HUBS192 covers six body systems in one semester: cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal, renal, reproductive, and skin. The final covers all of them. Recent HUBS192 finals have combined a large multiple-choice section with written mini-essays, and the practice exam and course outline in your course materials have this year's exact split.
Most people find HUBS192 easier than HUBS191 because the systems link together, and we wrote about why in HUBS192: why most students find it easier. Easier doesn't mean light, though. Here's how we'd revise it in the time before the exam.
Revise one system at a time, as a story
For each system, try to answer these five questions out loud or on a blank page, without notes:
- What is this system for?
- What are the main structures, and what does each one do?
- What happens, step by step, when it's doing its job?
- How is it controlled? Which nerves, hormones or reflexes?
- What happens when one thing changes?
Questions 1 to 3 get you most of the easier MCQs. Questions 4 and 5 are where the harder MCQs and the mini-essays come from. If you can only answer the first three for a system, that's where your next session goes.
Know the numbers you can calculate with
A few relationships come up again and again, and they're quick marks once you've practised them.
| Relationship | Worked example |
|---|---|
| Cardiac output = heart rate x stroke volume | 70 beats/min x 70 mL = 4,900 mL/min, about 4.9 L/min. |
| Mean arterial pressure is roughly diastolic + one third of pulse pressure | For 120/80 mmHg: 80 + (40 / 3) = about 93 mmHg. |
| Resistance rises steeply as a vessel narrows (radius to the fourth power) | Halve an arteriole's radius and its resistance goes up 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16 times. |
| Alveolar ventilation = (tidal volume - dead space) x breathing rate | (500 - 150 mL) x 12/min = 4.2 L/min. |
That last one makes a good what-if. Breathe shallow and fast at 250 mL x 24/min and you move the same 6 L/min of air in total, but alveolar ventilation drops to (250 - 150) x 24 = 2.4 L/min. Dead space takes a much bigger share of each small breath. Being able to reason like that is exactly what the harder questions test.
Practise the "what happens if" chains
Here are some chains worth being able to explain in a few steps. Cover the right column and test yourself.
| Start | What follows |
|---|---|
| You stand up quickly | Blood pools in the leg veins, so venous return and stroke volume fall and blood pressure dips. Baroreceptors fire less, sympathetic activity rises, heart rate goes up and arterioles constrict, bringing the pressure back. |
| You're dehydrated | Plasma osmolarity rises, ADH is released, and more water channels go into the collecting duct, so more water is reabsorbed and urine becomes concentrated. |
| You travel to high altitude | Lower oxygen is sensed by peripheral chemoreceptors and ventilation increases. Over days to weeks, the kidney releases more EPO and red blood cell production rises. |
| You eat a fatty meal | Bile salts emulsify the fat into small droplets, lipase breaks it down, and the products are absorbed, repackaged into chylomicrons and carried off in the lacteals, which drain into the lymphatic system. |
| You get hot during exercise | Sweat glands increase output and skin blood vessels dilate, so more heat is lost through the skin, while muscle gets a bigger share of cardiac output. |
Make your own version of this table for every system. Writing the chains yourself is most of the revision.
Anatomy and histology: label it cold
HUBS192 has a lot of diagram content: heart chambers and valves, the conduction system, the bronchial tree, the nephron, layers of the gut wall and the skin. Recognising a labelled diagram isn't enough. Take an unlabelled one, label it from memory, and then say what each structure does. Naming the structure and its function together is how the questions tend to ask it.
Our post on reading anatomy diagrams under exam pressure has more on this, including how to avoid the common mix-ups.
Mini-essays: plan before you write
The written questions reward structure. Spend a minute planning before you start:
- Check the marks and aim for roughly one clear, correct point per mark.
- Use the five-question story above as a skeleton: structure, function, steps, control, and what happens when it changes.
- Use the correct terms, like "afferent arteriole" rather than "the vessel going in".
- A small labelled diagram can earn marks faster than a paragraph, especially for the nephron or the cardiac cycle.
Practise at least two mini-essays under time before the exam. Use the practice exam from your course and write them by hand, because typing hides how slow handwriting is.
MCQ discipline
HUBS MCQs are written to make you doubt yourself. The usual way people lose marks is talking themselves out of an answer they knew. If you've read the question properly and your first answer is based on something you know, go with it. Flag it if you need to and move on. More on this in how to study for a multiple-choice exam.
A six-session plan
- Cardiovascular. Story, numbers and chains, then mixed MCQs.
- Respiratory and renal. Same approach, with the ventilation sums and ADH and aldosterone chains.
- Gastrointestinal, reproductive and skin. Diagrams first, then MCQs.
- Mini-essays. Two under time, then mark them honestly against your notes.
- Mixed MCQs from every system at exam pace. Fix every miss.
- Light review. Go through your error list, redo the diagrams you got wrong, then stop.
FAQ
What's the hardest part of HUBS192?
For most people it's the control and what-if questions, especially in cardiovascular and renal. Memorising structures is the easier half.
Should I revise HUBS191 too?
Only what HUBS192 builds on, like homeostasis, membrane transport and the autonomic nervous system. You don't need to re-revise HUBS191 as a paper.
How long should I spend on each system?
Split it by how well you know each one, not evenly. Cardiovascular is usually the biggest, so most people give it the most time.
For HUBS192 questions with labelled diagrams and worked explanations, see how Cutline HSFY works.
Cutline is not affiliated with the University of Otago and doesn't hold or reproduce University exam papers. Check your own course outline for this year's exam format.
