I was sitting in Micro class today and we discussed a variety of issues having to do with micro. However, another topic came up, and it was the idea of "black Monday". For those of you who aren't aware of what this is, it simply means that exams for each block within a semester are given on the same day...this day most often being Monday. I always thought this was a lousy idea untill I heard Dr. N's reasons for it being a possitive thing. When you take the USMLE, you are exposed to an eight hour exam, the exam is seven hours with a one hour break. If the "black Monday" system is put in place, students will feel what it is like to have six to eight hours of exams in one day, thus training them to the time endurance needed for the USMLE. The purpose of this thread is to see what you guys think of "black Monday" and the logic behind it.

skidoc42

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"Sometimes, when you're blind, and times seem darkest. You can often see more clearly." ~David Sloan - Kickboxer 2

i think it's a very good idea.

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i think its not a smart decision. I think thats what practice USMLE's are for. Someone needs to inform the faculty at SMU that there are things like practive USMLE's. Some of my freinds in US schools dont do that. THey may have a lab exam and a written exam in the same day, but never 2 written exams. There is enough stress with med school, we dont need anymore. People might think that this gets people more prepared for exams by not cramming, but i dont think it right because if you cram last minuite you will never pass an exam hear at SMU. It takes daily studying. Well those were my 2 cents

JG

As a person who has experienced "black Monday", I feel more or less qualified to respond to this. I transferred from MUA Nevis to SMU. At MUA, we had black Mondays. The format does somewhat simulate the extended format of the USMLE, but is still not going to really prep you. What it does do is make you cram more for the exams, and you miss a lot of concepts that you would otherwise understand given more time to prep for each exam. I think it has both good and bad points, but the bad outweighs the good. Cas in point: MUA Nevis has now abandoned it, at least for the upper semester classes, according to friends I have that are still on Nevis.

just out of curiosity, does saba still use this black monday system?

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AUC had the same concept one semester. I was told that we had the highest fail rate that semester in the history of AUC. I can personally testify to that. Thank goodness the Dean listened to the students and eliminated it the next semester. It sounds great in theory but when you're in the middle of it, it's another story.

The biggest complaint was that we didn't have enough time to review after one exam and then start the next exam. You spend 3 weeks learning the material and then you are not given the opportunity to review the material before the exam. It maybe simliar to the USLME but you are able to pick the day that you would like to take that exam, which gives you the time for each individual's needs.

I heard the reason they put the exams on the same day was due to the fact that half the class wouldn't show up the day of another course's exam. I believe we should be able to make that decision on our own (this is coming from a student that went to class everyday, before an exam or not, and in hind sight that may not have been my best strategy).

Just my 2 cents, let the arguments begin!

YOu guys are crazy. Having block exams will only force profressors over there to make the tests even easier than they already are.

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Heeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllllllllll noooooooo

Origin of Black Monday

From The Irish Fireside, Volume 1, Number 10, September 3, 1883
Shortly before the year 1209, a pestilential disease which raged through Ireland had wasted Dublin. It was therefore deemed necessary to introduce a colony of English settlers from Bristol to repeople the city.
On the Monday in Easter week of that year the new inhabitants had proceeded, in a sportive manner to Cullen's Wood, some two or three miles distant from the city, to amuse themselves with rural pastimes during the holidays. But the mountain septs of the O'Beirnes the O'Tuathils (O'Tooles), who viewed the daily influx of foreigners into their native country with no friendly eye, lay in ambush for the unarmed Bristolians. At a convenient moment they suddenly sprang from their lurking place on the unsuspecting Britons, of whom they slew three hundred, besides a multitude of women and children who had accompanied their friends to partake in their harmless recreations.

The town was soon re-peopled by the citizens of Bristol, by whom the day on which their countrymen had been massacred, was denominated Black-Monday, an appellation which it has retained even to this present hour. During several centuries, the anniversary of this extraordinary event was solemnised by the mayor, sheriffs, and citizens of Dublin, in a very singular and curious manner. Tents were pitched upon the spot where the Bristolians had been slain. A joyous feast ensued, and, in the midst of the banquet, the imaginary enemy was publicly defied by mimic heralds, and warned, at his peril, to forbear from disturbing their revelry.

To this magnanimous challenge, thundered forth against the invisible O'Tooles and O'Beirnes, Echo alone replied. In process of time, the singing boys of the cathedral were deputed to utter this defiance ore rotundo, as if even they were fully competent to defend the city against so despicable a foe.

It is traditionally said that the Bristo-Dublinians, abhorring the O'Tuathils and the O'Beirnes, drove many individuals of those septs, innocent as well as guilty, from their native mountains. Some of the O'Tuathils settled near Lisnadill, in the neighbourhood of Armagh, where their posterity, I believe, resides at this hour. Others of the sept settled in Connaught, and in different parts of Ulster.

Such was the origin of Black Monday.

The term Bloody Tuesday seems to have originated with the Irish, who deem that day peculiarly fatal and unfortunate. Limerick was twice won, Wexford surrendered, Waterford besieged, and Dublin sacked upon a Tuesday!

For what it's worth, my vote is a solid 'nay'.

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i agree with you....... but let me reiterate the obvious

'oh hellllllllllllllzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz yea.........'

i mean sure we need to be prepared for the usmle... but for the love of GOD come on people... lets not at least start this business in the 1st semester of med school..... if you must do it then do it when your a 4th or hell even 3rd semester... but not 1st... just my 2 ci cents...