Thread: Oral exam info (Hungary)

I was wondering if someone could go into some detail about how the oral exams are done in the Hungarian system. Are all the students present for everyones examination? Is everyone's exam on the same day? Is it a stand in front of the class sort of thing, or is it a one on one with the professor? Does everyone get the same questions or is it a completely random set up? Is it normally just one question or topic you have to explain or is it like 20+ questions? If I could get some info on some of this from people who have taken some of these exams I'd appreciate it.

The exams are not standardized, you will all be examined in groups, and the questions differ, you wont be standing in front of the class, but your conversation/exam can be heard by other students, although the examiner will probably try to keep it private.

The quality and level of the exam differs depending on who you get as your examiner, PhD students are easier (some are ridiculously easy) then the professors.

For example, in Debrecen the highest grade is 10, depending on how you answer your questions the difficulty increases, but they may cut you off because the examiner feels that you don’t know the basics or something.

And is that all there is to the exam? There are no written parts what so ever? As I understand in the Czech system they have some parts written, some parts oral.

Nope, none during first year.

If you are gonna attend DOTE the procedure is the follwoing:

1st year 2nd sem: Antatomy I: Severeal Self-control tests (oral), if you have a avreage of 6 or above you are exempted from the end of semester exam.

2nd year 1sem: Anatomy II: Several Self-control tests (oral), if you have avreage of 8 or above your exempted from the written part of the final exam (final exam in 2 nd year has two parts, written and oral).

Personally I like the system employed in Czech and Poland, it is much more objective.

Hope this helped.

Thanks for the help. One last question. Is the setup in Hungary like the Czech sys where you get 3 chances to pass the exam?

Yeah, for the Final Exams and End of semester exams..u got the A, B and C chance.

The A chance: is free of cost.
The B chance: u have to buy a tickett/ pay fee
The C chance: Same as the B chance, but at some schools the fee is a little more, and sometimes you need the permission of like the dean or head of the dept. (in DOTE B and C chances require a tickett, cost about 500 HUF,nothing else)

In some cases they might allow a special D chance, which is usally a oral exam.

Dr Evil,

As you said if in Self-control tests (oral), if someone has an avreage of 6 or above he will be exempted from the end of semester exam.
Then what is the average grade to pass? And what is the minimum grade so that one can get 10% to 20% off on school fees at Debrcen, Hungary?

Faisal, first of all "mobarak"...heard that you got accepted

If you get an average below 6 then you have to do end of sem. exam...so it doesn’t matter if you just pass or fail miserable, so try to get 6 in average, because during Anatomy I you will most likely only have PhD students as your examiners.

During Anatomy II (second year) you get exempted from the minimal/written part if you have an average above 8…its not really worth it if you need to spend way to much time on it…I was exempted from the written part…didn’t really matter…you need to know and study the minimals anyway.

(N.B Anatomy SCTs are togheter with the histo/embryo)

To get a reduction from the tuition fee your average final grade (all subjects) has to be 5 (or maybe 4…I don’t remember)…its pretty easy to get an average of 5 with first year subjects.

First semester you have 6 subjects that are just useless waist of time…so getting 5 in these subjects is easy…then you can get away with a 4 in Med Chem and Bio (the easy way is to memorize the question banks…the right way is to go through the lecture and seminar notes). Rember to score high on the SCTs, you get lots of bonus points that are vital if you want to score high in the final exams (in biophys. You can get exempted from the minimals and the biostat part!)

During second semester you have to watch out for Cell Bio…it’s the toughest one, study the essential cell bio book, go through the lab-book carefully, and pay attention to the topics that Vereb has and all topics that the professors handle.

Anatomy I is easy, if you just study it constantly u wont have any problems with getting a high grade.

Genetics has easy self controls, and you need to get an average of 65% (I think..)
From 3 SCTs…you can get even higher average relatively easily (the first SCT is basicly Mendel Classical Genetics) …and from what I remember people who had to do the final exam for genetics had pretty rough time.

Molecular Biology is best to keep for the exam period…or even until the August exam period (since you are aiming for an average of 5)

If you have to leave anything else from the exam period leave Cell Bio (along with Mol Bio) try getting exempted from the others.

Well thats my guide to 1st year...enjoy

Hello Dr. Evil,
Many many thanks for precious guidance......
Faisal

Dr. Paragh (dean of the Students) has ordered the anatomy department to restructure the way the evaluate students. he says he does not want a repeat of last semester with students taking cadaver parts home to study because they are so scared to fail. So this can be a good thing for the students. The dept. has this reputation for asking bizarre questions during final exams. Hopefully this will cease. GL and get you butt over here and stop playing on the computer!