random notes for all india pre-pg

Hi everyone!  I can't really put in words how eternally blessed I've been feeling. By God's grace, I'm in a position to finally write about these tedious competitive exams. 

The books, the methodology of studying... all are so variable and yet they are all correct. There is simply no fixed path, you have to chart your own.

So if you happen to read this post in the middle of your prep, and find some of the textbooks/mcq books to be different, just move on.... nothing here is black and white.

I've put together the lists of books which i'd referred plus some random points regarding the ever challenging preparation for All India Pre-PG. If you have any queries, you are free to post. I'll try my best to help you out. 

New mcq books are launched quite frequently...its advised to have a look at all books which are available, then choose whichever you find the best..

all the best!

 

Anatomy

BDC 

Langman’s embryology (has beautiful colored illustrations and clinical correlations- so better than inderbir singh)

Netter’s Atlas for ref

Physiology

Ganong (esp the initial chapters- nerve, muscle. plus concepts for cardiorespiratory physiology, renal function etc) 

Few mcqs at the back of ganong are good.

Biochemistry

Lippincott’s (a beautifully illustrated “must read” text : xerox not advised)

Harper for ref for genetics (esp the glossary) and few metabolism charts

for MCQs of 1st year you can do saumya shukla. but please keep in mind that explanations in amit ashish are far superior. the only reason why s.shukla is popular is that mcqs are arranged chapter wise. you can follow up s.shukla with aiims vol (amit ashish)

Pathology 

Robbins (read it as much as possible; must do- general path, hematonco, git)

in case of time crunch, just go through bold letters in blue boxes esp for CNS, or read captions of the images.

Must do: most of the tumors (like git, liver, wilms/neuroblastoma etc) 

MCQ: AA or pulse publictn

Pharmac 

extremely important subject

esp concentrate on general, anti-neoplastic and anti-microbials

KDT

MCQ- arvind arora’s book

Sparsh Gupta’s mcq book- for anti-microbials, anti-neoplstc and chapter on new drugs, d/o/c

Table for anti-neoplastic drugs in Harrisons

Changes of 6th edition KDT well summarised in Arvind Arora’s book

Micro

Ananthnarayan

Harrison’s (esp tables for antimicrobials)

questions are now much more harrison’s based

MCQ from AA/Rachna Chaurasia or Pulse Publication book

Forensic

sumer sethi's concise text

reddy's for reference

PSM

Park..most of it..esp epidemio, health programs, nutrition

my search on net for new stats and schemes was mostly ruining of time. 

MCQ: deepak mishra's book has poor explanations, better do amit ashish (aiims vol) plus triple a

ENT

dhingra- esp larynx, saliv gland tumors plus the glossary at the back is good.

dhingra’s short mcq book is a must do.

 

Had studied well  Med, Surg, Obs Gyn in final year so did only their mcqs:

Medicine: mudit khanna; ref-harrison's

Harrions 17th edition pretest is a good bet. esp if you are a fast reader coz many questions are really long (but no so difficult) Do atleast few chapters (only if you can fit it in your schedule)

Surgery: amit ashish  ref- hardly opened anything; LB is very low yield for mcqs, good only for final year!

Obs Gyn: sakshi hans for mcqs: its very time consuming, but the gynec part is esp good. can do only q and a for few chapters.

shaw and dutta for text...give more time to gynec rather than obs.

Opthal and Ortho: now the questions being asked are simply a mockery on student’s efforts. so its better to revise just the basic stuff given in Khurana and Maheshwari. Don’t miss soft tissue infect, regional syndromes and glossary in Maheshwari.

Skin: do the mcqs and refer Neena Khanna’s excellent book: simply read the captions and see images. read the synopsis.

Anesthesia: Ajay Yadav’s book is a must read..esp the 1st half- basics, inhalational and i/v agents.

Radiology: most of the signs asked in systemic radiology can be memorized easily if you’ve read texts of medicine and surgery in final year. Sumit sethi’s book is handy and good for quick revision, should be read completely.

Psychiatry: did mcqs 1st from amit ashish rather than s.shukla

neeraj ahuja- not quite appealing, did only few chapters 

scanning the glossary of Kaplan and Saddock’s is a good idea.

MCQs for sarp: s.shukla for chapter-wise mcqs, then switch to Amit ashish.

Pediatrics: intial chapters of Ghai- newborn, jaundice etc. mcqs from amit ashish. didn't find 'talekar' or span to be any useful.

know the basics of cyanotic heart diseases from ghai, milestones from Nelson. 

the two volumes of Saumya Shukla are okay since they give mcqs chapter wise. And THAT is perhaps the only reason why its popular. Having the whole of 1st year subjects together is good. but nothing can beat the explanations of Amit-Ashish

The content for ortho and opthal in SS is too much in detail and should be read with caution! Several answers in S.Shukla differ from that given in amit ashish...do not waste time in searching the references; learn whichever ans you feel is better OR else follow AA.

Tumor- Rachna Chaurasia

again the explanations in AA are superior.  You can refer robbins alongwith this book. you can skip gynec tumors as they can be done from sakshi hans 

USMLE books may be used for following (but not prerequisite)

Behavioral sciences kaplan video- psychiatry and stats

Flowcharts of bacteriology and virolgy classification from Kaplan

1st Aid for step 1 is good but you’ll never have the time (or energy!) left for it...after doing AA/S.shukla

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Maximum time given to preclinical and paraclinical subjects. I started off with anat, then biochem and physio. Then 2nd year, psm, sarpoo and in the end med, surg, obs gyn.

Before starting to read any text-book, just look up MCQs asked on that topic. Say, before reading general path, just look up mcqs already asked on it. It will give you an eye for marking facts in the books which might me asked next time.

Better to open the textbook alongwith the (half cooked) isolated explanation given in MCQ books. You’ll have pictorial memory plus get to mark new mcqs, if you refer to the respective pages.

Advantage of Subject wise mcq books:

Chapter wise arrangement of MCQs helps in better comprehension of the subject.

You can finish reading that chapter from the text-book in one go.

Demerits:

extremely time consuming.

very difficult to revise these subj wise books in the end along with recent papers and AA.

Solution: to do only questions and ans & not the whole explanation.

OR to do only those topics which you find tough/difficult....

Time give to various subjects:

it is highly variable. For me 1st year was like kora kagaz, so gave around 1 and half month.

for 2nd yr subjc and med, surg, I gave on an average 2 weeks

New Editions of textbooks:

it used to give me jitters! for textbooks like Park, Ganong etc, just read the preface and notedown the new changes. read ‘em if you have time.

Harrison's 17th edition

Can't say much about it. I just used to turn pages if I happened to find any references esp while reading micro- legionella/leptospira etc. 

Used to look up tables esp in 1st part- for hematonco and genetics. Genetic Linkage is well described (it was asked in may08 aiims)

I really don't know how fruitful it will be to read it extensively. Just that your pre and para clinical subjects should not suffer..

Revision:

DON'T READ anything new for atleast 2 months before all india

make a fresh time-table

revise those subjects first at which you're bad off

its neither necessary nor possible to revise every subject and every book.

I used to mark diificult mcqs in my books with a colored pen...then used to solve only those questions

sometimes simply "turning pages" of a well thumbed book may work wonders.

"never ever mark answers in your amit ashish "

test series/coaching? 

I’d taken weekly tests of Bhatia’s. Had given major tests of Allen’s. (allen’s quite good but very few people take it- so less accurate rank prediction n their subject wise schedule is very skewed up) I used to get between 57-60% in bhatia grand test. 
All test series are more or less similar, and of course a very essential part of prep. always appear in the weekly subject tests (even if u have not completed the required course) 
take atleast half a day to look up the answers (in textbook) for the questions which you’ve done wrong 


nov AIIMS 08 

we were not eligible for the nov AIIMS . Still I’d set up high aims to get in the rank list. The mental pressure didn’t let me perform with a free mind. I ended up attempting a meagre 132 questions! I never calculated the % (i was not in the above 50% marks list) 
However I could learn a lot from the nov AIIMS . 

Here’s what I’d written for myself after returning home: 
Believe on your instincts! 
Mark intelligent guesses abundantly. Mostly do not wait for the second round (for attempting q)- usually it is difficult to come. 
Speed! think fast, mark fast. Mark/transfer answers simultaneously, and never a bunch of them together in OMR. 
No excuse for repeat questions! have to get them all right. 
Do not spend too much time on a single story problem. 
Mark, or else move ahead. 
Note down important topics to be revised in the final week. (eg. topics which are difficult to memo) in addition to the recent papers of AI, AIIMS plus your notes (if any) 
exam is more about common sense rather than in depth knowledge. most of the times answer lies in the way the options are framed 
Hold your nerves until the end! Nobody’s preparation will be perfect- it can never be. Its only having control over yourself in the final days & during exam that matters. 

Remember- life is long----this is just one small hurdle. take it easy!  

Q AND A from RXPG.com .........

My Q 2 anvita is hw 2 work cool headedly in those 3 1/2 hours....n hw many Q hv u attempted.... Did u find some dummy Q thr or some Q vid more than one ans in true sense.... (supriya_rastogi) 

free yourself from high aims. Take it as just another day. have plenty of candies in your pocket! 
I attempted around 274 questions. (could have done more, but the paper was taken at warning bell in our room!) 
dummy q- don’t remember any right now. Will check out the supplement 


Can u tell me how 2 manage studies with intern duties; 
esp. which sub.s to be stressed... (psr4z4) 

If you have read and marked all the major textbooks- robbins, kdt, harrs etc in your proffs, it will certainly save time during internship. If not, pay attention to your weaker subjects first. 
Its okay to study at odd places too- reading pocketbooks/notes while standing anywhere or while eating in canteen! Discus things with people around you. It need not be a formal discussion of subjects. 



how to keep going and be persistent and everything else that you can think of. Also being from MP when did she start preparing for her 
exam,1st April? (gun83) 

yeah in March end. 


her strategy 4 Anatomy , orthopaedics , ENT , eye and skin .questions 4om these 5 subjects are gettin tough with each exam (helmholtz) 

there wasn’t really any strategy. Just read things with interest!! 
If we develop interest in what we read, it gets engraved easily in our minds. Cursing the course will have a negative effect. 
anat: also pay attention to neuroanat, histology, embryology, joints 
the basic strategy for all subjects is: 
solve all mcqs by opening up the routine textbooks esp where you have to build concepts while doing amit ashish, try to think about the other options. analyse all the options. 



cud u tell us how u managed SURGERY ...u said BL was low yield for mcq, so how did u overcome it ? and patho did u do it frm big ROBBINS . tell us how...did u do it retro? (ruffdaddy) 

surgery: I simply did amit ashish’s mcq book. Used to open LB rarely (eg.retro for carotid body tumor, cystic hygroma, urinary system etc) 
Surgery mcqs from allen/ iams would be helpful. eg new questions on organ transplantation, grafts, cancer staging 
one need not stress too much on surgery. Learn whatever has already been asked. 

patho: I’d read big robbins well in UG, perhaps that helped in faster reading in internship. 
General path can be read in detail. For systems you can go retro. 



hey one more question!!! now that we all know about the books anvita chose n her strategy... also wud be very grateful if she tells how did she keep the spirit going.. wat was her motto.. wat was her strength to achieve this during 1st shot only.. (will_shine) 

well...  an excellent support system of family and friends who caught me whenever I fell. I could never have achieve this without their moral support. 


which is better mcq buks arora or pulse as both subwise mcq buk came 
it all depends on your liking. pulse usu has more no. of questions, sometimes better explanations but its size makes it difficult to finish n revise. 
arora: rachna chaurasia book has a rapid review given before mcqs 



which subjcts u find most imp for aipgmee n AIIMS in descending order (dev_ved) 

imp subjects are your weaker subjects. and as i wrote above, pre and paraclinical are to be read well. 



i would like to know if finishing first year subjects first is essential.... i had started with those but then got bored and skipped to short subjects... 
(metformin) 

yeah, that’s a common problem. You gotto beat that boredom! Once left unfinished, 1st yr subjects are hard to cover up. They need time and patience. Just keep going! They form a sizeable chunk of those 300 questions. 


the D-Day 
nothing new here: 
good rest, 7 hrs sleep, a moderate breakfast and lots of hope n cheer! 

Stay close to your exam centre. In November AIIMS , due to the delhi Marathon, our car had to turn back atleast 6-7 times due to blockage of roads. I reached the centre barely in time. 

no. of questions to attempt: 
atleast 270 out of 300. It important to take chances. Try to find out your own good average by giving various grand tests throughout year. 

some more tit-bits: 

cut down your time spent online to as less as possible. 

remove your photo from orkut/facebook etc and see the drastic drop in s(crap)s  

its okay to keep your cell phone tucked away on silent mode for few good hours. 

if you need a break, go out for a stroll amidst Nature... It heals miraculously! 

Talking/chatting to someone in person is better than sending IMs/scraps. cut yourself from the virtual world. 

if you have time, half hour exercise can do wonders for your mood and memory. 

needless to say, a refreshing 6-7 hour sleep consolidates your memory. 

exam also requires a good EQ apart from IQ. so having a pleasant mind, helps in more no. of guesses right! 

notes? 
didn't have any time for notes. Just that you can keep a small notebook and write 
few oneliners or few punch points (never write big paras!) 

1. esp if you are confused between two answers. 
even if it has been asked a zillion times, like good prognosis for ALL (leukemia) 
or p-anca is found in ulcerative colitis, not crohns. 
( RADIO: Cs 137 is temporary implant, while Cs 131 is permanent) 

2.or you can write oneliners of the mcqs you do wrong in test series. 

3.or writing down things which are difficult to memo 
(like ICDS values for calories, proteins which have changed in new edition of park) 

acc to me there's no need to make comprehensive notes to cover any subject.