The Subject and Its Examination
What the examination actually is ★★★
Open the course folder and you will find documents on the Human Genome Project, the history of antibiotics, Andreas Vesalius, yin and yang, and acupuncture. It is natural to conclude that the subject is a survey of medicine's history and foundations, and to revise accordingly.
That conclusion would cost you the exam. The final paper is titled Early Explore with Clinical Medicine, and it tests practical clinical skills — how to give oxygen safely, how to scrub your hands, how to do chest compressions. Not one of its six questions is about genetics, history or TCM.
Essay questions. The test uses the online study platform, held on January 8, 15:00–16:00 (Beijing Time). There will be 6 questions and students answer them independently on blank A4 paper in handwriting. The test time is 60 minutes. The answer to each question is no more than 200 words. It can be described in text, or answered with a chart or flowchart. The answer sheet should be no more than 2 pages of A4. Mark the question number clearly, with clear handwriting. After the test, scan the answer sheet and send it to your class teacher.
60 minutes for 6 questions is 10 minutes each, including reading and planning. There is no time to think from first principles — you need the answers rehearsed.
200 words is short. That is roughly one paragraph, or about eight bullet points. An answer that rambles will run out of room before reaching the marks.
Charts and flowcharts are explicitly allowed. For a procedure — hand scrubbing, CPR, oxygen administration — a numbered sequence is faster to write, easier to mark, and harder to lose marks in than prose. Use them.
It is handwritten and scanned. As the Immunology lecturer said of a different paper: illegible answers are marked as zero. Write in a list, not a wall.
- How many questions, and how long? → 6 questions in 60 minutes — 10 minutes each
- Word limit per answer? → No more than 200 words
- What formats are allowed? → Text, or a chart or flowchart
- How long may the whole answer sheet be? → No more than 2 pages of A4
The six questions ★★★
These are the real questions from the 2019–2020 paper, with their marks. Note that they are all procedural — every one asks for a sequence, a list, or a set of precautions.
| # | Question | Marks | Source in your folder? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | How to keep safety when administrating oxygen? | 20 | ❌ None |
| 2 | What is the rehabilitation stage of stroke? | 20 | ❌ None |
| 3 | Please describe the procedure of hand scrubbing. | 15 | ❌ None |
| 4 | Please list the requisites to be prepared for infant bathing. | 15 | ❌ None |
| 5 | How often should the pregnant women accept the obstetric examination? | 15 | ❌ None |
| 6 | What should we pay attention to when operating chest compression in CPR? | 15 | ✅ Yes — 44 slides |
The marks total 100. Note the weighting: oxygen administration and stroke rehabilitation are 20 marks each — together 40% of the paper — while the other four are 15 each.
- Which two questions carry 20 marks? → Oxygen administration, and stroke rehabilitation stages
- How many marks is CPR worth? → 15
- What do all six questions have in common? → They are procedural — a sequence, a list, or a set of precautions
⚠️ The gap in your materials
This needs saying plainly rather than being worked around.
Of the six examined topics, only CPR is covered by anything in the course folder — the 44-slide CPR and AED deck, which Unit 2 and Unit 3 are built from. There is no source material at all for oxygen administration, stroke rehabilitation, hand scrubbing, infant bathing or antenatal examination frequency.
We know those lectures exist: the folder contains a student's handwritten answer sheet in which questions 1 and 2 are answered in detail, clearly from taught material. The handouts simply are not in the files provided.
What to do: ask your class teacher or classmates for the Early Explore with Clinical Medicine handouts covering those five topics. Once they arrive, these units can be built properly.
It would be easy to write plausible-sounding paragraphs on hand scrubbing and infant bathing from general clinical knowledge, and you would probably never notice.
But your examiner is marking against their taught sequence — how many steps, in which order, with which specific precautions. A generally-correct answer that does not match the taught list loses marks, and worse, it would feel reliable while being wrong. Everything on this site carries a citation to a real TMU slide or a named textbook for exactly that reason.
So the honest position is the one taken here: build fully what the sources support, mark the gap clearly, and tell you what to go and find.
- How many of the six exam topics have source material here? → One — CPR
- How do we know the other lectures exist? → A student's answer sheet in the folder answers Q1 and Q2 from taught material
- What should you do about it? → Obtain the missing Early Explore with Clinical Medicine handouts
What the folder does cover
The remaining material is genuinely part of the course — it is the subject of the quizzes rather than the final paper — and Units 4 to 9 cover it. It is worth studying, but budget your time according to what is examined where.
| Strand | Material | Where it is examined | Units |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPR and AED | 44-slide deck | Final paper, Q6 | 2–3 |
| Chronic disease and digital health | 44-slide deck | Not on the 2019 paper | 4 |
| Genetics and the Human Genome Project | Documents A–J, plus a review-question sheet | Quizzes | 5–6 |
| History of medicine | Vesalius · discovery of bacteria · antibiotics · vaccines | Quizzes | 7 |
| Traditional Chinese Medicine | Yin and yang · qi-gong · acupuncture | Quizzes | 8 |
The quizzes use a format that appears nowhere else this semester: True/False statements plus multiple choice with options a–f, including “all of the above” and “none of the above”. Every other subject uses four or five options with no such catch-all. Read the option list to the end before answering.
- Which strand is on the final paper? → CPR only
- Where is the genetics and TCM material examined? → In the quizzes, not the final paper
- What MCQ format do the quizzes use? → Options a–f, including 'all of the above' and 'none of the above'
How to answer in 200 words
Every one of the six questions asks for a procedure, a list, or a set of precautions. That makes the answer structure almost identical each time, and the rubric explicitly permits the format that suits it best.
- Open with one sentence of definition or purpose. "Chest compression maintains circulation during cardiac arrest." Fifteen words, and it frames everything after it.
- Then a numbered list. Six to ten short points, one line each. Numbers are faster to write than prose and let the marker find each point instantly.
- Put the specific values in. Depth, rate, ratio, time, frequency — the marks are almost always attached to the numbers, not the adjectives. "At least 5 cm, 100–120 per minute, 30:2" earns more than "deep and fast".
- Close with one line on the commonest error or the safety point, if there is room. Questions asking what to "pay attention to" are asking exactly this.
Roughly 15 + 150 + 35 words. It fits, it is legible, and every mark is findable.
Look at the verbs in the six questions: keep safety, describe the procedure, list the requisites, how often, pay attention to. Five of the six are explicitly asking for enumerable content.
A marker with 200-word answers to get through is looking for specific items on a list. Elegant sentences do not help; missing the compression depth does hurt. Learn the numbers, and write them down first.
- What structure suits every question on this paper? → One-sentence purpose, then a numbered list, then the key safety point
- Where are the marks usually attached? → To specific values — depth, rate, ratio, frequency
- Is a flowchart acceptable? → Yes — the rubric explicitly permits charts and flowcharts