As a national application system, it is hard to believe that whoever that's sitting on the board does not find the whitespace questions an utter joke - take this yr's questions for example, some of them have obviously been written by people who've not had a real job for a while - there are so many qns that scream for politically-correct answers (and really, if you saw your consultant berate your mate for a simple mistake, you'd just take him out for a pint and bitch abt the boss!)
also, u probably could hear the collective hearts of the sports/society captains break when we found out that CVs were not being used this year as part of the selection process - so the message is essentially that they don't want bookworms as doctors, they want people who can bullsh*t the best (as if there werent enough people in administration)
i think the powers that be should be aware that all their publications on how doctors should be are GUIDELINES - being able to spew endless rhetoric abt guidelines does not make one a better/more competent doctor, it just means he is familiar with the guidelines
and really, when u reduce everything to a computer lottery (ok, i appreciate the vast amount of time and money that goes into writing these 5 questions and marking them), it doesnt exactly make for good motivation in medical school doesnt it?