grade- 90. We didnt have charles this sem and MST2 & the final was closed book. I’m including my grade to show that I’m not just hating on the subject because I got a bad result. This was the hardest subject among those I took alongside it (GENE20001, BCMB20002 and BCMB20005) mainly because it was VERY disorganised and required extensive memorisation and integration of many concepts all while learning from convoluted lectures. Dont take this subject because others have said it was easy, because thats why i took this subject and i suffered so much because i had no interst in physiology. I agree with the previous comments from this semester: lectures were often unfinished, and the remaining content had to be covered during workshops. This became frustrating because workshop time was used to finish lecture material, so workshop questions were often not covered and was particularly unhelpful because answers to those questions were not released. The lectures can be hard to understand (especially for renal) and many of my peers felt the same. The exam was also hard: just 7 days before the exam we were told that more than half of the MCQ marks will be a 'multiple choice' format, where more than 1 answer may be corret. If you selected both a correct option and an incorrect option, you received 0 marks for the entire question as they deduct 1 mark for every incorrect option until you get to 0. I didnt like this format as that eliminates the possibility of making an educated guess, which i was encouraged to do as a last resort in some of my otehr subjects. We received our MST 2 SAQ feedback only ~ 2 days before the actual exam which was quite unhelpful. MST feedback was vague, one of them was literally 'this question assessed xxx' and that was it. I had such a bad time during the exam as barely anything was tested from the first half of the semester. Moreover, some concepts from unfinished lectures appeared in the final exam. The only good thing about this subject is that the build a learning resource assignment was marked quite generously.

Grade: 87. For context I did this subject along with Research-based physiology and Principles of Human Structure. I'm yet to have rated a subject 1 star at UniMelb, and now this is my first. I wouldn't even say I did that badly for this subject, and I still stand by my belief that this is a terrible subject. You know the Instagram meme that something is 'worse than Epstein?' Well Human Physiology is most certainly worse than Epstein. First off is the change from open-book assessments to closed-book assessments. There is already a problem with this. Physiology is inherently DESIGNED to be open-book and encourage collaboration among peers to combine ideas to ultimately devise the response to a question. When you make it closed-book, you lose all of that. Throughout the semester, I would CONSTANTLY question if something was necessary to learn (like the small details) but in previous years this wouldn't have been an issue. Take away the open-book aspect and this subject leans towards anatomy. The weekly CALs can be hit or miss, very difficult to full mark and even the good old ChatGPT fails some of the questions. I feel like they sometimes digress from the lecture content a lot but the rationale is that since it is open book you should be able to Google concepts they hadn't covered. See, this is what physiology is supposed to be. You take your core understanding of the lectures' principles and when you see something you don't know, you can use the Internet to assist you and then hopefully apply that knowledge to the unknown scenario. Even the lecturers themselves encourage collaboration on the CALs and the formation of study groups. Why couldn't all the assessments have been like this? MST 1 was relatively chill, open-book, you can collaborate with peers which I certainly did. A good mark is not too hard to achieve here. The way they mark the SAQs is so wack - tons of people thought they hit all the marks, myself included, and they're still docking marks. Seems like they're 'trying' to take away marks rather than award them but what do you expect. Now MST 2 was a bit funny in that it was like 25 MCQs and a 5 mark SAQ. It was the first closed-book assessment but the compromise was that they made the MCQs for it laughably easy. Like it reminded me of anatomy style questions where they just test rote recall, but at a way more superficial level than in something like anatomy. The 5 mark SAQ on the renal system was pretty chill they didn't ask anything crazy but again the marking is WACK. The feedback for the SAQ is very generalised and leaves students more confused than before. It was also released like 2 days before the exam lol. The exam was troll. 15 marks on a concept they hardly touched upon. I could rant all day about how unfair it was i.e. subtracting marks if you ticked the WRONG answer options, testing a concept that one of the lecturers didn't even get up to (more slandering later), and just ultimately imparting a sense of unease throughout the entire 2 hours. There was like a reddit post with people rioting (there were like 100 upvotes) and on EdDiscussion there were posts with like 50 likes all complaining that what was assessed wasn't even in their notes. OH, not to mention that the exam just FORGOT that all the MST 1 content existed. Like weeks 1-5 were not even assessed. There are too many things wrong with the exam you can probably find it all on reddit if you look hard enough. The fact that the person in 1 of the scenarios was 67 years old was the cherry on top - they had to do that on purpose. But none of this is as bad as the organisation of the subject. My good man Yossi. He's not inherently an evil man by any means, but he sure does try to make himself look like one. The VERY first lecture bro did not even finish half the lecture. And then he recorded the rest of it. Every time he did a lecture throughout the semester, there was a 60% chance he didn't finish it. Bro literally yapped so much about different receptors and molecules that bind to them on this table for legit 10 whole minutes (which by the way was hardly relevant to the learning objective he was trying to teach) and wonders why we can't finish the lectures. His slides are also SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO convoluted. Like I still remember there was this graph of osmolality and water pressure and comparisons between them, and Yossi explains it like it's rocket science. When in reality, if you just learnt 1 dot point that ADH is more likely to be triggered by osmolality rather than blood pressure unless blood pressure drops like by 10-15%, you would've been MORE than fine. This is why I think a good way of studying is to just try to simplify each slide into its most important point (points plural if there's just an info dump) and then try to test your friends on these concepts. That way, if you run into the issue I discussed earlier where you're unsure of what you need to learn and what you can skip over, your friend might have another reason for learning that point that you skipped and then you both reap the benefits by discussing it. The guy 2 comments underneath me is my mate and we did this before the exam and some of the stuff deadass came up in the exam (which I never thought would be even remotely close to being tested). Anyways, back to Yossi. Like he keeps giving students reason to dislike him. He didn't even turn up for a lecture which I actually decided to go to, he kept trying to justify that the exam was fair against the opinion of countless students, and he also repeats himself a lot. Oh, and there are tons of PollEv questions which are pretty helpful to grasp the content but when he sees that he's running out of time, he taps his remote controller 3 times and announces "I'm going to just skip over these in the interest of time". Like the most high-yield stuff happens to the be the ones he's skipping over. Come on man. My condolescences to him when he was sick that one time in week 7 but that meant some of the content from those slides were never taught. And guess what ended up being on the exam? Angelina is alright as a lecturer, she explains decently and she finishes on time and goes through the PollEv slides but she can't make up for her 'partner in crime'. The BALR is supposed to be fun and I think they tried to mark it to give students free marks to be honest. Just don't do a slideshow or something mundane and then a 13+/15 should be on the cards. I heard so many good things about this subject when I chose it. The WAM boost potential, the open-book assessments, the legendary Charles who single-handedly convinced students to major in physiology, the interactive collaboration component. Yeah nah that couldn't have been further from the truth. Easily the most cortisol-inducing subject I have done at UniMelb. I never attended the workshops, they didn't appear to be that helpful to be honest. They seemed to make you apply your knowledge, but really too far to be realistic exam questions. The practice exams in the workbook were riddled with errors (based on what I heard) and I never did those either. The ONLY good things I can say about this subject are the Roslin Modules. They are actually SO good at explaining the concepts, they legit simplify it to the barest bones and to be honest, at a certain point, I gave up trying to understand the lecture and purely learnt from the Roslin module. Pretty unideal but it saved me stress and time. The practice MST 2 they gave and practice exam were pretty indicative of the real thing, so I'm glad we got those too. Do I recommend this subject? Absolutely not. Did the lecturers match Charles' prowess? 100% no. But will this subject tank your WAM/GPA? I actually don't think so. If you are focused, lock in for the CALs (which you can use AI to help you for), do the same for MST 1, learn all the fundamentals for MST 2 (which pretty much only tested superficial knowledge) you should have a huge buffer for the exam. Should the subject stay like this, I do think H1 is still possible it's just that you're gonna feel super inefficient and just outright uncertain while you study. Oh and brace yourself for the respiratory lectures once you encounter them, they are pretty hard.

H1 achievable. Angelina is actually a good lecturer - taught well and knowledgeable and easy to deal with. I have my reservations about Yossi, he was clearly under prepared and not always familiar with the slides - despite how much he might know, the knowledge transfer just was not there, at least not in a meaningful way.

Grade: 94. Before taking the subject, i read abt all the great reviews when it was open book and expected a chill time, but this sem due to university regulations and whatnot they changed mst 2 and the exam to in person invigilated. This means that one must study carefully and not slack behind the content, because there is a lot. Content wise, each lecture was very long but there was never any memorisation tested. All the questions in the msts and weekly quizzes required application, so in this way the subject encourages understanding and engagement with what's being taught. The CALs were challenging and though it might be tempting to use GPT to help, it often deviates from what was taught so is not good to depend on. The biggest criticism i have with this subject is how it was taught. Because Charles was not coordinating the subject, the newer coordinators were expectedly inexperienced and made the subject incredibly disorganised. Especially, lectures would not finish on time (the first lecture i attended didnt even go through half the slides), and often the lecturers were unsure abt or explained the content incorrectly or in a very convoluted way. In short, you become more confused after attending the lecture than before. So, with Charles returning next sem, I hope this would change, but for me i just went through the slides in my own time and didnt watch any lectures and this seemed to work well for me. I used chatgpt to explain difficult concepts and internalise the chains of reasoning that are crucial in this subject. For this semester, the assessments were: weekly quizzes around 15-20 marks, mst 1 (short answer), mst 2 (mcq + saq), build a learning resource (a creative project), and the exam (mcq + saq). The saq component of the exam i have to say was terribly tested, despite saying that content not covered in the lectures would not be tested in the exam, they nevertheless put 15/80 marks of the entire exam on a highly specific concept that was not taught. Despite understanding all the content well enough, I felt like this was unfair to test, and the staff on eddiscussion have dismissed students' concerns abt it which was sad to see. Overall, this subject this sem was not run well, but this is likely the outlier rather than the norm (see previously) as Charles returns to coordinating the subject. Content is designed for open book assessment so will feel overwhelming, but understanding the "gist" of it and engaging with the step-by-step processes is what's most important. Assessments are moving to closed book so keep up with the content each week to avoid being overwhelmed. I can't say for future semesters how the assessments will be with a new coordinator, but they test application entirely. I wish I could rate the subject higher but for this semester specifically, the terrible lecturing, unclear expectations, and exam content leave much to be desired.

Incredibly disorganised, content was not taught well and most students ended up finding the subject to be extremely confusing to navigate. Lecture content was often half completed (due to extremely poor pacing), and delivered in an illogical manner where the lecturer would skip between slides constantly (not to mention an entire lecture was missed and never touched upon). The final exam involved integrative physiological applications which requires an intricate understanding of each concept taught, and due to the incredibly confusing delivery of complex topics, I felt underprepared despite “knowing” all the content covered. Furthermore a niche concept that was barely touched upon ended up becoming the stem of a huge question on the exam- many have cited this to be unfair but the coordinators seem unfazed. Overall, despite physiology seeming like an interesting and highly relevant course towards many careers, my experience was completely ruined by the poor teaching quality. I would highly recommend taking this subject when Charles is the coordinator.

DO NOT DO THIS SUBJECT IF CHARLES IS NOT SUBJECT COORDINATING (check per semester). While Angelina Fong and Yossi Rathner are clearly knowledgeable, they were incredibly disorganised, frequently did not finish teaching slides within the lectures, and overall ran the subject very very poorly. Additionally, there have been concerns surrounding whether the exam accurately tested the learning objectives of the subject, and though I’m not sure on this I think it’s worth a mention as a huge chunk of the student body seemed to have found it unfair.

ever since angelina fong took over it became a horrible subject

Super engaging and well structured to build your understanding, the constant assessments help in the long run too. Everything is closed book now (compared to last year), but don't be scared they did make the content easier to compensate. And the BALR was a fun assessment!

Physiology: Grade 86 (H1). DO THIS SUBJECT IN SEMESTER 2 CHARLES IS NOT TEACHING SEM 1. This subject is no longer open book or open collaboration, which sucks but the main key takeaway is make sure you do application style questions for every single topic that is literally what physiology is. Charles will literally make the assessments (MST + EXAM) application questions, pay attention to what he puts a lot of emphasis on or explains in a lot of detail. Also make sure your review implications of physiology such as pneumothorax or COPD, restrictive lung disease, pulmonary oedema etc. and impacts on standard process (I.e what has changed from normal physiology processes) You need to be able to apply basic content to any scenario given. I got 100% on the first MST. Don’t mistake it like human anatomy and memorise all these process because it can get content heavy really quickly. When studying put an emphasis on trying to understand concepts and the memorisation will naturally follow this. Use roslin, do every single roslin module available. What I did was first watch the lecture, then did the roslin module for the specific lecture then would watch Ninja Nerd (THE GOAT) YouTube videos for that specific topic. After that blurt everything you remember onto a whiteboard. Most of all do practice problems, practice MST, make your own questions, brainstorm ideas, find online practice exams/questions, draw things out, do the cals as practice again. Physiology is not linear, its not step 1 is this___ and step 2 is ____ its the broader picture and how it all pieces together and the importance of mechanism. The cal’s are super easy make sure to get 80%-90% on most of them. For the group learning task, I recommend using your study group and make the video super interactive, unique, funny and enjoyable to watch. To get high marks include questions in it that test the topic. Be super creative, my topic was pulmonary oedema and we made a scenario based med school type video. He loves quirky stuff. Make sure to go to the tutorials to understand the types of questions Charles will ask they actually are super helpful. To getting full make on a MST or exam you cannot say like A causes D, you have to break it down like A causes B which causes C and then D.

Grade: 85 It's definitely a WAM booster and Charles is a pretty great guy, but to be completely honest I never understood the hype around this subject. It was just assumed that you knew a lot of the 'fundamentals' such as how the cardiac and pulmonary cycles are connected, and it definitely made the content hard to understand. I just thought it was insane how even anatomy spent a few weeks explaining 'basic' things like what muscles are, meanwhile for systems physiology I felt like we were thrown right into the deep end. The CALs are also a bit miserable because half the questions will be pretty much word for word the PollEv questions from the lecture, but then the heavily weighted questions will be on content that we barely even covered and then that pulls your grade down heaps. For example, there was such an emphasis on pulmonary oedema for 3 of the CALS but we had maybe 1 lecture slide on it and a couple of unrelated q's in the workshops? I also remember being annoyed that the MST focused quite a lot on adrenergic receptors when I found the explanations in the lectures pretty confusing and I needed to consult both the textbook and various videos to even have a clue what was going on. Combined with the fact that you can't get extensions on the CALs because you get a 'free' one that doesn't count towards your grade - which wasn't helpful in my case because I've gotten pretty sick more than once this semester - and this makes for an experience that isn't very enjoyable. It was somehow even less accommodating than anatomy, which again, is just insane because I hear so many complaints about anatomy but so much praise for physiology. Clearly my peers are doing alright because the average is always H1, but I struggled quite a bit with this subject due to the above reasons. The collaboration in this subject was pretty nice though, but again, I genuinely don't understand how everyone else is ranting and raving about the quality of this subject. I'm happy if this was your favourite subject and I'd still recommend completing it because the majority of students loved it, but I found my other 'harder' bio subjects a lot better.