Dr. Sajal Chiddarwar has secured Rank 24 in Maharashtra PGM CET 2016. He has done his MBBS from Seth G.S. Medical College & KEM Hospital, Mumbai.
Interview
Q. In what year did you pass out your MBBS (Completion of Internship)?
Ans. 2015
Q. What were your MBBS percentage marks (aggregate or final year)?
Ans. 67%
Q. What ranks had you secured in any previous PG medical entrance exams you gave?
Ans. Rank 228 in AIPGMEE 2015
Q. What is the secret of your success?
Ans. Revision is the key to success.
Everyone reads the same material, and that is sufficient, but the main aim should be to revise as much as possible.
I had my notes with me for each subject which helped me for rapid revisions.
Q. How was your internship?
Ans. Quite heavy actually.
There were few months where I couldn’t study much.
Q. When did you seriously start preparing for the entrance exam?
Ans. In March 2014 as my internship started.
Q. How many hours did you study each day? How long do you think students need to prepare for cracking PG medical entrance exams?
Ans. In my internship year, my study hours were dependent on my postings, and that is why it varied a lot. But in last year when I was done with my internship I studied as much as I could and usually that counted to 12-13 hrs a day.
How much study one needs can’t be really predicted so best is to study as much as u can.
Q. Which books did you read for the theory part?
Ans. Mostly I read the MCQ books for theory also. It’s important to revise the same thing again and again rather than referring many books. One can always refer to standard textbooks for some controversial topics.
Q. Which books did you read for MCQs revision? Which revision books were the most productive and which were least?
Ans. “For most of the subjects Arvind Arora is good enough.
For pharmacology I used Garg
Ent- Sakshi Arora
Fmt- Sumit Seth
Medicine- Mudit Khanna
Surgery- Amit Ashish
I used Ruchi Rai for ophthalmology but found it quite difficult to revise.”
Q. Which subjects did you focus on?
Ans. Mainly second-year subjects because I found them quite volatile.
Q. What were your study methods? How many revisions did you do for each subject? Did you make any changes in your study methods in your recent attempts?
Ans. One major change that I made is I made my own notes for each subject, and that helped me a lot because I could do rapid revisions form them.
And about revisions, I read all subjects 4-5 times
Q. Did you do any special preparation for image-based questions?
Ans. Not really. Just went through some images for skin and ophthalmology from standard textbooks.
Q. What was your strategy for the exam day? How many questions did you attempt and why? How many do you think you got correct?
Ans. Not to get stressed and anxious is very important.
I attempted all question because there is no negative marking so better is to attempt all.
I didn’t really think of how many I got correct but had a good feeling about the paper that I remembered the things a read.
Q. Do think there should be a different strategy for preparation of different entrance exams like AIIMS-PG or PGI?
Ans. AIIMS has a different pattern every year so can’t comment much
PGI is all about basics, and that’s why MCQ books along with their question bank would suffice.
Q. Did you join any classes or test series? Was it useful?
Ans. I joined DAMS online test series.
Quite useful especially grand tests.
Q. Who or what influenced you to take up Medicine?
Ans. My parents
Q. In which field do you want to specialize in? why?
Ans. Medicine.
Q. What seat have you been allotted in counselling? Did you join?
Ans. Counselling is not done yet
Q. What is your advice to future aspirants?
Ans. When you are studying, focus on it 100%.
Everything else can wait
Q. Indian PG entrances are highly competitive, so to crack them students end up in appearing for multiple PG exams with some of them having the same exam with different slots and papers, please extend your views on this and their pros and cons of appearing in multiple PG entrances.
Ans. It’s a good thing to appear in multiple exams because it gives you a really good view of your preparation and sometimes questions do repeat in exams.
Just one thing to be kept is mind is not to get discouraged if u do badly in any one exam or so
We are ending this interview with our hearty congratulations and best wishes for future to this talented person, Dr. Sajal Chiddarwar
