Hi everyone –

Nice job on the exam!! Everyone is done with the exam, and so I wanted to let you know that there are several questions that I will be rescoring/adjusting. Unfortunately, no matter how many times I check and recheck my exams, it seems that there is always the possibility of a typo I didn’t catch, or some additional answer being correct, or some other thing like confusing wording.

Here are the questions that posed problems, along with my solution for resolving each question.

Question 14

This question stem was worded in a way that could be interpreted as “which cell is the last to always contain a nucleus?” In that case, the correct answer would be A) polychromatic erythroblast (same thing as polychromatic normoblast), since the orthochromatic erythroblast only contains a nucleus for part of its lifespan (it then gets extruded). So I am accepting both A and C as correct answers.

Question 20

In class, we talked about selection occurring in the cortex. However, someone brought up that you guys learned in another class that positive selection occurs in the cortex, while negative selection occurs in the medulla. So since D is correct, I am also accepting that as a correct answer (and changing my slides for next year!).

Question 27

This was confusing to some because although the histology slide showing thyroid tissue showed eosinophilic fluid (colloid) within the follicles, the text slide didn’t use the word eosinophilic. And I’ve said several times that I don’t want you memorizing slides. There were people who picked other answers too for different reasons. So I think it was confusing enough that I am adding a point to everyone’s score for this question. The reason I don’t just throw the question out, by the way, is because that in a way punishes the people who got the right answer. So I feel this is the most fair way to handle questions like these.

Question 28

This question stem confused some people, because instead of “islets” I said “islands” which is not a word we used in lecture. So I am adding a point to everyone’s score for this question as well.

Question 38

I didn’t realize this, but there was a typo on slide 51 of the Cardiovascular System lecture:

The last bullet point should say “…from right to left atrium.” So I am giving credit for A (right ventricle to left ventricle), even though it’s incorrect, in addition to the correct answer (C: right atrium to left atrium), because of the typo on this slide.

Please read this next paragraph!

Regarding this last question, I want to make sure you all understand this concept, because maybe I didn’t explain it well enough in class. The foramen ovale is a valve-covered hole that exists between the two atria, allowing blood to flow from the high-pressure right atrium into the low-pressure left atrium. It is one of the cool little heart structures (like the ductus arteriosus) that exist in utero to take some pressure of the right side of the heart (so it doesn’t get gigantic) and puts a little more pressure on the left side of the heart (to allow it to become big and strong enough to pump blood through the body after birth). These structures almost always close after birth (if they don’t, you can run into problems – but we’ll talk about those next year in Systemic Pathology. Please let me know if you have any questions on this!

Bottom line

Okay – that’s it for questions – whew! I’m not allowed to rescore the exam until I return from vacation – so unfortunately you won’t see your Canvas score change for a few weeks. But you can determine, from the above information, what your new score will be on your own 🙂

Email me if you have any questions or comments!