The Otago HSFY question bank
Cutline is a question bank for Health Sciences First Year at Otago. Every paper below is broken down lecture by lecture, and each lecture gets exam-style questions with worked answers, so what you practise is the material you were taught that week. Mock exams run before the tests. You can start free, without a card.
It is built by recent Otago medicine and dentistry students who sat these papers, which is also why it is straight with you about the first thing every HSFY student asks: the real multiple-choice exams are never released, so nobody can sell you them. Here is what does exist.
every HSFY paper, covered
practice questions for all of first year, plus the common 8th-paper options. pick a paper to see what is inside.
semester 1
not at Otago? cutline now runs Auckland MMI practice too. it trains the recorded interview UoA uses for medicine, pharmacy, optometry, imaging, audiology and dietetics. see Auckland MMI practice
What a paper looks like inside
One worksheet per lecture
Questions are attached to the lecture that taught them, not to a vague topic, so you can practise Monday lectures on Monday and know your coverage is real.
A worked answer on every question
Every question explains why the right option is right and why each distractor is wrong. A letter on its own teaches nothing.
Mock exams before the tests
Full-length papers in the real format and timing, so the first time you sit one under pressure is not the day it counts.
Your weak topics, found for you
Answers are tracked per concept, so the material you keep getting wrong surfaces instead of hiding behind an overall percentage.
Common questions
Is there a question bank for HSFY at Otago?
Yes. Cutline is a question bank built for Health Sciences First Year at Otago, written lecture by lecture rather than topic by topic, so the practice lines up with the course you are actually sitting. It covers the semester 1 and semester 2 core papers and the common 8th-paper options.
Which HSFY papers are covered?
CHEM191, HUBS191, CELS191 and PHSI191 in semester 1; BIOC192, POPH192 and HUBS192 in semester 2; and the 8th papers STAT115, MATH130 and MAOR102. Each paper has its own page listing the lectures whose worksheets are published so far.
Does Otago release past HSFY exam papers?
Only partly. The written sections of past HSFY exams are released through the university library, but the multiple-choice sections, which carry most of the marks in papers like HUBS, CELS and BIOC, are not. That is the gap a question bank fills.
Are these the real exam questions?
No, and nobody honest can offer you those. Real HSFY multiple-choice questions are never released. Every question in the bank is written from scratch against the lecture learning outcomes, in the format and difficulty the exam uses.
Who writes the questions?
Recent Otago medicine and dentistry students who sat these papers themselves, working from the current lecture material. Every question carries a worked explanation, not just a letter.
Can I use it for free?
Yes. You can start without a card and practise a daily allowance of questions in any paper. The current paid plans are listed on the Cutline homepage.
Read next
- Otago HSFY past papersWhat is actually released, where to find it, and what to do about the half that is not.
- How hard is HSFY, really?An honest read on the workload and the cutline, without the horror stories.
- How plussage actually worksWhat plussage does to your grade, and how it should change the way you sit the tests.
- Which 8th paper should you take?STAT115, MATH130 or MAOR102, compared on workload rather than rumour.