Failed 4th Year Final Exams Vet Med

Hi, unfortunately got my results back for my finals and failed by 1%. Resits are soon and although I’ve been studying hard over rotations I still don’t feel confident at all.
I had extenuating circumstances (without going into too much detail, family reasons and mental health) in place allowing me to resit these as if for the first time, and these will most likely roll over to cover the resits as well. I haven’t failed any exams over the course of uni until now, so I’m at a bit of a loss as to what would happen if I fail these.
A couple friends have failed resits and retaken the year, although I’m scared of being kicked out of uni this late into the course, both from a debt perspective and how much this career means to me.
Any advice would be appreciated! Cheers

Hi, unfortunately got my results back for my finals and failed by 1%. Resits are soon and although I’ve been studying hard over rotations I still don’t feel confident at all.

I had extenuating circumstances (without going into too much detail, family reasons and mental health) in place allowing me to resit these as if for the first time, and these will most likely roll over to cover the resits as well. I haven’t failed any exams over the course of uni until now, so I’m at a bit of a loss as to what would happen if I fail these.

A couple friends have failed resits and retaken the year, although I’m scared of being kicked out of uni this late into the course, both from a debt perspective and how much this career means to me.

Any advice would be appreciated! Cheers

Good luck with everything, it’s the final push for you guys and I can’t imagine the emotions you are feeling. I’ve just finished first year at Bristol and so have some friends also doing resits next week!
Tbh I couldn’t believe how soon the resits are after getting results, my friend at Liverpool gets a month in between and my friend at Nottingham said they get 2 resit attempts in one academic year (as opposed to our one) crazy how it differs so much…
You can’t only do your best and I hope it works out for you xx

Update: I passed! ) got an average of 68 across both so pretty happy, finally can focus on final year. Looking forward to no more exams at uni though for sure!

Update: I passed! ) got an average of 68 across both so pretty happy, finally can focus on final year. Looking forward to no more exams at uni though for sure!

Update: I passed! ) got an average of 68 across both so pretty happy, finally can focus on final year. Looking forward to no more exams at uni though for sure!

Update: I passed! ) got an average of 68 across both so pretty happy, finally can focus on final year. Looking forward to no more exams at uni though for sure!

Hi, unfortunately got my results back for my finals and failed by 1%. Resits are soon and although I’ve been studying hard over rotations I still don’t feel confident at all. I had extenuating circumstances (without going into too much detail, family reasons and mental health) in place allowing me to resit these as if for the first time, and these will most likely roll over to cover the resits as well. I haven’t failed any exams over the course of uni until now, so I’m at a bit of a loss as to what would happen if I fail these. A couple friends have failed resits and retaken the year, although I’m scared of being kicked out of uni this late into the course, both from a debt perspective and how much this career means to me. Any advice would be appreciated! Cheers

I’m guessing you’re at Bristol too seeing as you still had to go on rotations whilst trying to revise for exams I’m in the exact same situation right now. Always way surpassed the pass mark, tried even harder for fourth year and somehow failed by 1% - but I’m really not sure how/why as I was aware of how much I was getting right in the exams. May I ask for advice - how did you get through revising for the resits? And how did rearranging placements and rotations happen because the uni is being so vague at the moment. Congrats on passing the resits, I hope I do too, in a bit of a hole at the moment

Hiya, I’m so sorry to hear that, it’s such an awful thing to experience- just know that it really isn’t a marker of your ability in clinic or intelligence at all, and is just down to the awful exams! So many people in our year failed first time, and I believe 42% of the year above us did too- 4th year is just really difficult with the limited amount of time you get to actually absorb the info they give you.
I think the best advice I can provide (and I know it’s hard because if you’re like me I forget all the questions as soon as I leave the hall) is just identify the areas you are most weak in and start little and often as soon as you can.
For me, my SAQ technique has been quite weak throughout uni and that ultimately was what brought my mark down the first time- the second time instead of focusing on getting 100% right and leaving bits blank out of panic, I would just give it a shot & write down anything i thought was possible, and ultimately that got me through. Breaking down topics and doing active recall (ie get your notes, read, summarise from memory, cover and talk yourself through it, and then do a quizlet) really helped to solidify things too. I’d also try group diseases when revising (ie 3 days covering gastroenterology for all species) as it keeps your brain in the same sort of problem solving tree as opposed to frantically trying to cover it all.
Making summarised easy to digest power notes which are really to the point can help sometimes, as the lectures can be quite wordy and take a while to get through. So in summary- try to summarise your notes succinctly so it’s easy to see the important bits and condense everything down, have a go at active recall and maybe download quizlet if you haven’t already. Making tables with all the conditions per species, symptoms, tx and prognosis helped as well. I started way too late for resits and it was a bit stressy, so just try get a jump now and do little bits early on- it’s easier said than done with rotations but you will thank yourself when it comes round to exams.
While on rotations, I’d try cover what you’re actually on at the minute and then a bit of other stuff of similar topics at home- it helps because you have examples of cases in front of you so you’re essentially revising whilst in the hospital, plus you have specialists there to ask any questions / clarify reasoning with. Rearranging rotations wise- the university obviously wants you to pass if you get into fifth year so they’ll do everything they can to rearrange bits for you. There’s a couple weeks off prior to exams that they leave free for you to revise, so I’d try make the most of those if you can, but otherwise they essentially do it all for you depending on how much EMS you have left.
I hope this has helped a little bit- if you would like (I’m a bit of a granddad when it comes to this website so unfortunately you’ll have to do it) you can message me privately and I can send over some of my revision tables? Or if you can somehow post them on here and you’d prefer that pop another reply in explaining how and I’ll try find them all haha.
Again, please don’t take the result too to heart- you will be an amazing vet someday and that is a definite. You’ve already smashed 3 years no problem and this is a very minor hiccup in a long and successful career- you just got it out of the way early! It sucks a lot especially after the pain that is 4th year, but know it’ll be out the way soon. If you ever want any help please reach out, but until then good luck! You’ll ace these exams no problem )