Hi to every body . This is Dr. Junaid . In this letter I will be sharing my experiences of preparing for the MDS entrance exams . TO DO IT

I guess i can start of by describing the two characters of the famous recent Bollywood film 3 IDIOTS… Guess two characters in that film which stood apart were Rancchoddas Shamaldas Chanchad “Rancho” played by Aamir khan and Chatur Ramalingam or “Silencer” played by Omi Vaidya.. while “Rancho” did smart study.. Chatur was a mug pot… the ending of the film shows that in the end its “Rancho” who succeeded more in life than chatur…

The reason i started this blog with a film story is because of how close this film is to reality..

MDS entrance preparation is not about memorising question and answers.. its about smart study understanding simple concepts and building on those concepts by revision till your Hippocampus processes it into long term memory..

But the question that will arise is 

WHAT IS SMART STUDY ?? 

When I mean smart, it means that your clever enough to recognise as to what each exam demands out of the students appearing for it … For that I shall blog some methods which hopefully may help us crack these entrance exams discussing each method according to particular exam.

AIIMS / AIPG

All india institute of medical sciences conducts 2 MDS entrance exams in a year one in May the other in November. The same institute conducts the AIPG “All india postgraduate entrance exam” in the first week of jan each year..

Guys. I guess we all know that AIPG is the ” Big daddy of all MDS entrance exams” and I guess there is no necessity in elaborating the importance of this exam..
AIPG by far is the toughest of the entrances offered for MDS exams… As it checks the DEPTH of our knowledge of the subject… So its not surprising to find AIPG rankers even getting state ranks or topping other exams..
According to me AIPG requires a minimum of 7-8 months of preparation…

Why so much time for preparation for AIPG ?

AIPG is an unpredictable paper.. This year (2011) for example we didnt have a single question from either Prosthetics or Orthodontics… The trend is tilting heavily towards Basic Medical sciences…

But one thing should be clear that in AIPG many questions are direct repeat from previous year dental papers or direct pick from the medical papers. So solving the previous year pg dental and medical entrance exam papers becomes equally important.. For example this year at-least 130-140 questions were direct pick from  previous year dental and medical papers. So getting all of them correct is mandatory…

If we falter in these better well can realise  that we stand nowhere..

What books do we need .. ??

We do need the regular dental question banks like Dental pulse/ Gowri Shankar and brush it up.. Read those books, those synopsis. There may be some select topics from which the questions both easy and tough are asked, take a standard text book read it in detail..

Maintain a separate book for values.. Keep on having a look on those numerical every morning..

Now after having built up our base… We now need to read up books like dental explore.. all past year questions from 2007 including those of PGI, BHU in that book.

Basically we have to become a vacuum machine,

taking in much of knowledge we can without staring our ever so plastic Brain..

Now comes the Basic medical science part.. When ever we prepare for Aipg. we should put it in our heads that we are “Medical (MBBS) doctors with a dual degree which is BDS” 🙂
Yes.. the questions of basic medical sciences may be beyond our BDS curriculum.. but thats what is asked.

BOOKS To Buy .. ??

Mudith Khanna (Aipgmee) Amith Ashish (aiims medical) are mandatory.. You would be suprised to know that in AIPG 2009 paper of ours 40-50 medical questions were direct picks from AIIMS medical may 2008 paper. Every year many questions directly can appear from the top level books.

Read the questions well and understand the explanations given in the book.. Even dont skip the ENT, Ophthalmology, OG, Peadiatric, Orthopedic questions.. In short All the book has to be read. The concepts understood with our standard texts.Other good books for basics is Saumiya Shukla (Anat, physio-biochem) Gobind Garg (pharm) . . Gobind is an amazing book with simple explanations and mnemonics worth a buy.

Reading all this.. and some also stress on National board books (those books if you want to preparing to go to USA to do DDS) .. the difficult dental questions are taken as direct picks from there [ I did not get them on time myself but if you get hold of it its worth reading]

All this done.. then revise revise revise… tough surely but not impossible… you need to prepare regularly.. at-least 6-7 hours a day with regular rests …

See The Next Slide 

How to Prepare and Behave on the day of the Exam ?

And at the day of exam be confident.

Don’t get nervous (I messed up mostly because of this). Read the questions carefully..There are 200 questions.. 4 marks for every correct answer 1 for every wrong answer..

Simple questions should be answered correct. Difficult questions are difficult for everyone. Be wise before you mark, it does not require you to attempt all 200 questions to get a rank 🙂 After the exam is done.. relax.. relax.. and think about the other exams in hand. Don’t join discussions with friends and get yourself more nervous (as i did ).

Now a days there are news that NEET is going to be the official  exam for both UG & PG seats for MMBS, BDS, MS & MDS courses.

But there is nothing much to worry about ? Why ?

Because Exams might change names but the basic questions will remain the name. It like always depends on how much you have reviewed and how much you have revised the subjects.

So, Keep working in your exam preparation.

I hope this gave you some insight in to your exam preparations.

All the best 🙂

By Dr.Junaid Mohammed

This article was written by my good friend ” Dr.Junaid Mohammed ” . He cleared Entrance exam of 2011  AIPG results were out and he had scored top ranks in the exam and secured a place in Tamilnadu Government Dental College. By today we both have finished our MDS ( in April 2014) and he has joined a college as a faculty. By reading from the experiences of the achievers, you can learn a lot.