The End Of Examinations.

This is to bring up to date upon whatever happened before-during-after my final session, Biochemistry.

There were 300 mcqs I had needed to study, and thanks to our previous seniors, we only had this 300 mcqs. If not, there would have been 3000 mcqs that I needed to get through and there wasn't enough time at all. Even 300 mcqs took me a heck of 3 days to get through them and only once. Thus, up till the night before the session, I was still going through the last 50++ of my mcqs. When I had gotten them done, it was already 3.30am session morning. So I decided to do the computer variant that I had, and when I had gotten through them, it was already 5am. I was due in the department at 8.30am which meant I needed to leave at 7am which meant I needed to be up at 6am. So I decided to rerun through my schemes for all the reactions of glycolysis/gluconeogenesis; TAG synthesis/degradation; amino acid synthesis/degradation; and hormone synthesis/functions. There was no way I could've finished all even if I was just running through, and thus, I reached the department jittery but not stressed neither nervous. I had given all the results to God and just wanted to get the session done with and get back home to sleep..

Guess when the lecturers came.. 9.30am.. They had me practically prancing all over the department just waiting for them to arrive. And they took another 30 mins to get the computers up and running. Praise God, at 10am, I rushed past the lecturer in charge of the mcq department and attempted my mcq. Praise God again, I got 90 points which was a good pass. And then I went out to wait for the oral examination to begin. Friends who had gotten avtomats for their biochem (envy them) gave encouragements and offers to help through sms. I immediately denied their help and told them that my motto was not to take out my phone when I'm in the examination hall. I guess I was being "macho", but I really meant every word of it. I knew it was wrong to cheat during exams and I wanted to set an example by not doing it myself. I can now proudly say that I've not cheated during exams since pre-med and God has blessed me so by giving me all 5 for all exams since then.

But I wasn't thanking God when I saw the variant on the examination ticket I picked.. I couldn't do questions 1 and 2 at all. Question 3 was fine though.. It was all I could do to hold the ticket still and go to the place the lecturer designated. Alone in the 2nd room, no invigilator at the moment, a ticket that I couldn't answer.. The temptation to take out my phone was so strong. I reminded myself about what I had told the others before I entered the examination hall and prayed asking God to give me what I deserved depending upon how hard I had studied. Then I attempted my questions.

Question 1 was about some theory and I could remember a similar question about it in the mcqs. So I just wrote what I remembered and hoped for the best. I remembered a scheme about the 2nd question in the textbook, but I couldn't remember the exact points in that scheme since I didn't really have time to go through it well, so I just wrote the scheme down and left the unknown blank. And then I did the 3rd question as best I could, wrote everything down perfectly. I was kinda proud of that 3rd scheme.. Then deciding not to wait any longer since nothing else came to mind, I stood up and asked to be examined orally. I prayed again, handing all to God, then went to the designated teacher.

MP3 was nice.. She didn't even look at my paper, she just told me to tell her about my answer orally while she looked at the hall as if she wanted to catch any cheaters. So I mumbled through my 1st answer, she agreed, sorta, then told her straight to her face that I wasn't very sure about my 2nd answer and requested to do my 3rd answer 1st. She agreed, and I proudly showed her the scheme I had drawn and answered any question she asked. She then agreed with my answer and told me to tell her about my 2nd question. Again, I told her that I wasn't sure about the answer but that I would do my best. And I started telling her about the scheme, about the practical case, about the problem and about the result I would obtain after drug administration. She agreed then asked me about the last part of the question which required pyrimidine synthesis. I was stumped, I could only remember purine synthesis and I told her so..

She told me she would give me a 4 and I quickly told her that I only couldn't remember the pyrimidine part and asked her to ask me any question from any topic and that I would answer it. She thought unwillingly for a long time then asked me about Diabetes Mellitus. I praised God in my heart on the spot. I had been "shot" 4 times in a row in 4 examinations by my own teacher in class about diabetes mellitus and I was sure I could answer any question MP3 would have about it. And sure enough, after MP3 couldn't think of anymore questions, she most unwillingly gave me a 5 for my exam. I went out of the hall praising God and after hugging and thanking my teacher.

After helping a few friends answer biochem questions so they could sms their friends inside the hall, I collapsed on the carpet floor with my bag as a pillow and slept like a rock. The toil of a sleepless night and the stress of the session was too much for me. I slept till the whole session was over at about 3pm and my groupmate called me. We went to the library to return our books and went back home to really sleep it off. Prayer meeting that night was full of testimonies and we had a thanksgiving prayer to God for helping us get through our final session. My 2nd course in MMA as a medical student was finally over. I could now look forward to going home and enjoying my holidays.

God is good, all the time, everlasting.