Exam weighting by Jefferies, Petula https://padlet.com/petulajefferies17/j0p2tcw022n6pfce en-us 2021-05-28 13:29:13 UTC 2025-12-23 15:36:23 UTC hello@padlet.com Please add thoughts about exam weighting! petulajefferies17 https://padlet.com/petulajefferies17/j0p2tcw022n6pfce/wish/1568443280 Hopefully you can add anon

]]> 2021-05-28 13:29:58 UTC https://padlet.com/petulajefferies17/j0p2tcw022n6pfce/wish/1568443280 I am a bit concerned about having such a large % of our grade based on PACES. The cost of having a bad day is pretty huge petulajefferies17 https://padlet.com/petulajefferies17/j0p2tcw022n6pfce/wish/1568444900 Would it be fairer to increase each section proportionally as mentioned by Zara

]]> 2021-05-28 13:30:30 UTC https://padlet.com/petulajefferies17/j0p2tcw022n6pfce/wish/1568444900 https://padlet.com/petulajefferies17/j0p2tcw022n6pfce/wish/1568624168 I don't feel very strongly that they have added 10% to PACEs however if I were to split it up I would want it distributed between PACEs and specialties written (5% each). I don't want path % increased because path is such a randomiser (everyone does very very similarly) and I've been told by the year above that one or two questions wrong can drop your ranking HUGELY. Working hard for the path exam does not equate to doing well, so I feel it would be unfair if this was more heavily weighted for us than it is for the rest of our year. Also I don't particularly want more points in FOCP exam]]> 2021-05-28 14:26:23 UTC https://padlet.com/petulajefferies17/j0p2tcw022n6pfce/wish/1568624168 Seems stupid to me https://padlet.com/petulajefferies17/j0p2tcw022n6pfce/wish/1568733471 This is Ahmad - as not on WhatsApp group just going to outline thoughts here, personally I have a profound dislike of this shift in EPM weighting, seems the pinnacle of stupidity to me (apologies to those who think its a good idea, much love but I couldn’t disagree more):

  • I think 1/3 of our whole ranking being assessed on one day is stupid. For a few reasons: from a psychological perspective for me personally I don’t want that weight on one exam. The pressure that brings to me personally is a bit much. Maybe some might enjoy that pressure, personally I think it is too stressful. From a practical perspective: you might think “oh I am good at PACES, I can smash those”. Fair play to you if you are better at PACES than written, but even people thinking in that way, imagine you just get a rogue station and for one reason or another you don’t do as well as you otherwise would have, you are gong to be penalised for that disproportionately to the other 300 people in the year - majorly disproportionately and remember the others in our year have done a practical exam at Imperial in the form of OSCEs we never have. That could be to our disadvantage. 
  • To me Zara’s suggestion of each exam having a proportional increase is the most logical: fine path rankings might be a bit funny, but a 2-3% increase on each exam means the proportionate effect is much smaller than a 10% shift in weighting. 
  • Another suggestion was: increase specialties paper, PACES and Y3 written, not FOCP or path. I can see the merits in that, but remember in path ethics can come up, and part of PACES is ethics and clinical judgement, so I don’t see a technical reason why they shouldn’t be increased in weighting 
  • An argument might be that because we missed a practical exam the rankings should be made up with another practical exam. There is a logic to this one, but as outlined above, PACES aren’t just practical and the domains tested feature in all the other exams

In short, I think the weightings should be 3% (or slight variations thereof) extra on each of the remaining exams, for example, 2% on FOCP/Path, 4% increase on PACES, 4% on Y3 written, 3% on Y5 specialties, as one possible approach. 


]]> 2021-05-28 15:00:34 UTC https://padlet.com/petulajefferies17/j0p2tcw022n6pfce/wish/1568733471 I think the fairest solution is to distribute the extra marks between all exams. I get some people didn’t do great in yr 3 or whatever but I think this is the best compromise (what would be unfair is us suggesting all the marks should be attributed to yr3) https://padlet.com/petulajefferies17/j0p2tcw022n6pfce/wish/1568768767 2021-05-28 15:11:36 UTC https://padlet.com/petulajefferies17/j0p2tcw022n6pfce/wish/1568768767 Agree with FEO split https://padlet.com/petulajefferies17/j0p2tcw022n6pfce/wish/1568953550 2021-05-28 16:08:44 UTC https://padlet.com/petulajefferies17/j0p2tcw022n6pfce/wish/1568953550 Possible FEO perspective https://padlet.com/petulajefferies17/j0p2tcw022n6pfce/wish/1569077839 I reckon FEO's thinking not just about what breakup will help us get the maximum points for EPM, but about what break up will most closely substitute for the things they want to assess via OSCE. That's a combination of theoretical knowledge of general medicine (Y3 written) and the practical aspects of safety, communication, history taking etc. (PACES). So all in all, I'd say the split is fair. Ultimately, they want to know if we can be reasonably sensible, safe doctors with a basic level of competency in clinical skills and procedures. While they can't test Y3 DOPS, it's fair to place more emphasis on assessing our practical approach to medicine rather than testing theoretical knowledge.]]> 2021-05-28 16:49:26 UTC https://padlet.com/petulajefferies17/j0p2tcw022n6pfce/wish/1569077839 10% https://padlet.com/petulajefferies17/j0p2tcw022n6pfce/wish/1569834604 This is clearly not anonymous (Fatou), but I agree with 10% of the OSCE being redistributed to the PACES. For the tldr: it makes sense to me that a clinical exam would be more heavily shifted to another clinical exam. Equal distribution across all exams takes away from the weight of clinical practice and gives it to written exams, which are not as much of a reflection of what we may encounter in practice. I understand it makes the PACES feel like even more pressure, but perspective is important here. Aside from the fact that the SJT is still going to be the major determinant in our FPAS allocations, practical exams like the OSCE and PACES were always going to be a major component of our scores. 

End of tldr.

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