MCQs in Psychiatry

Most of the authors of this book are psychiatry teachers from my state with immense experience teaching the subject both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Few chapters are divided into interesting specialty areas of psychiatry. The topics covered range from Psychiatry, Psychology to Psychiatric Social Work too.

Key Features :

• Plan your time and pace. Allocate time to review your answers.
• Read each question carefully: Multiple Choice tests also examine your ability to read carefully and thoughtfully, as much as they test your ability to recall and reason.
• Read each of the responses: Do not just stop when you come upon the one that seems likely. Remember, you are looking for the best answer, not only a correct one.
• Identify keywords: Circle or underline keywords, such as “all”, “always”, “never”, “none”, “not”, “few”, “many”, “some”, “sometimes”, and “except”.
• Identify subject area: Identifying what lecture, reading, topic, or laboratory exercise the question is from might help you narrow the choice of possible responses.
• Identify what is being asked: Answer each question in the context of what the examiner intended.
• The “”cover up”” strategy: Some students find it helpful to read the question and try to recall the answer from memory before looking at each of the five responses.
• The “”true/false”” strategy: Identify if the question is looking for a true or false statement. Then label each of the five responses as “”true”” or “”false”” and eliminate those that do not correctly complete the question.
• Do not dismiss a response because it seems too obvious and simple an answer; if you are well prepared for the test, some of the questions may appear very straight forward. As you read through the possible responses, mark off the ones you know are wrong. This will save time, if you have to come back to the question later.
• If you are not certain of an answer, guess! Only if there is no negative marking.
• Look at none of the above and all of the above options.
• Test makers have to make sure that the right answers are indisputably right, so can think of the long answers or the detailed ones.
• Research indicates your first answer is usually the right one!
• The use of exclusion mechanism is a cause of confusion.