"Now Say 99..."

We were assessed today on our respiratory examination technique. Big breath of relief (no pun intended) because I passed. I definitely didn't ace it, unfortunately - I practiced so much for this one in the hope of doing better than our GI exam last month, but I don't think I was particularly more fluent this time around. At least it is DONE, though. It is quite frustrating, having these assessments throughout the year, which we have to pass, but not receiving any marks for them. It takes a LOT of time to prepare for the exams, time which we could obviously spend studying for the end-of-semester written exams which do contribute to our mark (95% of our mark for the entire year, in fact). It's quite harsh having practically all of our marks in written exams, when we are actually doing other forms of assessment constantly.

Each one is a relief to pass, as if we fail we have to attent 'remedial' sessions and repeat the exam until we do pass. So far, we have been assessed on two systems, and there have been no remedial sessions for the first system yet. This means that, potentially, students will be having to learn exams for three systems over the next block (if someone has failed both GIT and resp and is re-learning both whilst also learning the cardio exam, our next block). I think this will be quite difficult to manage for people - both students and administrative staff, as cramming extra remedial classes into our already jam-packed schedule will be tough.