Knowledge base

We have listened to the way you want to work and have designed a 'Work Hard re-sit' feature instead which allows you to go through all questions you have got wrong. When you have completed all the questions the 'work hard' automatically swaps to then drilling you through all the questions you have got wrong.

As an alternative, 'Work Smart' can be used to attempt 'All Questions' or 'Questions you have got wrong'; you can choose which from a selection box. By not clearing your scores, we can ensure that the questions delivered to you, via our adaptive learning technologies, are relevant and match your current skill level and ability when using 'work smart'.

By revising online we feel that this has already improved your chances of passing an exam; it shows that you are motivated.

Many previous users have passed their exams using just onexamination.com for their revision. However, we suggest that you prepare for examinations by seeing as many patients as possible since these are your best sources of knowledge. Use the website to identify your areas of strength and weakness and focus on topics you find difficult. Use the tools that are available on the website to match your particular style of revision - 'work smart', 'work hard' or 'mock exams'.

'work hard' allows you to work through the question database from start to finish. Just as if you had a book of questions and you started at page 1 and worked through to the end but with all the interactive features of immediate feedback, commentary and web searching. It is best suited for those who want to prepare by answering as many questions as they can. When you have completed all the questions (yes some people do!) 'work hard' then turns to showing you all the questions you've got wrong.

If you want to work through questions of a more constant difficulty level rather than the random nature of 'work hard' then perhaps 'work smart' is more appropriate.

'work smart' allows you to define a series of questions to attempt where you select your exam, question type, category(s) and whether you have seen the question before or not. Learners will typically select 'all categories'. Given those criteria it then selects from the database questions that are suitable for your current level of performance. Using the detailed statistics collected from all other users and all your previous performance it predicts the odds of you being able to answer a particular question correctly.

This learning style is ideal for those who want to spread their revision over a longer period of time and it should give easier questions at the beginning of revision and harder questions towards the end. Your performance will always appear to be the same (it will average out to 50%) but your underlying exam performance will be improved. It is best suited for those who want to rely on the website to boost their ability and perhaps more interested in quality and not quantity of questions.

If you want to focus your revision on a particular category of question such as cardiology for example then the 'mock exams' learning style is probably better suited for this.

This feature is available in 'mock exams' section of 'Exam revision'. You can save and continue a test if you set one up as a 'mock exam'. There is a button labelled 'generate a new mock exam' on the 'mock exams' page. Hit this, fill in the details of the questions you want to see, the number required and give your exam a name such as 'my pharmacology challenge' for example. When you leave the test your 'mock exam' will be shown with a 'continue' button.

Well done on getting through all the questions in a particular category; you are now well on your way to preparing for the exam.

When you select questions using 'work smart' it ranks questions in the order that it feels is most suitable for you; it adapts them to your level. If your ability estimate (roughly equivalent to your average score) has not changed in between selections then that ordering of questions will not change.

Instead, use the 'mock exam' wizard and select 'show all questions' and 'all' from the number of questions list. This will randomise the questions that are selected and will ensure you see all of the questions in your chosen category.

We've created an enhanced version of the generate page that will allow you to quickly drill-down to a subset of questions to aid your revision. To use the generate 'wizard', pick an option and the next one will be presented to you.

Here's a step-by-step guide to your options:

1. When you first enter the page, you will be presented with an option of which exam you want to revise - if you only have one exam, it will be selected for you.


2. You also have a choice regarding the type of revision you want to follow - this will be populated depending upon whether you've previously answered any questions. The choices are 'All Questions', 'Questions I've not seen before' and 'Questions I've got wrong before'.


3. You now need to select the question type you want to revise. Some exams have only one question type that will be selected by default, but if there is more than one type, select one to proceed.


4. Now you have an option to select which categories you'd like to revise - you've got the choice of revising all categories, or selecting a subset of categories. Each time you click a 'parent' category, by default all the children will be selected for you. Once you have selected one or more categories, you will be presented with the next option.


5. Select the maximum number of questions you'd like to revise. The list will be filtered by the number of questions available based on your choices up to this point, to a maximum of 100 questions.


6. If you're generating a mock exam, you'll need to select whether we deliver the questions under exam conditions, or if we show you the answers after each question (like Work Smart), as well as a name for your exam.


7. Hit the 'Generate exam' button and the system will select questions based on your criteria.

If you have answered all the questions on the website then you are well on your way to being prepared for the exam. It is not an error with the website if you cannot see any more questions it is simply the way you are trying to access them. 'Work hard' turns into a 'Work hard resit' function when you have answered all the questions of all types for your exam. It then goes through every question you have got wrong. You can always view questions of any type by selecting all questions from 'work smart', or 'mock exams' to try them under timed test conditions.

'mock exams' allows you to define a selection of questions based on question type and category. For most exam areas there are also pre-selected sets of questions based on topics appearing in past papers.

This learning style is best suited for those who want to work methodically through particular subjects or question types. It allows you to store and return to particular sets of questions. When complete you are able to store the results of the activity in your learning journal.

Our research has identified different learning styles that people use whilst preparing for examinations using an online revision website. The areas 'work smart', 'work hard' and 'mock exams' reflect those different styles. All questions are available to all areas and each area is aware of which questions you have already attempted and how you scored.