218# Viva

218# Viva

Death or Alive.

I could not accept the fact that i was included in the borderline viva list when my friend told me over the phone. Still hoping that she did not see clearly. Considering that she is not that kind of person who'd joke with this matter, i had to admit that i did not pass my final.

Less than one day to prepare for the test, i got totally frustrated. I was so lucky to be one out of the 14 who were in the list. I always expect that i could pass straight ahead. I was so god damn wrong.

But when i came to think of the bright side, at least i did not fail. If i was not included in the viva list, i'd always thought that i passed the finals. In fact i did not. And finally if i found out that i failed, the higher expectation will leads to a greater impact.

Borderline... 62.5 to 64.5 out of 100. Statistically, the probability of being in the borderline is less than 10%, but i just got in. There are around 216 people in my batch, and 14 of us are in the list. For those who did not do well in finals and expecting for a borderline test, if they are not in the list then they can already tell what their results are...

Thinking that borderline viva is a chance for me to pass, i feel better. It's better to hypnotise myself to be more optimistic rather than cursing every Hell out of thing to god.

3 stations. Behavioural Sciences, Human Biology, and Cell and Molecules.

BS - I really don't know what is Ms Beevi saying. I knew that she was trying to guide me through the questions. But i'd appreciate if she just let me to speak to answer the questions according to the papers in front of me. Things that she said not only confused me, and i wasted time to process what was she trying to say.

Dr. Phuak's topics are my favourite and i read through all of them. But i just could not put it in proper words. My answers were such a mess. And i forgot to mention "The Inverse Care Law" and "Downward Drift" to strenghten my point of view. Getting so regretful when those 2 things flashed through my mind just right after the station, where i moved on to a rest station. I can't predict how many marks i could score out of the ten for that station. 5? Could i?

Human Biology - Thyroid gland, nerve and stomach. I did not study much about thyroid gland, die. Could not recall anything about follicular cell and parafollicular cells at all. Dr Joe asked the myelinated nerve fibre in brain (Oligodendrocyte), did not know. Cells in stomach - Chief, mucosal, enterokinase and... what? Not enterokinase, but enteroendocrine. And the last one which secretes HCL starts with "P", but i just couldn't recall that it was Parietal cell...

Conduction of nerve impulse with the presence of Schwann cells. Ok, i got it right. But they asked me extra question, called me to name the type of conduction. How am i supposed to tell? I can't recall that we learnt that? Maybe we did, but i just don't know.

This station is just terrible where i could not anwer most of the questions. I predict that i could only score 3 or 4 out of the 10.

Last station - Cell and Molecule. I used to hate biochemistry a lot because it was the one which pulled my marks down for my A level chemistry paper. My weak point, therefore i focused a lot for it. Now i love it. This station is the best which i could answer most of the questions. Assoc Dr Chu and Dr P.Kumar were cheerful enough to calm me down. The way they led was really helpful. Even info which i failed to access were retrieved and spoken out.

We need 6 out of 10 in order to pass. Otherwise, fail, and re-sit the whole SAQ and OSPE. Therefore i need 18 out of 30 to pass my borderline test. And i really can't tell whether i can make it or not. Because the human biology station was really killing me.

I saw my PBL tutor Dr. Lee before i had my borderline test. She was also involved in the test. She said they will only ask about basic. That made me feel better. But not really basic for me... Oligodendrocyte is not really basic already, man.

People say borderline test is held to help us, who stucked in between to pass. Now i hesitate. I'm not sure whether i can still pass or not. Because my performance was worst than i could ever imagined. And i think those who did not go for borderline test can only read these details from here. Oh well...

Best of luck people. 13 July.


PS : How could Italy won? Screw World Cup.