MCQs in Dentistry Revision

By Hannah Brown in Dentistry on Tuesday, December 8, 2009 @ 09:10

Multiple choice questions have been used for many years as a way of testing a candidate's knowledge and recall of information.  Over the years they have been in and out of vogue but a lot of courses have seen a resurgence in their usage recently.  The cynics amongst you may think that MCQs are popular because they are easy to mark!  Whatever the reason they are an accepted and frequently used method of testing knowledge.

The aim is to get as many marks as possible, so it is necessary to know how the questions are going to be marked.  For example, if negative marking is used then you receive a mark for each correct answer and have a mark deducted for each wrong answer.  This is important to know as guessing in this type of test will cause you to lose marks.  However, if there is no negative marking it is possible to guess answers without losing marks.

When doing MCQs in dental exams, it is important to read the questions carefully and read what is written and not what you expect to read.  For example, there are often little things in them to trip you up like double negatives.  Another tip is to look for questions that include words like 'always' and 'never' as these are often false.  Each question usually has the same amount of marks so it is important to do the whole paper.

As with most things, the only way to get good at MCQs is to practise them and PasTest Online for Dentistry, and all our Dental books will provide you with an opportunity to do that.