Mind you, the Russian system is extremely different from what Malaysians are used to. There are many flaws to it which Malaysian students here make full use of. Hence, my opinion that at least 70% of the students graduating this year probably don't know as much as they should, through no one's fault but their own.
First off, in majority of the Russian universities, there are no specific, official means of tabulating results. The exams(called colloqiums - which are given after every 4-5 topics(classes)) consist of 3 parts
- mcq
- written
- oral (or what some call viva)
Part 1 - Mcqs
- Questions are handed out (by the lecturers) to students beforehand in the form of booklets or .doc files. Therefore.. it's no wonder that 80% of the population memorize the mcqs and go in with no real knowledge of the topics.
- In some cases, questions can be downloaded from www.pedis.ru - which is a russian website for the russian medium students to download exam questions (set up and maintained by a fellow russian medium student)
- In other cases, photos of previous mcq papers (taken when the lecturer(s) leave the room) are distributed amongst friends.
Part 2 - Written
- AGAIN, in some cases - questions are handed out beforehand, allowing the students to fully prepare for the exam. Mind you, just like for the mcqs, these questions are NOT sample questions. They are the EXACT SAME questions used in the exams(colloqiums - which i will now refer to as colloqs).
- Each student gets a different 'variant' from the other, as more often than not there are no specific exam halls and the students do their written colloqs seated right next to each other in their own classrooms.
- Some of the lecturers are known for leaving the room, allowing majority of the Malaysians ample time to whip out their previously prepared answers and copy furiously before the lecturer returns. Some students even hand in the previously prepared answers due to either lack of time left to copy or out of sheer laziness.
- 70% of the students here resort to cheating(I may be wrong and the number might be even as high as 95% now, who knows?). In fact, most of them take pride in being able to cheat their way through exams.
- Usually done immediately after the written. This is where most of the students stumble.
- Despite being able to copy, most of these students (geniouses of the highest degree) have absolutely NO IDEA of what they'd copied and just randomly blurt out whatever they'd copied. Who wouldn't fail these students? However...
- There are those lecturers whose grasp of English language are only average or below average. So what else would a student do but to exploit that fact?
- Also, most lecturers eventually still do pass the students. (Yes, some of these students didn't even know the difference between PR interval and QRS complex - and to those who don't know... I'm referring to the ECG)
- The system is not strict enough
- The lecturers are too easy to predict
- Some of the lecturers' understanding of English are only average or below average, so the more I twist my words, the higher marks I'll get.
- It’s just too easy to copy that NOT copying is actually considered a sin.
- They're not making me do much, so "dun need to do lah"
- Even the seniors say that I don't need to study, this subject is a useless subject (CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT?? The seniors are actually discouraging juniors from studying!!)
Studying in Russia is ultimately 100% self-studying. Undoubtedly, there's too much freedom and it's only natural that people exploit that fact. However, I sometimes shudder to think of the many incompetent doctors who will be graduating alongside me and the innumerable lives they'll kill...
What most students don't realize is that most of these lecturers are not JUST lecturers, they are doctors and professors who are still working with patients and some even are conducting their own research. How many lecturers in Malaysia are as qualified as these Russian lecturers? Not as many, I'm willing to bet.
