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Population Health, semester 2

POPH192 practice questions

yes, cutline has poph192 practice questions covering the otago population health course, with worked explanations, and the bank is still rolling out lecture by lecture. that includes measuring health in populations, study designs, critical appraisal and using the evidence, and you can start free without a card.

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4,294published MCQs
67worksheets and mock exams

As the catalogue lists them, checked 23 Oct 2026.

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  • L2: Illness NarrativesSample 1 of 4
    An illness story that follows the plot line 'yesterday I was healthy, but today I am sick, but tomorrow I will be well again' is best classified as which type of storyline?
    Answer choices
    Show answer

    Correct answer: A

    Worked solution

    The restitution storyline is defined by the plot line 'yesterday I was healthy, but today I am sick, but tomorrow I will be well again'. It frames illness as a temporary interruption followed by a return to health, which is why most people prefer this story above all others. Chaos stories follow an 'and then... and then...' structure with no resolution, quest stories follow the stages of a journey with departure, initiation and return, and testimonial stories press the audience to witness and believe a particular message.
  • L2: Health and Illness Narratives (Reading)Sample 2 of 4
    In critical health scholarship, what does the concept of responsibilisation describe?
    Answer choices
    Show answer

    Correct answer: A

    Worked solution

    Responsibilisation is a political and moral mechanism influencing the relationship between state, citizen and health providers, shifting responsibility for health from communities and governments to individuals. The denormalisation option describes how anti-smoking policy stigmatises the behaviour, not responsibilisation. Medicalisation is the recasting of a problem as a medical condition. The expectation to be happy is the happiness imperative. Only the first option captures the shift of health responsibility from the collective to the individual.
  • L3: Health, Illness and Disease as JourneysSample 3 of 4
    A first-year teaching session frames health, illness and disease through the idea of 'journeys'. Which of the following is NOT one of the stated aims of this session?
    Answer choices
    Show answer

    Correct answer: A

    Worked solution

    The stated aims concern the metaphorical journey between states of health, illness and disease (including scientists becoming health workers), the political journey of contested illnesses and a definition of health, the metaphor of pilgrimage, and why people undertake actual journeys for treatment. Measuring disease prevalence is an epidemiological task that is not among these humanities-focused aims, so it is the correct answer to a question asking what is NOT an aim.
  • L4: Suffering and IllnessSample 4 of 4
    According to Cassell (2004), suffering is best defined as which of the following?
    Answer choices
    Show answer

    Correct answer: A

    Worked solution

    Cassell defines suffering as a state of distress brought about by an actual or perceived threat to the integrity or continued existence of the whole person, meaning the body and self, which also includes cultural and social dimensions. The other options reduce suffering to physical tissue damage, a biomedical pain pathway, or the loss of just one social role, none of which captures the threat to the whole person.

Published MCQ practice

Teaching practice and mock exams currently listed for this paper.

Teaching practice

  • Health, Illness and Society

    Worksheets: 12

    MCQs: 743

    • L2 Reading: Smoking Narratives, Stigma and ResponsibilisationMCQs: 50
    • L2 Lecture: Illness Narratives and the Stories We TellMCQs: 72
    • L3 Reading: Predicament and Pilgrimage, Deaf Children in MexicoMCQs: 57
    • L3 Lecture: Journeys of Health, Illness and DiseaseMCQs: 73
    • L4 Reading: Healing at the Heart of RecoveryMCQs: 60
    • L4 Lecture: Suffering, Healing and Illness NarrativesMCQs: 66
    • L5 Reading: Unauthorised Picture-Taking and the Disability GazeMCQs: 59
    • L5 Lecture: Health, Intersectionality and IdentityMCQs: 76
    • L6 Reading: Optimisation and the Rhetoric of Health AwarenessMCQs: 52
    • L6 Lecture: Health and Power (Biopower)MCQs: 78
    • L7 Reading: Disease, Illness and Sickness (CAM and Epistemology)MCQs: 47
    • L7 Lecture: Entangled Health and Biomedical EpistemologyMCQs: 53

  • Indigenous and Pacific Health

    Worksheets: 12

    MCQs: 709

    • L8 Reading: Global Perspectives on Indigeneity (Carlson, 2023)MCQs: 38
    • L8 Lecture: Introduction to Indigeneity in the Health ContextMCQs: 54
    • L9 Reading: Intergenerational Affect, Young Māori Men's Experiences of Te Reo Māori (Hamley, 2023)MCQs: 42
    • L9 Lecture: Indigenous Cultural and Belief Systems in NZMCQs: 67
    • L10 Reading: Our Sea of Islands (Hauʻofa, 1994)MCQs: 53
    • L10 Lecture: Pacific Cultural and Belief SystemsMCQs: 77
    • L11 Reading: Birth by Emergency Caesarean, Perspectives of Wāhine Māori (Lawrie et al., 2024)MCQs: 49
    • L11 Lecture: Māori Frameworks of Health and Well-beingMCQs: 81
    • L12 Reading: Identifying and Overcoming Barriers to Healthier Lives (Firestone et al., 2018)MCQs: 39
    • L12 Lecture: Pacific Framework of Health and WellbeingMCQs: 99
    • L13 Reading: Towards Attainment of Indigenous HealthMCQs: 50
    • L13 Lecture: Indigenous Health and ContextMCQs: 60

  • Introduction to Epidemiology

    Worksheets: 3

    MCQs: 251

    • L14 Lecture: Epidemiology, A Population Health PerspectiveMCQs: 59
    • L15 Lecture: Patterns of Disease Globally and Over TimeMCQs: 62
    • L16 Lecture: Measuring Disease OccurrenceMCQs: 130

  • Study Designs and Measures

    Worksheets: 6

    MCQs: 555

    • L17 Lecture: Cross-sectional and Ecological StudiesMCQs: 97
    • L18 Lecture: Measures of AssociationMCQs: 112
    • L19 Lecture: Cohort StudiesMCQs: 125
    • L20 Lecture: Case-Control StudiesMCQs: 127
    • L21 Lecture: Randomised Controlled TrialsMCQs: 60
    • L22 Lecture: Research EthicsMCQs: 34

  • Error, Bias and Causation

    Worksheets: 9

    MCQs: 828

    • L23 Lecture: Chance IMCQs: 87
    • L24 Lecture: Chance IIMCQs: 60
    • L25 Lecture: Selection BiasMCQs: 80
    • L26 Lecture: Information BiasMCQs: 99
    • L27 Lecture: Confounding IMCQs: 98
    • L28 Lecture: Confounding IIMCQs: 108
    • L29 Lecture: Association and CausationMCQs: 111
    • L30 Lecture: Systematic ReviewsMCQs: 69
    • L31 Lecture: Critical AppraisalMCQs: 116

  • Public Health Applications

    Worksheets: 5

    MCQs: 558

    • L32 Lecture: PreventionMCQs: 108
    • L33 Lecture: ScreeningMCQs: 179
    • L34 Lecture: SurveillanceMCQs: 84
    • L35 Lecture: Outbreaks, Epidemics and ClustersMCQs: 123
    • L36 Lecture: Evidence-based PracticeMCQs: 64

Mock exams

  • Progress Test 2 Mocks

    Mock exams: 10

    MCQs: 300

    • Mock 1MCQs: 30
    • Mock 2MCQs: 30
    • Mock 3MCQs: 30
    • Mock 4MCQs: 30
    • Mock 5MCQs: 30
    • Mock 6MCQs: 30
    • Mock 7MCQs: 30
    • Mock 8MCQs: 30
    • Mock 9MCQs: 30
    • Mock 10MCQs: 30

  • Final MCQ Mocks

    Mock exams: 10

    MCQs: 350

    • Final MCQ Mock 01MCQs: 35
    • Final MCQ Mock 02MCQs: 35
    • Final MCQ Mock 03MCQs: 35
    • Final MCQ Mock 04MCQs: 35
    • Final MCQ Mock 05MCQs: 35
    • Final MCQ Mock 06MCQs: 35
    • Final MCQ Mock 07MCQs: 35
    • Final MCQ Mock 08MCQs: 35
    • Final MCQ Mock 09MCQs: 35
    • Final MCQ Mock 10MCQs: 35
Open POPH192 catalogue

What this list includes. Active products only. Published worksheets in visible groups, with unrestricted multiple-choice questions. Retired questions, module tests and written questions are excluded. This does not measure whole-course coverage or concept articles. This catalogue is cached. The app rechecks access before you start. .

What this paper covers

These are paper topics, not a list of published worksheets.

  • health, illness and society
  • indigenous and pacific health
  • introduction to epidemiology
  • study designs and measures
  • error, bias and causation
  • public health applications

How to approach POPH192

everyone talks about pop health like it is the paper to be scared of. honestly, it is not. it is a very doable paper as long as you put the work in and tune out the noise people pile onto it. it does take steady effort and a bit of practice most days, but it is not the hellish paper it gets made out to be. the questions here are how you get comfortable with the epidemiology and study-design thinking the exam tests.

worth
18 points (0.15 EFTS)
taught
semester 2
assessment
two 15% progress tests and a 70% exam

How to study POPH192 (science-based)

These are established findings, not fringe claims, and recent reviews keep confirming them (Carpenter et al., 2022; Weinstein et al., 2018). The emphasis here is on the higher-order skill of applying and transferring ideas to unseen questions, which is what separates the top HSFY grades and the study habits medicine selects for.

pop health has a fearsome reputation that it mostly does not deserve: it is a very doable paper if you put in steady work and study it the right way. it rewards understanding epidemiology and study-design reasoning rather than memorising slides, so the methods below are built around that kind of thinking.

  1. retrieve the concepts, don’t skim them

    skimming lecture slides is the default for a concept-heavy paper, and it is one of the least effective things you can do, because recognising a definition on a slide is not the same as producing and applying it. testing yourself instead, closing the slides and recalling the concept, is a top-utility technique in the evidence (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006; Dunlosky et al., 2013).

    in poph192 the concepts, confounding, bias, the different study designs, are the whole game. explain each one in your own words from memory and state when it applies, then check what you skipped. the gaps you find are the concepts you only recognised rather than understood, and those are exactly what the exam pushes on. (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006; Dunlosky et al., 2013)

    Try it: close the slides and explain confounding, bias and one study design in your own words, then check what you missed.

  2. interrogate the study designs

    elaborative interrogation, repeatedly asking why and answering it, is a higher-utility strategy precisely because it forces you to reason from principles rather than recall a label (Dunlosky et al., 2013). for a paper about evidence, that reasoning is the skill being assessed.

    poph192 lives on knowing why one study design beats another for a given question. take a scenario and argue out loud which design you would choose, why a cohort might beat a case-control here, and what the weaknesses of your choice would be. this is the exact higher-order reasoning the exam tests, and practising it as an argument is far more durable than memorising a table of design features. (Dunlosky et al., 2013)

    Try it: take a scenario and argue, out loud, which study design you would choose and what its weaknesses would be.

  3. use the feedback, not just the score

    feedback only helps if it is specific and you act on it: research on feedback shows the useful kind tells you where you went wrong and how to close the gap, rather than only whether you were right (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). a bare score tells you almost nothing you can use.

    for poph192, treat every wrong practice answer as information. write the single sentence that explains the error, was it a misread of the study design, a confused definition, a stats slip, before moving on. over a few weeks those sentences reveal your personal pattern of mistakes, which is the fastest thing you can fix. (Hattie & Timperley, 2007)

    Try it: for every wrong answer, write the one sentence that explains the error before you move on.

  4. apply the reasoning to new scenarios

    high grades in poph192 come from applying epidemiological reasoning to a scenario you have not met, judging the best design or spotting the bias in an unfamiliar study, not from reciting definitions. varied retrieval practice builds exactly this transfer of reasoning to new situations (Pan & Rickard, 2018; Carpenter et al., 2022), and for students heading to medicine it is the same habit that predicts later exam performance (Deng et al., 2015).

    practise on fresh scenarios: take a described study you have not seen and decide what design it is, what could confound it, and how you would improve it. because the exam presents novel scenarios, rehearsing that judgement on unfamiliar cases is far more useful than memorising the features of each design in the abstract. (Pan & Rickard, 2018; Carpenter et al., 2022; Deng et al., 2015)

    Try it: take an unfamiliar described study and work out its design, its main weakness, and how you would improve it.

Flashcards, spaced repetition and Anki

The spacing effect is why flashcards work: revisiting a fact just as you are about to forget it locks it in far better than cramming (Cepeda et al., 2006). Anki is the tool most health-science students reach for, and it is good. turn each epidemiology term and study-design distinction into a card, and let spacing keep them sharp across the semester. Cutline pairs Anki-style flashcards for the raw facts with a qbank of exam-style POPH192 questions, so you can drill what needs memorising and then practise applying it.

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Questions about POPH192

is the full poph192 bank live yet?

the bank is rolling out lecture by lecture, so more questions are added as each lecture is covered.

when will poph192 be fully indexed?

this page updates automatically once enough lectures are published, no need to check back manually.

Keep reading

The evidence

The study methods above come from established research in cognitive and educational psychology.

  1. Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249 to 255.
  2. Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4 to 58.
  3. Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81 to 112.
  4. Pan, S. C., & Rickard, T. C. (2018). Transfer of test-enhanced learning: Meta-analytic review and synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 144(7), 710 to 756.
  5. Carpenter, S. K., Pan, S. C., & Butler, A. C. (2022). The science of effective learning with spacing and retrieval practice. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1(9), 496 to 511.
  6. Deng, F., Gluckstein, J. A., & Larsen, D. P. (2015). Student-directed retrieval practice is a predictor of medical licensing examination performance. Perspectives on Medical Education, 4(6), 308 to 313.
  7. Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354 to 380.
  8. Weinstein, Y., Madan, C. R., & Sumeracki, M. A. (2018). Teaching the science of learning. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 3, 2.

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