nervous and my heart rate goes up. Since the holidays started, I have been going to bed at a decent hour and have been waking up at 8am to revise so I can get as much done as I can throughout the day. I haven’t watched a single movie on my beloved sky movies since I got back. I will take an afternoon off at the end of the week to chill and maybe have a lie in. When I go back to university I will have five weeks till exams start so I better start setting my alarm for 6am every morning so I can get a good chunk of work done before by 9am lectures. There are enough hours in the day but it’s how you use the hours.

I know my panic stricken post may make me sound over dramatic but the thought of not passing first year just scares me. It would seem as if all my hard work up till now was a waste. I want to be a doctor so much that I am willing to put the time and effort in, I just hope it’s enough and that it is within my reach and not beyond my capabilities.