Background: Declining attendance of medical students in the class and poor performance in the exams is becoming common now - a - days. Change in the teaching pattern by allowing the students to participate in the process could be one solution to the problem. Objectives: The present study was conducted to assess the difference in performance of the students after two different methods of teaching and to find out the reasons for these differences. Method: 100 students of the II MBBS were chosen for the study. The students were provided with topic based mcq before the lecture. They were asked to solve those MCQs before coming to the class in which lecture of that topic was to be held. Lecture was taken in participatory method. Students were allowed to ask questions as well as suggestions after the class. Three such topics were taught and tests were taken after the par-ticipatory lectures and after the conventional lecture. Results: Students scored more marks in the tests taken after the participatory method of teaching as compared to the traditional method. Two out of three tests performed showed statistically significant difference in the marks obtained (p<0.0001). The range of the marks obtained also improved with participatory method of teaching Conclusion: There is a need to accommodate problem based learning in medical sciences on regular basis to take care of monotony of conventional lectures.