I thought I failed an exam
Negative thinking is horrible
Little backstory:
It was exam season obviously and it was the obstetrics & gynaecology (Obgyn) exam. I thought I was prepared for the exam. I had studied everything more than twice. I was confident I knew the basics and then some.
The exams were online and all SBAs (single best answers AKA MCQs). The questions were very difficult. Very very difficult and confusing. Some of the questions did not even make sense because some questions had options that were just stupid. An example could be:
You are at your house and you want to go to the grocery store that is 10km away from your house? which of the following would be your next steps?
A. Drive
B. Walk
C. Fly
D. Online delivery
E. Order take out
Genuinely, try and answer that question. ALL but C would make sense. You could drive to the place. You COULD walk. You could walk to the car and then drive. You COULD online deliver. You COULD order takeout.
This might be a silly example, but you get the gist, a lot of the obgyn questions were “it can be this OR this OR this” types of questions.
Anyways, midway to the exam, I start worrying that I am probably going to fail, I start panicking and at a certain point, I even got teary-eyed. Not because I was worried about failing, but because of the way I was failing - which was an unfair way, through an unfair exam.
Came out of the exam stressed and worried and it was a common feeling between my colleagues and myself. I had fully prepared myself for the reality in which I may be resitting this exam. It was a Genuine feeling of failure, not exaggerated or hyperbole. Just pure fear. There was a part of me that thought MAYBE I managed to scrape a pass. I was expecting anything in the 45% - 55% region (anything below 50% is a fail).
Results day:
Results come out and I scored a 70%, the highest score in the class was 75%.. what just happened? I thought I failed? and out of nowhere, I’m fighting for a top scorer position? The average of the exam was 59%. I was shocked. Did I get lucky? Did I actually know my stuff? (I did) or simply, out of the many 50-50 situations I was in, did I just happen to pick the correct 50? - I’ll never know, but I’m not complaining.
Take-away from this newsletter:
Just goes to show, when you come out of an exam and you are unsure of how you felt or you feel like you failed but you had studied well and prepared well? Then just try your best to tell yourself that you never know what the outcome is and just move on. It has happened to me many times where I am CONVINCED (and no one can tell me otherwise) that I failed but then the results are released and I passed.
Try and use my example if you need to. I was in a constant state of panic for 2 weeks until the results came out. Always checking emails thinking I failed and then results come out and bam, I passed and I’m a final year med student now. So if you find yourself in that situation, just tell yourself, I read Habib’s newsletter and he mentioned that he sometimes comes out of an exam convinced that he failed an exam or sometimes he thinks there is a high chance he failed and he was okay in the end.
Let’s not forget about reality, maybe I got lucky and passed. There is a reality where some may fail after that feeling of thinking they failed. What letting go does is that for that time period, it reduces your stress levels and lets you focus on other things. So let it go and tell yourself, there might be a high chance I failed, but maybe there is a slight chance I passed, and distract yourself and move on.
Honestly, If I could convince all medical students of something, it would be this. It will just save you so much time and relieve you of so much pressure if you came out the exam thinking you failed and you just LET IT GO and moved on. It’s very difficult and I am the last person to talk because it’s very easy for me to just sit there and feel sad and sorry for myself, but hopefully, one of you reading this will be able to actually take the advice and LET IT GO.
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🚶🏻♂️ About me:
My name is Habib and I am a final year Medical student currently in Cyprus. I grew up in Tanzania (Hakuna Matata is from the local language of my country and the second tallest mountain (Kilimanjaro) is found there).
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