What is the med school like?

What are exams like in med school? Or does it vary by school?

• I'm getting worried because I'm having trouble with the exams at my new school, and if the med school exams are similar to these I may have real trouble. Here the exams are all multiple choice; in biochem and bio it causes me no problems, but in organic chemistry and physics I am having a little trouble. The exams are all or nothing, and there aren't many questions, so that missing even a few questions causes a major deduction. In physics the problem is with small math errors (one tiny error makes you lose five points each time), and in organic chem the problem is deliberate trick questions. I am regularly missing questions where I have written out the reaction mechanism perfectly but missed the traps in the wording. I'm still doing OK, but I know the material *much* better than is being reflected on the exams, and it's frustrating. I'm worried about where I will stand in med school if the exams are similar. Do med school exams usually have a lot of trick questions like this, or is it just fairly straightforward questions but covering a lot of material? (If it's the latter it will be like biochem, which I am doing very well in...) Thanks! :)

• Answer:

  I found medical school exams difficult only because the volume of information that you're tested on is so abundant and you need to have an encyclopedic knowledge of things. In college, you can often figure out answers by process of elimination and common sense. In med school, regrettably, you really need to know what you're talking about. A given question in a Microbiology class might require you to know the organism that is the causative agent for a given illness and the multiple choice exam will present you with possibilities wherein unless you know the answer, you simply can only guess blindly. Medical school requires a lot of reading and studying. You need to master a huge amount of material in a small amount of time (MD or allopathic school I'm referring to, not DO school which I can't comment on). It's not for the smartest of people, but rather the hard workers and the disciplined students. Good luck to you.