Dear FMGE students, this is Dr. Praveen Tripathi, Psychiatry Faculty, at Cerebellum Academy. This video is for those of you who are stuck in 120s, 130s or 140s. The reason why I am making this video is I got a message from a student.
He said sir, my score is between 133 and 140 for the last three exams. And he had joined our live lectures. He said that I was listening to the class and I knew everything.
I don’t feel like studying. And I told him that if you actually knew everything, your score would not have been 131, it would have been 231. He was a bit shocked. How could I say something like that? How can I say something harsh like that? But my dear students, if we want to improve, the first thing we have to do is be honest with ourselves.
We cannot really believe that we know everything, but still, we are not passing the examination. In our hearts, we know that there are many things which are lacking, right? So that is why I thought that let me make a video and talk to the students who are stuck in 120s, 130s or 140s. A very simple principle is this.
If you keep on doing the same thing again and again, you will be getting the same results again and again. If you are doing the same thing again and again, don’t expect different results. We have to make certain changes if our approach is not working.
What actually happens with students who have appeared multiple times is this. Say you have taken an exam three times, four times or two times. Now your hold on PYQs and previous year’s questions become good because you have prepared it multiple times, and your hold on PYQs becomes good.
And when you open the same source and you look at those PYQs, you are like I already know this. How am I improving? But my dear students, your exam patterns have changed. Two years back, three years back, four years back, just doing the previous year’s questions used to be enough to crack the exam and get beyond 150.
But now the examination pattern is more conceptual. They are asking tougher questions. They still ask questions from the previous year’s topics, but the exact repeats are not there.
That is why people who focus only on PYQs can reach 130, 135, and 140, but they can’t go beyond that. So, we have to make changes in the way we study. Also, you have to see where exactly are you lacking.
As I said, PYQs probably are okay, but now we have to focus on the concepts and the deeper learning. And that too, you may have to make efforts in different subjects. Sometimes what students do, is the results get announced, say somebody did not pass the exam.
Now he or she is very dejected, very sad, no motivation to study. And this phase of not doing anything will continue for two months, two and a half months. Then one month before the examination, they will panic that the exam is here, and I have to do something.
Now, if you are starting one month before the examination, what will you do? You again do the previous year’s questions only. You try to ratify it, mug it. But again, because you took the same approach, you ended up with the 120, 130, and 140 marks.
We have to change the approach this time. Ratification is extremely important. Mugging is very important. Rote memorisation is very important. But we have to add something to it. And what that is a bit of conceptual learning, a bit of deeper, more theoretical learning.
That is what we need to do. So, see in which subjects are you weak? Students make this mistake. They say, if I do pharma, pathology, microbiology, and medicine is done.
No, it is not done. Medicine is one of the biggest subjects. You cannot solve the questions of medicine by doing pathology and pharma and microbiology or physiology.
It does not work like that. We still have got significant amount of time. You have to identify which subjects are you lacking in.
If it was medicine, focus on medicine. Some students leave the shorter subjects and they go for the exam. Not studying shorter subjects is the silliest thing that we can do.
Why? Say, let us take the example of psychiatry. 6, 7, and 8 questions come in the exam every year. You would hardly need 2 days to complete psychiatry.
And out of this, the syllabus is limited. Anything out of that syllabus is very unlikely to be asked. If you study for 2 days, psychiatry, the chances of you getting 90% of the questions correct is very high.
In comparison, something like medicine or surgery, which is like huge, and vast, it is very difficult to cover even a system completely. But completing a short subject is easier. So, I am not saying that you should not study medicine.
My first example was you have to study medicine. But short subjects you definitely have to study. They give you easy marks and they are highly scoring.
So, whatever you were missing, whether it was medicine or surgery or shorter subjects, you have to study those subjects. There are 30-40% of the questions from every subject are easy. You cannot afford to get even a single easy question wrong.
Even if you study a subject once or twice, at least you will get the easy questions correct. That in itself increases your score. So, my dear students, I totally understand that you would be demotivated or demoralised if you could not crack the exam 2 or 3 times.
But this is something that we have to do. Your career is not going to go to the next stage unless you pass this examination. So, make changes.
If you have been just reading through notes, maybe do something else. If you are doing only PYQs, maybe focus on something else. Change your method.
Your method should include more conceptual learning, better hold on previous topics and of course, PYQs. At Cerebellum Academy, we have already started with the classes Mission 200+ and in the last exam, we got really great results.
It was very encouraging for us also. I am not going to ask you to join Mission 200 myself, but I will tell you one thing. I am sure many of your friends did study from Mission 200+, and most likely they would have passed the exam.
Talk to your friends and if they suggest you, definitely become a part of it. If you do not want to become a part of this, be a part of something else. Whatever you want to do, do it, but start studying.
Do not waste your time. You do not have enough time to stay demotivated or demoralised. And saying that, what else can I do? That is not right.
Let’s be honest with ourselves. If we could not clear the exam, something was missing from our side, and we had to patch that gap. Start studying.
Not a lot of time is left, but enough time is left to turn the tables. Study hard, pass the examination, and after that message me. May God bless you all.
