Past exams and such

[Doc321]

Is there a website or a way of obtaining past exams and quizzes? Or do i just have to be lucky and make friends w/ veterans?

[tRmedic21]

Not that I know of, anyways.

Alot of instructors will release their old exams into Note Service as packets for you to study with, or will just let people take the exam when they leave the test. These exams float around school easily, and you can always get old tests from friends in upper classes.

There is also a fraternity called Phi Chi which maintains a 'library' that supposedly has alot of old material that isn't common knowledge. I have heard there are old tests that were surreptitiously obtained that the instructor(s) don't know about and change seldom if ever, so these people may tend to do better on these exams. I don't know. I don't care much for fratermity **, it's much too 'undergrad' for me. Of course, there are always rumors about what Phi Chi has, but I really don't know, and I really don't care. If I have materials or advice to help people learn that is properly come-by (I won't use stolen materials), I will share it, regardless of if you pay me dues or put up with hazing. That's much to extortionistic/sadistic to me. :roll:

Just my $.02

[teratos]

Don't use old exams. It may look great to honor all your classes, but when you get the lowest score ever on the USMLE you will look like an idiot. Best to learn the material the forst time. G

[kennethhur]

I dont agree with notion that we shound not use old exam becasue of the USMLE. We still can utilize old exams while learn the material. An old exam is almost useless if we dont know the material. My Bio chem professors would give us the old exam to practice but of course, he changed the entire problems. It is same concept that MCAT students practice on previous MCAT problems from even Kaplan.


Sincerely

Kenneth.

[tRmedic21]

I like using the old exams to get used to the style of question writing by the instructor. Dr. Trotz gave us her old exams, and it helped me learn prior to my first exam in Biochem that she tested minutiae! So, I learned the material in enough detail to satisfy her, but I learned it better overall. It may help you learn it with a bit of a slant toward their test-writing, but that is going to be the eventual outcome of a class anyways, learning the material with a slant towards the instructor's view of what's important.

Another case in point is Dr. Blevins. His questions are ridiculously complex and silly hard. It's the only 40 question multiple-choice test we get 70 minutes for! But if we had had access to some of his old exams, we might have been familiar with that question-writing style and had a better notion of how he was going to ask the questions, thus saving some of us our sole failing grade of the class. Yes, you have to work that much harder, but is it really necessary to fail an instructor's first exam just to figure out how they are gonna ask their questions? I don't think so, but I'm at the brunt of it, so I may be a little biased.

[teratos]

If the profs give out their exam, that is one thing. If there is a "database" of old exams that people have which contains most of the questions that will be on the upcoming exam, that is another. We all know that there are a lot of exams out there that shouldn't be. That only hurts you in the end no matter how you look at it. Perhaps I wasn't specific enough. I think that the "style" of testing arguement only goes so far. If you really know the material, then no matter what types of questions are asked you should know the answer.

Kenneth, perhaps you don't realize that there are a lot of old exams floating around that contain the answers to the questions that will be on the exam. That is what I have a problem with. Cheating was, and I would guess, is still rampant at AUC, since many professors DON'T change the questions. A bit lazy if you ask me. G

[tRmedic21]

Rampant? Wow.... I don't think it's that bad anyomre. Of course, if you consider the use of a database cheating, then maybe it is still high. I don't use a database, but exams being passed around I do use, most of the time I know they are released by the instructors, but I think one or two have been typed up by students. I look at these as something like study guides, many of which are also typed up by former students and released in Note Services. However, if I knew a test was stolen from the professor and was being passed around, I would most definately NOT use it. I would also not use it if it was being passed around a 'select' group. Study materials should be available to everyone, not just those who are deemed 'worthy' of the advantage. This is a serious problem here, I think. That is wrong, and a violation of the Honor Code, and I certainly would not be a part of it. Yet another reason not to be a frat member, if you ask me.

I had the opportunity here at AUC to look at a notoriously difficult upcoming exam that had been inadvertantly left out by the instructor. As soon as I saw what it was, I immediately turned it over to an instructor and walked away. I could have looked the exam over first and aced it the next day, but I felt much more satisfied with my middle-B that I earned on my own. :lol:

There's no need to cheat. This material isn't hard, there's just alot of it. To my fellow classmates and future AUC students.... if you need to cheat to get by, it'll catch up with you eventually, and the fact is, I don't want anything to do with you when it does.....