Tips for Newcastle University MBBS Year 3 and Year 4 SBA Examination

LAST UPDATED: 13 September 2023

For Year 3 and Year 4 of the MBBS course at Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia (NUMed) and Newcastle University UK, there are Single Best Answer (SBA) examinations. I scored 75.1% (Green) for the Year 3 SBA in 2017, 68.0% (Green) for the Year 4 SBA in 2018, 69.7% (Green) for the Year 5 SBA in 2019 and 75.5% (Green) for the Year 5 SBA in 2020. I was a teaching fellow at NUMed.

Here, I would like to share some tips on passing the SBA exam. These tips are intended for all NUMed and Newcastle University UK MBBS students who are taking the Year 3 and Year 4 SBA exam in the 2023/2024 academic year. For students who started the MBBS course in 2017, 2018 or 2019, there is no SBA exam in Year 5.

I am writing the tips based on how I revised for the exam previously. However, different individuals may have different learning styles, so you should just take this as a guide.

First, you have to start your revision no less than 2 months before the SBA exam. I recommend studying at least 5 hours per day on weekdays and 7 hours per day on weekends and holidays. If possible, you should revise every day. To pass the exam, you should aim for a score of at least 66%.

If you do not understand any topic when doing revision, ask a lecturer or a friend for further clarification. Personally, I do not find group study helpful for the SBA exam.

The subjects covered in the SBA exam are as follows:

Year 3 SBA 1 - EoCP and MACS

Year 3 SBA 2 - EoCP, MACS, MH, CH and RH

Year 4 SBA 1 - CDM and ACE

Year 4 SBA 2 - CDM and ACE

When revising, you should go subject by subject. Finish all topics in a particular subject before moving on to the next subject. Your focus when doing revision should be on risk factors, pathophysiology, diagnosis, investigations, management and complications. You should complete at least 4 full rounds of revision for all topics if possible.

MBBS should be studied mainly through understanding, not memorising. Basically, for every fact you come across in your revision, try to think "Why is this the case?" If there is an explanation, read it and make sure you understand what it says. If there is no explanation, try to come up with your own explanation based on your knowledge. Even if your explanation is wrong, it does not really matter as the exam questions will not ask for the explanation. You can also look up the internet for an explanation. The fact is that, when you actively seek an explanation for a fact, you will end up remembering the fact much better and your revision will also become more interesting. This is so much more effective than simply memorising the facts. However, not everything can be studied this way. Certain facts have no possible explanation at all, so the only way to study them is by memorising.

You do not need to memorise the normal range of values for investigations as it will be provided in the questions during the SBA exam. You also need not memorise the doses of drugs apart from very commonly used ones.

The most important revision resource for the SBA exam is the textbooks. I recommend using the following textbooks and resources for each subject:

CDM - Resources on the MLE and Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine (11th Edition)

Internal Medicine - Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine (11th Edition)

Ophthalmology, ENT, Dermatology, Orthopaedics and Trauma - Oxford Handbook of Clinical Specialties (11th Edition)

Surgery - Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine (11th Edition) and Surgical Talk (3rd Edition) 

Psychiatry - Psychiatry by Ten Teachers (2nd Edition), Psychiatry - A Clinical Handbook and ICD-11

Obstetrics and Gynaecology - Obstetrics & Gynaecology by Lawrence Impey & Tim Child (5th Edition)

Paediatrics - Illustrated Textbook of Paediatrics (6th Edition)

These textbooks are not essential for the exam but may be helpful to refer to if you are looking for some specific information:

Davidson's Principles and Practice of Medicine, Kumar and Clark's Clinical Medicine, Apley and Solomon's Concise System of Orthopaedics and Trauma, Robbins Basic Pathology, Underwood's Pathology, Rang and Dale's Pharmacology

For Year 3, you should revise topics relevant to the learning outcomes and other topics taught by the lecturers. For Year 4, you should revise all topics in the textbooks.

While Year 1 and Year 2 knowledge can be helpful at times, they are not essential for the Year 3 and Year 4 SBA exams. There is no need for you to specifically revise any Year 1 or Year 2 topics.

Resources on the Medical Learning Environment (MLE) are useful as well. While the textbooks are very good, the MLE resources may contain some additional information. After you have revised the textbooks, you should revise the MLE resources as well. The MLE resources are particularly important for CDM.

You need to know the clinical guidelines for the more common conditions. Important guidelines are those that can be found in the textbooks, and you should look up the internet for the most up-to-date version of those guidelines. For obstetrics and gynaecology, use NICE and RCOG Green-top guidelines. For asthma, use BTS guidelines. For other conditions, use NICE guidelines. However, do not place too much emphasis on the guidelines, as it is more important that you revise the textbooks and understand everything.

You should also do practice questions for the SBA exam. Go through all practice questions provided by the lecturers. Passmedicine and Pastest have a large number of practice questions. They require paid subscription and I recommend that you subscribe to one of them. Some of the practice questions are similar in style to those in the Newcastle University SBA exams while others are not. For Year 3, you can skip the practice questions that are irrelevant to the learning outcomes. After finishing each practice question, check the correct answer and make sure you understand the reasoning behind every correct or wrong answer. Although doing practice questions is important, you should not prioritise it over revising the textbooks.

During the SBA exam, you will have an average of 72 seconds to answer each question, which is quite a short amount of time. Therefore, you should always time yourself when doing the practice questions to finish each question within 72 seconds. As you are reading the question, you should already be thinking of the diagnosis so that you can get to the answer faster.

All the best in your revision! I hope you will be able to do well in the exam.

Tips for the WriSkE can be found here:

https://daniellimjj.blogspot.com/2018/06/tips-for-numed-mbbs-wriske.html

Tips for the Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA) can be found here:

https://daniellimjj.blogspot.com/2019/02/tips-for-prescribing-safety-assessment.html

Tips for Newcastle University MBBS Year 3, 4 and 5 WriSkE Examination

LAST UPDATED: 13 September 2023

For Year 3, Year 4 and Year 5 of the MBBS course at Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia (NUMed) and Newcastle University UK, there are Written Skills (WriSkE) examinations. I scored 73.7% (Green) for the Year 4 WriSkE in 2018, 74.7% (Green) for the Year 5 WriSkE in 2019 and 90.8% (Green) for the Year 5 WriSkE in 2020. I was a teaching fellow at NUMed.

Here, I would like to share some tips on passing the WriSkE exam. These tips are intended for all NUMed and Newcastle University UK MBBS students who are taking the Year 3, Year 4 and Year 5 WriSkE exam in the 2023/2024 academic year.

I am writing the tips based on how I revised for the exam previously. However, different individuals may have different learning styles, so you should just take this as a guide.

First, you have to start your revision no less than 2 months before the WriSkE exam. If possible, you should revise every day. To pass the exam, you should aim for a score of at least 68%.

If you do not understand any topic when doing revision, ask a lecturer or a friend for further clarification. Personally, I do not find group study helpful for the WriSkE exam.

The subjects covered in the WriSkE exam are as follows:

Year 3 WriSkE 1 - EoCP and MACS

Year 3 WriSkE 2 - EoCP, MACS, MH, CH and RH

Year 4 WriSkE 1 - CDM and ACE

Year 4 WriSkE 2 - CDM and ACE

Year 5 WriSkE - RH, CH, MH, PC, GMP, EoCP, MACS, CDM and ACE

The clinical stationeries that may appear in the WriSkE exam are as follows:

- Medical record paper

- Early Warning Score observation chart

- Paediatric Early Warning Score observation chart

- Neurological observations chart

- Peak flow recording chart

- Nutritional assessment form

- Blood test request form

- Blood transfusion request form

- Radiology request form

- Drug prescription cardex

- Fluid prescription form

- Infusion prescription form

- Insulin prescription chart

- FP10 prescription form

- Discharge summary

- Death certificate

- Cremation form

- Incident reporting form

- Adverse drug reaction reporting form (yellow card)

It is important for you to be very familiar with every one of the clinical stationeries. You need to know how to fill them up and what are the information needed. A copy of each clinical stationery is available on the Medical Learning Environment (MLE).

You must be familiar with the paper copy of the BNF. Ensure that you are able to find any information you need in it quickly. For all questions with a paediatric setting, you should use the BNFc instead of the standard BNF.

The most important revision resource for the WriSkE exam is the materials used during the WriSkE sessions at university and other relevant materials provided by the lecturers. They contain useful notes as well as practice questions with sample answers. Go through all those materials and make sure you understand the reasoning behind every answer. Consider doing some of the questions before checking the answers.

Having good clinical knowledge is also important for the WriSkE exam. It reduces the need to refer to the BNF during the WriSkE, which saves time. In addition, not all information is available in the BNF. Fluid management, opioid pain management and insulin management are important topics. Questions on these topics are common in the WriSkE, which many find difficult. As you are revising for the WriSkE in Year 3 and 4, you should also be revising for the SBA exam, since the WriSkE and SBA are held around the same time.

During the WriSkE exam, you will have an average of 10 minutes to answer each question, which is not a plenty amount of time. You should pay attention to the time during the WriSkE exam to ensure that you do not spend too long on each question.

All your answers should be written in black ink only. Do not use any other colours, including blue ink. With the exception of medical record papers, you should write your answers in capital letters. Capital letters are not needed for medical record papers. When answering each question, you must fill up the patient details correctly if they have not yet been filled up. Do not get the patient details wrong.

All the best in your revision! I hope you will be able to do well in the exam.

Tips for the SBA can be found here:

https://daniellimjj.blogspot.com/2018/06/tips-for-numed-mbbs-sba.html

Tips for the Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA) can be found here:

https://daniellimjj.blogspot.com/2019/02/tips-for-prescribing-safety-assessment.html

My regret about Elective 1

The 2nd semester of Stage 4 of my MBBS course at NUMed consists of three Student Selected Components (SSC) and two Electives. The SSC 1 and SSC 2 can be done anywhere in Malaysia, while the SSC 3, Elective 1 and Elective 2 can be done either in UK or in Malaysia.

Doing the Elective 2 in UK has always been an absolute no-no for me, and my position on that remains the same now. The reason is that after Elective 2, there is just 3 weeks of break which is way too short. I want to have more time at home.

To overcome the problem of the short break, some of my friends chose to do SSC 1 and SSC 2 in their hometown instead of Johor, before going to UK for the SSC 3 and Electives. However, I didn't want to do the same, due to various reasons as I had explained in this post:
http://daniellimjj.blogspot.com/2018/02/why-i-dont-do-private-ssc.html

On the other hand, doing SSC 3 and Elective 1 in UK followed by Elective 2 in my hometown would have been a good plan for me, as I could be at home for 7 weeks which is reasonably long. However, I eventually decided to go to UK for just the SSC 3 but not Elective 1. Why was that the case?

Before entering Stage 4 of MBBS, I had always thought that there is just a single Elective which lasts for 8 weeks. As such, the thought of doing Elective 1 in UK and Elective 2 in Malaysia never came to my mind.

It was only in October 2017 that I found out there are actually two Electives, each lasting for 4 weeks. At that time, I had already made plans to do 8 weeks of Elective in my hometown, and I didn't see a great need to change that.

Between October 2017 and April 2018, there were several occasions where I seriously considered doing the Elective 1 in UK, but in the end I didn't go ahead with it. There were several reasons for that:

- First, for most Electives in UK, students are required to write and submit a curriculum vitae (CV) to the Elective supervisor. This was a task that I found quite challenging.

- It was quite possible that I wouldn't be offered an Elective at James Cook University Hospital. In that case, university managed accommodation isn't available and I would have to arrange private accommodation, which was something daunting for me.

- Even if I got to do an Elective at James Cook University Hospital, most of my friends probably wouldn't be doing their Elective there. Without friends, the Elective wouldn't be enjoyable.

- I was also quite worried that I would have difficulties adapting to the life in UK, considering the fact that I had never studied overseas before. Therefore, I didn't want to be in UK for too long.

- Doing Elective 1 in UK and Elective 2 in Malaysia would also mean that immediately after Elective 1 ends, I had to fly back to Malaysia and start Elective 2. I found this too rushed.

I travelled to UK on 13 April 2018 and did my SSC 3 at James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough from 16 April 2018 until 25 May 2018. On 2 June 2018, I flew back to Malaysia. At that time, I was feeling quite sad about having to leave UK.

Many of my friends didn't leave UK when I left, because unlike me, they would be doing their Electives in UK. In fact, the number of students doing the Electives in UK exceeded those doing SSC 3 in UK.

I was having a lot of fun with my friends in UK throughout SSC 3. This had to come to an end, with me returning to Malaysia while my friends were still in UK, all because of the poor decision I made. If only I had chosen to do the Elective 1 in UK, I could have continued the fun for 1 more month.

Now, I am feeling quite regret for not doing my Elective 1 in UK. Looking back at the reasons above, I feel that none of them are really strong reasons, and the benefits of doing Elective 1 in UK definitely outweigh that.