Monday, May 20, 2013

Two more days

Two more days to go! (strictly speaking, should be 1.5 more days!)
and then, here ends my university examinations of a lifetime..ah. 舍不得了啦haha.
 Looking at the piles of papers I have in my room throughout the four year course...they have made such a me today. *feeling grateful*

on 22nd afternoon, we will first have a cup of bubble tea at Piincha to statisfy our stomach, then go to Sainsbury's for shopping (after 2.5 weeks of being "grounded"), and then...back home, I want to eat dessert (probably cheese cake) and Oreo ice-cream. Ahh......Nice.

In psychology, this is called anticipatory excitement. In lay terms, it is called hope.
Till then....I will bring this little excitement with me to make my revision a little bit more enjoyable.

Friday, May 17, 2013

The MPharm viva

Today, I survived a test. It's called Advanced Pharmaceutical Studies.
I never thought I could actually survive through it ( hopefully I do ).

It's a test which my lecturer said "do no revision on it". Seriously! Because we'll never know what's going to come out in the paper, and the questions can include anything from year 1 to year 4 plus some current issues.
There are three out of 10 (seems generous), and can test literally anything and you are expected to write some essays or answers showing your depth and breath of understanding. Each question is set up by two lecturers from different disciplinary it's gonna be an overarching topic.

Despite his advice I still grab something to read to comfort my anxiety the day before the exam.
Do no revision. Learn your cancer and clinical core unit, and what u did in your project, and use those knowledge to help you. He repeatedly said so.

He claimed that it's a test where bright student can stand out, "to separate the sheep and the goat" and "the taste of the pudding is in the eating".
And it's a 10 credits to our degree. (Our core units only account for 6 credits each)
And I can't believe I just had such an exam in my life where I couldn't prepare myself at all before I sit the exam!

But look at the bright side. I think many students including me have enriched their knowledge about current issues or hot topics in the pharmaceutical field in UK, so it's a good preparation for us to step into the field. But again, it's hard to guess which hot topic will come out in the paper. And this year, the staffordshire scandal has come up as First, acknowledging the importance of this issue to the healthcare profession.

And the questions are not as hard as I thought. At least there are some manageable opinion based question.
Phewwwww. Okay, it's really a paper which you don't need to do any revision, as I looked back the questions. But definitely, without revision, it means some very knowledge-based questions have to be crossed out. And left with some which u are expected to express your opinions on. And it has to be backed with evidence and specific examples in order to score well. So..we ended up not much choice then.

Oh such a unique experience! But there's a price to pay. 10 credits on 3 questions - all which u can only use all you have in your brain to answer, in three hours.

I finally understood what a student leave such a comment: "It's like a viva to me!"