Well it used to be that the oral exam is what we were all scared of, but looks like now radbio and physics is trying to make a name for itself. Hopefully preparing for the oral will seem like cake after what we will now have to do to pass these exams! While the radbio exam was utterly absurd, almost to the point of scandalous, I don't want to discount physics either. I have a strong background in physics, and while I did comfortably pass it, I also studied heavily for it, regrettably moreso than radbio, given that it is a subject that needs to be more conceptually understood rather than memorized. I fully expected top quartile across the board but had a number of 3s as well despite only being unsure about probably <10 questions. The bar of correct questions is clearly high for this exam. Physics is no joke and shouldn't be minimized in light of the radbio ****storm. I highly recommend reading the entire McDermott book and doing all of the end of chapter problems in it before attempting to pound through Raphexes. Don't skim stuff. Spend a few months and consume the whole thing.
I wish there had been a warning that went up last year about radbio. I was caught totally off guard. Looks like there were some hints of it on this forum last year. Hopefully this thread will serve as an official warning to people to taking the exam next year. Our radbio faculty were utterly clueless or didn't care, and the information they had us learn (identical to the same stuff they've been teaching for 20 years) didn't help me with a single question. It makes me ill to think of the hundred hours or so over the past three years we spent memorizing the crap they wanted us to that wasn't tested. I would say it was actually detrimental to our learning. If we had no radbio curriculum at all, I have no doubt I would have done just as well, if not better, because I would have focused more on outside resources instead of what they told us we needed to know to pass the exam.