Friday, December 01, 2006

Explorace anyone?

I just had my dental exam on Wednesday. It consists of MCQ, SAQ (short-answer questions), and OSPE (objective structured practical examination).

The MCQ and SAQ was okay (but I fell sick the day right before the exam, an extremely inappropriate time to be sick, really. Had a raging headache, blocked nose, burning sore throat and was unable to sleep. Ouch. Haha)

What I really want to talk about is the OSPE. We are given diagrams, teeth, pictures of diseases etc, then must label, and answer questions. It was like being in some sort of wacky game show quiz, albeit plus an extra load of fear of the unknown…. Hey, this is an exam, man, not just a game!

Actually in this exam, there are 14 stations of questions. The candidate must go through all of them, given only 3 minutes on each question. There is a bell that rings every 3 minutes, and you MUST leave your place when it rings, or you’ll be blocking someone else, as well as get scolded, or worse, kicked out of the lab.

Imagine our old lab in Cochrane. The big tables in our lab are just like that, just newer and with many weird machines and contraptions like those you find in a dental clinic….

So we must move from table to table every 3 minutes, in one circle around the lab lor…
(Oh add one thing, we must wear our white coat in this exam, like real doctors! First time, you know! Haha wish I had time to take a picture…)

3 minutes is quite long, right? WRONG!! Imagine if you’re given two extremely ugly teeth ( I mean they are discoloured, slightly broken and has barely recognizable features…) And you need to identify both of them, write down their numbering and name, then give SIX differences between them! In 3 minutes! Most of us barely had the time to make out what the teeth were, then write only a few words, and the bell has tolled for us….

Some questions, like the one I mentioned above, we had way too little time, but others, there was too much time, so those who had finished just sat around watching the others sweat and panic…. Hehee

To be honest, if it had not been an exam, it would have been really fun and funny, not to mention exciting…. Something like Explorace, only you race around the lab instead of the city… Hahahha

3 comments:

Jin said...

hahahaha.. i hope there wont be someone falling down or knocking on the tables.. hehehehe...

June said...

falling down no la, but some of my friends went to the wrong table, blocking other ppl pulak.
Me, nothing major, except nearly missing one of the stations, cos it's placed in the corner... hahaha

BooNMiNG said...

*sweat ...