Homeopathy practice exam — sample questions

A homeopathy practice exam tests three strands: philosophy from the Organon, materia medica recall, and repertory method. The ten questions below follow that distribution. Sit them closed-book, write your answers, then check the key.

Section A — Philosophy

1. Which aphorism of the Organon directs the prescriber to attend especially to the "striking, exceptional, unusual and peculiar" signs of the case, and why does repertorization depend on it?
2. State the law of similars in one sentence, and name the work in which Hahnemann sets out the doctrine of chronic diseases.
3. What does Hahnemann mean by the "totality of symptoms" in §6, and what does the totality explicitly exclude?

Section B — Materia medica

4. Name three classical keynotes of Arsenicum album as given in Allen's Keynotes.
5. A remedy picture features profuse, bland lachrymation, thirstlessness, changeable symptoms, and amelioration in open air. Which remedy does Allen's keynote layer point to?
6. Distinguish Bryonia from Rhus toxicodendron on the single axis of motion.

Section C — Repertory and method

7. In Kent's Repertory, in which chapter would you locate a rubric for "fear of the dark", and what does the chapter placement tell you about the symptom's classification?
8. Rank the following for repertorial weight under classical method: a common symptom of the diagnosis; a strange, rare and peculiar symptom; a strong mental general. Justify briefly.
9. What is an elimination rubric, and what risk does eliminative repertorization carry?
10. After repertorization produces a chart of five candidate remedies, what is the next step before prescribing, per Kent?

Answer key

1. §153. Repertorization depends on it because rubric selection is the act of identifying which symptoms are characteristic rather than common; §153 supplies the selection criterion.
2. "Let likes be treated by likes" (similia similibus curentur); the chronic-disease doctrine is set out in The Chronic Diseases (1828–1839).
3. The totality is the outwardly reflected picture of the disturbance — the complete set of perceptible signs and symptoms; it excludes speculative inner causes not expressed as observable symptoms.
4. Anguish and restlessness; burning pains relieved by heat; thirst for frequent small sips; worse after midnight (any three).
5. Pulsatilla.
6. Bryonia is worse from any motion and wants stillness; Rhus toxicodendron is worse on first motion but better from continued motion.
7. The Mind chapter — its placement classifies the fear as a mental symptom, weighted among the generals of the case.
8. Strange-rare-peculiar first, strong mental general second, common diagnostic symptom last; characteristic symptoms individualize the case while common symptoms do not.
9. A rubric treated as mandatory, so that only remedies present in it survive the analysis; the risk is excluding the correct remedy on a single misjudged or incomplete rubric.
10. Confirm the leading candidates against the materia medica — the repertory indexes the literature, it does not replace it.

Scoring and study

Mark each answer right, partial, or wrong, and turn every non-right answer into a study item. Section A gaps send you back to the Organon itself, read aphorism by aphorism. Section B gaps go onto a spaced-review queue against Allen, Boericke and Hering. Section C gaps mean more paper cases — work them on Kent's repertory, then drill the same rubrics at volume against a free symptom-searchable repertory until the chapter map is automatic. Sit the same ten questions cold in a month; that delta is your progress measure.

References

Hahnemann, S. (1842) Organon of Medicine, sixth edition, English translation, public-domain scan, https://archive.org/details/organon-of-medicine-6th-edition-completed-1842-german-edition-published-1921-eng.

Kent, J. T. (1900) Lectures on Homoeopathic Philosophy, public-domain scan, https://archive.org/details/lecturesonhomoe00kentgoog.

Allen, H. C. (1899) Keynotes and Characteristics with Comparisons, public-domain scan, https://archive.org/details/keynotescharacte00alle.

Kent, J. T. (1897) Repertory of the Homoeopathic Materia Medica, public-domain scan, https://archive.org/details/kents-repertory_202403.

Hahnemann, S. (1845) The Chronic Diseases, their Peculiar Nature and their Homoeopathic Cure, American edition, public-domain scan, https://archive.org/details/chronicdiseases01herigoog.