This complete-enumeration, before-and-after type of study (without controls), was conducted in April 2018 on 53 First-year MBBS students (24 females: 45.28% and 29 males: 54.72%) at a medical college in Kalwa, Thane, Maharashtra, India. After explaining the purpose of the study to the prospective participants, written informed consent was obtained. Those who did not give written informed consent or those who were absent during either pre- or post-test were excluded. The pre-test, conducted after traditional didactic lectures on respiratory system, comprised 15 questions (2 marks each; total 30 marks). The post-test was conducted after case-based learning, using a questionnaire that was identical to that of the pre-test. The outcome studied was the difference in cognitive domain scores after attending traditional didactic lectures (by a pre-test) and after case-based learning (by a post-test). The difference between the mean pre-test score (14.11 +/- 5.12; 95% CI: 7.13 - 15.49) and post-test score (25.92 +/- 4.63; 95% CI: 24.68 - 27.17) was highly significant (Z=12.455; p<0.0001). In the pre-test, the first quartile score of female students was on par with the third quartile score of their male counterparts while the third quartile score of female students was on par with the maximum score obtained by males. The pre-test result also exhibited higher variability in scores obtained by male students. In the post-test, the overall scores of male students improved and the maximum score and third quartile were identical for students of both genders. In the pre-test, the gender differences in mean scores were statistically significant for 5 out of 15 questions, while the mean scores in the post-test did not exhibit significant gender differences. Extension of this study to other topics in the First-year MBBS course may enable formulation of suitable teaching-learning techniques.