Test Your Knowledge of Oriental Medical Theory!

Hi folks!

I'm back from a weekend of unrestrained and unimagineably macabre Chinese torture and have lived to tell of it!

"Mook! Surely your final exams weren't that bad?" I hear you ask/exclaim.

"Ha ha ha har har har hee hee har!" Is how I reply.

And just to show how threaded is the fabric of my very soul from this experience, I will now give you your own ten question quiz on OMT with real questions sampled from the midterms for the actual classes I just took. Let's see how you do! You can post your answers in the Comments section for me to grade, if ye dare.

1. A patient exhibiting constant fever that rises during the evening indicates:
a. Qi deficiency
b. Heat in the Stomach and Intestines
c. Yin Deficiency Heat
d. Invasion of Wind Heat

2. Frequent and spontaneous sweating indicates:
a. Weakness of Yang Qi; Qi Deficinecy, Weak Defensive Qi
b. Serious Deficiency of Yang Qi
c. Protective Qi too weak to expel the disease
d. Invasion of Wind Cold

3. Poor appetite, tastelessness in mouth and fullness in the epigastrium and abdomen indicates:
a. Cold Damp or stagnation
b. Retention of food
c. Weakness of Stomach and Spleen/Damp Heat in the Middle Burner
d. Cold and weak, Deficiency of Qi and or Yang

4. List all 60 Antique Points (Jing Well, Ying Spring, Shu Stream, Jing River, and He Sea for the five elements):

5. Zong Qi leads to (fill in the blank) Qi which leads to (fill in the blank) Qi which leads to (fill in the blank) Qi and (fill in the blank) Qi.

6. At what time of day would you needle to sedate the Lung? At what time of day would you needle to tonify the Pericardium? Describe your 5 element 4-needle technique and which points you use based on the Circadean clock.

7. The Heart Divergent Channel ascends along the throat and emerges on the face, connecting with the Small Intestine Channel (Hand Shao-Yang) at the inner or outer canthus?

8. Name the point whose name translates to "Head Binding" and meets with the Foot Yang-Ming, Foot Shao-Yang, and Yang Wei. It is used for headeaches due to wind and eye pain. (Fill in the blank).

9. a. This point is specifically for knee disorders. The Yang Ming channel traverses through the breast and is also used for breast swelling, pain abcesses. (Fill in the blank).

9. b. This above point is also the (fill in the blank) point of the Stomach channel. (Xi Cleft, Yuan Source or Luo-connecting or Mu point) Choose one.

9. c. What other point may be used for knee disorders due to heat, cold, or deficiency? It is needled toward Weizhong UB-40. (Fill in the blank).

10. List all 11 Influential points and their areas of influence, all 4 Command points and their areas of influence, and all 17 Back-Shu points of the Bladder Meridian and their functions.


Okay, fine-- that wasn't fair, there's no way you could even attempt to answer most of those. But it gives you some idea of what I just went through. Now multiply that list times ten for each class (I only had four this semester, the usual number is six to eight) and you get some idea of why my sanity must be questioned for a few days at least.

Ah . . . . On a brighter note, I did very well on these tests, thankfully. After I took my hardest one on Saturday, a bunch of friends and I were standing outside the class debriefing the exam, when my teacher comes bursting out into the hall waving my test around and says "Mukhtar, you only missed one! You only missed one!" And then just as quickly disappears back inside. My peers were not pleased: "Thanks for blowing the curve, Mooks."

Heh.