DO MEDICAL-STUDENTS REMEMBER MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS

The values of pre-testing senior medical students at the start of thei r surgical terms are the perception that they acquire of the scope of the subject and the extra practice they gain in the technique of sitti ng multiple choice question (MCQ) exams. The purpose of this study was to determine whether MCQ in a pre-test that were repeated in a post-t est were answered more accurately than questions that had not been rep eated. For the past 3 years at the University of Queensland, fifth yea r medical students have been voluntarily sitting pre- and post-tests i n each of the four surgical terms. Each examination consisted of 60 cl inically orientated surgical questions of a difficulty appropriate for senior medical students. A total of 404 students did both the pre- an d post-tests during 1990 and 1991. The two examinations were carefully chosen for comparability. Of the 60 questions in each examination, 30 were repeated in the post-test and 30 were fresh questions in the pos t-test. The pre- and post-tests were reversed for the second of the tw o years to increase consistency. There was a general improvement in th e standard of results from the pre-test to the post-test. There was al so a small improvement for the repeated questions compared to the non- repeated questions (P < 0.0001). The authors conclude that the marked improvement of the post-test compared to the pre-test is mostly attrib utable to the students increasing their knowledge base through learnin g during their surgical term. To a much lesser extent improvement was also attributable to recollection of questions asked of them 6 weeks b efore, without specific tuition or information about the answers.