Posts tagged #mcat

MCAT Mnemonics: Biology/Biochemistry

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As mentioned in the previous blog, MCAT is not just about memorization. It’s testing your ability to apply the knowledge to unfamiliar situations. In order to do so, you must have a solid foundation of concepts of each subject. To help you with this, here are some mnemonics for biology/biochemistry that might come in handy for your preparation.


-Nucleic acids/amino acids
CUT the PYramid = Cytosine, Uracil, Thymines are pyrimidines


Pure As Gold = Adenine and Guanine are purines


Stop codons: UAA, UGA UAG = U Are Annoying, U Go Away, U Are Gone


Polar/hydrophilic amino acids: Santa’s Team Crafts New Quilts Quilt Yearly = Serine, Threonine, Cysteine, Asparagine, Glutamine, Tyrosine


Nonpolar amino acids: Granma Always Visits London In May For Will’s Party = Glycine, Alanine, Valine, Leucine, Isoleucine, Methionine, Phenylalanine, Tryptophan, Proline


Electrically charged amino acids: Dragons Eat Knights Riding Horses = Aspartate, Glutamate, Lysine, Arginine, Histidine
-Body systems


LAB RAT: Left Atrium = Bicuspid, Right Atrium = Tricuspid


FLAT PGEM: anterior pituitary hormone = FSH, LH, ACTH, TSH, Prolactin, Growth hormone, Endorphin, Melanocyte-stimulating hormone


Path of sperm: SEVEn UP = Seminiferous tubule, Epididymis, Vas deferens, Ejaculatory duct, Urethra, Penis


-Enzymes
Glycolysis: Hungry Peter Pan And The Growling Pink Panther Eat Pies = Hexokinase, Phosphohexose isomerase, PFK-1, Aldolase, Triose phosphate isomerase, GAPDH, Phosphoglycerate kinase, Phosphoglycerate mutase, Enolase, Pyruvate kinase


Kreb’s cycle: Cool Aunt In Kansas Sell Special Fudge Monthly = Citrate synthase, Aconitase, Isocitrate dehydrogenase, α-Ketoglutarate dehydrogenase, Succinyl-CoA synthetase, Succinate dehydrogenase, Fumarase, Malate dehydrogenase


There are many more mnemonics available online. And of course, you can create your own!! This is even better because you will definitely remember that. Stay tune for the mnemonics for Physics & Chemistry!!
Jane

MCAT Memorization: Tricks or Tips

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It’s undeniable that memorization play a big part in your study for MCAT. It’s basically what MCAT is testing you: you knowledge about specific fact or concept. If don’t know the technical terms, formulas, theorems, or even people’s names, you will not be able to answers the questions correctly. Here are some tips to help you with your memorization:

  • Mnemonics
    These are patterns such as series of letter or even your tune of you favorite song that help you memorize. For example, one of the most popular in trigonometry is SOH CAH TOA: Sine = Opp/Hyp, Cosine = Adj/Hyp, Tangent = Opp/Adj; the word PANIC can stand for Positive is Cathode, Negative is Anode. Other mnemonic strategies include rhyming of words; linking method or chaining, in which you develop a story or image that connects the pieces of information you need to memorize.
  • Memory palace (Like Sherlock Holme’s Mind Palace)
    This involves imagining that you are moving through familiar places and at various stops along the way leaving a visual presentation of a topic you want to remember. So when you want to recall the information, you will imagine walking through your “palace”. This might come into handy when you try to memorize the enzymes in a particular pathway e.g. glycolysis and Krebs cycle.
    There is no one right approach to memorize the contents for MCAT. Afterall, it comes down to either you know answer or you don’t. Try different studying with different approaches that suit you best. After memorization, don’t forget that the most challenging part of MCAT is to apply your basic scientific knowledge to unfamiliar situations they present to you. Make sure you understand the content, not just remember the content.
    Jane

MCAT Myths EP.1

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Ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu wrote in his book The Art of War, “know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril”. This quote is absolutely suitable for those who are trying to conquer MCAT. So before entering this MCAT battle, we should clear up the so-called “MCAT Myths”, which are the general misconceptions that students have.

1: There is a shortcut for MCAT

This usually happens to students who try to cram everything in the last minutes. MCAT is not your midterm or final exam!!! Once you are sure that you are going to take MCAT, start early for your preparation. You need at least 6 months for study and doing all the necessary practices e.g. questions banks from different platforms. If there’s a shortcut for MCAT, all those publishers selling the MCAT preparation books would be out business by now! Remember, MCAT is a marathon, rather than a sprint.

2: You can take MCAT as many times as you want

That’s a big NO!!! You can take MCAT:
• Up to 3 times per year
• Up to 4 times during two-consecutive year period
• Up to 7 times over a lifetime
In fact, MCAT is a very stressful and expensive test, so you want to get everything right the first time. Invest your best effort, time and energy once you decide to take the MCAT. That way you won’t have to go through the same ‘pain’ again, but go fulfilling your dream of becoming a physician/doctors!!
That’s it for the first episode of MCAT Myths. There are a few more myths to be told, stay tune for the second episode!
Jane

High Yields MCAT Topics: Biochemistry

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After high yields MCAT topics for biology, it’s time for biochemistry! These two topics are tested together in the same section so your challenge is to integrate your knowledge in these two areas to answer the questions correctly. For example, you will be provided with a passage about a certain disease that involves a defective protein; the questions can be about inheritance pattern, gene expression, and protein structure. Let’s take a look at these high yields topics!

1. Structures of macromolecules (carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids, proteins)

• Glucose structure in both straight and cyclic forms appear the most.

• Lipids might not come up as much, but do know their general structures and general properties e.g. structural vs storage lipids.

• Emphasis on the proteins, particularly the amino acids. Make sure you know their names, properties and abbreviation. Levels of proteins structures come up quite often, regarding bond types associated with each level.

• For DNA, it can be very useful if you remember the structures of A, T, C, G. Bonds types associated each level is a must know as well.

2. Enzyme kinetics

• Formulas, interpretation of Michaelis-Menten and Lineweaver-Burk plots

• Different types of enzyme inhibition and regulation 3. Gene expression and expression control

• DNA replication, transcription and translation. Know the role of different protein and enzymes involved in each process e.g. transcription factor, DNA/RNA polymerases etc.

• Operon model (induced vs repressed)

• Types of mutation e.g. silent, missense, frameshift mutations.

4. Metabolism basics (important enzymes/substrate names & functions)

• Glycolysis, especially irreversible steps • Gluconeogenic-specific enzymes

• TCA cycle enzymes and substrates in order e.g. which ones produce what byproducts

• ETC

5. Lab techniques (DNA, RNA and proteins)

• Know the main purposes and overall interpretation of the results presented.

I know it’s quite a lot for biochemistry, but if you plan out your study accordingly, I’m sure you will master your these topics soon enough before the actual MCAT exam. We still have two more subjects to go!!!

Have fun studying!

Jane

High Yields MCAT Topics: Physics

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We are still on our “high yields MCAT topics” series. Let’s us move to topics for physics, which is one of the ‘unfavorable’ topics in MCAT. Lots of students find physics very difficult to understand because it involves lots of calculations and memorizing lots of equations.

To help you studying for physics, these are the high yields topics suggested by Aj. Karan, our physics teacher at Learning Hub.

1. Mechanics – forces – motion – energy conversions Questions about energy like kinetic energy, potential energy, power tend to appear a lot in the MCAT. Forces and motion is a basic knowledge that will be applied to questions from other topics as well so cannot be left out.

2. Waves – doppler effect, sound intensity, light and lenses, interference These are generally quite important

3. Electricity and charges, circuit resistance circulations are important. Basic understanding of charge attraction and repulsion also tend to appear on the MCAT

4. Nuclear physics – half lives and radioactive decay

5. Fluids – topics on fluids may not appear as much but they do pop up once in a while

6. Thermodynamics will show up more as a chemistry question but the knowledge is still quite important.

In regards to skills in Physics, students should be able to manipulate formulas or combine them. I recommend students to brush up their mental math skills as in the MCAT, no calculators are allowed. Lastly, units conversion. A lot of MCAT questions provide answers that are of different units than the questions; for example, the question asks in mMol but answers in Mol. Students tend to disregard the change and get the question wrong.

And of course, as with all other MCAT subjects, practicing question bank is key.

Stay tune for the next high yield topics blog!

Jane

High Yields MCAT Topics: Biology

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Studying for MCAT can be very daunting and requires lots of effort and time. One way to help you study is to focus on ‘high yield’ topics, which are the frequently asked on the MCAT exam. This will save your study time and help you prepared for MCAT more efficiently.

For this blog, we will start off with Biology!

• As you might guess, questions about body systems will come up the most since it covers more than half of Biology. Nervous and endocrine systems are definitely going to show up in either in a passage or independent questions since they are the systems that control other systems. So by studying these two systems thoroughly, you are basically going through the other systems as wells

• Genetics and evolution are the ones not to be missed and luckily, they are actually not that difficult. They are usually asked in independent question and sometimes asked in a passage, especially when it is about a disease or a genetic disorder. Be sure to practice genetic questions by doing Punnett square as well as applying multiplication and addition rules. This is where you can grab as many points as possible!

• Lastly, it’s not biology if there isn’t question about cell. Make sure you know the differences and similarities between prokaryotic cells and eukaryotic cells. This includes overall structures and gene expressions. Questions about viruses are often asked along as well since they can attack both prokaryotes and eukaryotes! Learn how different types of viruses replicate can be very useful.

Focusing on high yield topics is for efficiency, so don’t neglect other areas that I didn’t mention; after all, if you don’t have the necessary basics, you won’t be able to apply your knowledge and draw a right conclusion. That’s all for Biology. See you next blog for high yield topics for Biochemistry!

Jane

Critical Thinking & Scientific Reasoning Skills for MCAT

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One of the most important skills being tested in MCAT is your critical thinking, which involves skill sets such as problem solving, analysis and inductive reasoning. These skills will be tested in both scientific (e.g. biology, biochemistry, physics and chemistry) and non-scientific (e.g. CARS) settings. So what must be done to perfect such skills?!

The first thing you have to do is study and memorize all the contents that are required for all subjects. This is an inevitable challenge, of course, otherwise, you won’t be able to apply what you know to answer the questions correctly. As the quote from Benjamin Franklin, “Practice makes Perfect”. This is absolutely true for MCAT. Since such skills can’t be improved overnight, this is what you have to do.

At Learning Hub, we will provide you with tons of questions from various sources. You will be familiarized with different types of research-based passages, data, graphs and styles of questions you will see in the actual MCAT. And through this question bank, you will develop and improve your comprehension within and beyond the text MCAT given to you. This is what MCAT is assessing you because these are skills for a good physician!

Jane

MCAT CARS: Schema Development

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After having taught CARS for over 4 years, Aj. Sumi our CARS expert and tutor has expressed to AJ. Rani, founder of Learning Hub and MEDI PREP, that she continuously encounters similar issues year after year that are:

1. students’ inability to truly interpret sentences and,

2. students’ limited vocabulary stock.

Aj. Sumi, after discussion with her peers, has come up with a solution: Schema Development. (WHaaaattttttt is this!!? :D)


Let me explain: Schema Development basically is exposing students to articles on many topics before attending proper CARS class to increase their vocabulary bank and also increase their understanding of sentences in their diverse contexts.

Hence, with this understanding, Aj. Rani has developed an Advanced Reading Interpretation Practice and Schema Development as the first class of next MCAT’ 25 group course. Upon registration of MCAT group course, students will be given 9 academic articles on various topics (diligently researched by Rani and Sumi on high-yield topics in MCAT CARS and topics students find most difficulty dealing with) to peruse before class begins.

The class will be intensively interpreting sentences in the article’s context and learning to find meaning of weird words without using a dictionary (FUN!…hahahaha).

Students will definitely be able to implement reading skills gained from this class to all MCAT sections, read faster, have an adequate understanding after one read.

See all you aspiring doctors soon!

Happy Learning!

Rani 🙂

MCAT: ต้องเตรียม ต้องติว ต้องปัง

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สวัสดีค่ะน้องๆทุกคน อ. เจน นะคะ (หรือจะเรียกพี่เจนก็ได้ค่ะ เพื่อความเป็นกันเอง) ขอแนะนำตัวแบบง่ายๆก่อนเลย พี่เรียนจบปริญญาเอกสาขาวิชาชีวเคมี คณะวิทยาศาสตร์ มหาวิทยาลัยมหิดล โดยรับหน้าที่การสอนวิชา Biology เป็นหลักและ Biochemistry ที่ Learning Hub และ MediPrep ค่ะ ซึ่งก็มีประสบการณ์สอนน้องๆที่นี่มาเกือบ 5 ปีแล้วค่ะ

สำหรับ blog แรกนี้ พี่ขอเริ่มต้นด้วยการแนะนำเกร็ดเล็กๆน้อยๆสำหรับการเตรียมตัวก่อนสอบ MCAT นะคะ สิ่งแรกที่น้องๆต้องทำคือต้องทำความรู้จัก MCAT ก่อน (รายละเอียดนั้น สามารถหาได้จากทาง website ต่างๆได้) โดยข้อสอบจะแบ่งออกเป็น 4 ส่วน:

1. Biological and Biochemical of Living Systems

2. Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological systems

3. Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior

4. Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills

คะแนนเต็มของแต่ละส่วนคือ 132 คะแนน มีคะแนนรวมทั้งหมด 528 คะแนน

• เพราะฉะนั้น การที่จะได้คะแนนสอบที่ดีนั้นจะต้องมีการเตรียมตัวที่ใช้เวลาอย่างน้อย 6 เดือน โดยเวลานี้จะเป็นการเรียนรู้เนื้อหาวิชาต่างๆ รวมถึงการทำข้อสอบจาก question banks (Learning Hub เราพร้อมจัดการให้ทุกอย่างแน่นอน!)

• อย่างแรกที่อยากให้น้องๆทำคือสร้าง to-do list ของตัวเองโดยแบ่งเป็น 3 ช่วงใหญ่ คือ

1. ช่วง Study เป็นเรียนรู้เนื้อหาของแต่ละวิชาเป็นหลัก ทำความเข้าใจเนื้อหา จำคำศัพท์ทางเทคนิคต่างๆ เป็นต้น

2. ช่วง Review เป็นการทบทวนเนื้อหาที่ได้ทำไปในช่วง study โดยมีการทำแบบฝึกหัดแบบพื้นฐาน หรือการใช้ Anki flashcards

*น้องๆสามารถนำช่วง study และ review มาสลับกันได้ เช่น เมื่อเรียนบท respiratory system เสร็จแล้ว ก็ต่อด้วยช่วง review

3. ช่วง Practice เป็นการทำแบบฝึกหัดที่ใกล้เคียงกับข้อสอบ MCAT ของจริง เช่นการทำคำถามจาก UWorld หรือ AAMC เพราะน้องๆจะได้ประเมินตัวเองว่าพร้อมหรือยังที่จะสอบ มีเนื้อหาตรงไหนที่ต้องไปเน้นเพิ่มเติมหรือไม่ ขอเน้นเลยนะคะ ว่าจุดนี้สำคัญมากๆ นอกจากจะเป็นการทดสอบความรู้ที่ต้องใช้สอบแล้ว ยังเป็นการเรียนรู้ style การสอบของตัวเองด้วย เช่นการเลือกที่จะทำ passage ให้จบก่อน หรือ independent questions ก่อน หรือระยะเวลาในการใช้ตอบคำถามว่าใช้เวลานานไปหรือไม่ เพราะอย่าลืมว่าเรามีเวลาแค่ 90-95 นาทีในการทำข้อสอบ โดยการทำ to-do list นี้ ควรเซ็ท timeline ไว้ด้วย เช่น ในสัปดาห์นี้จะเรียนเกี่ยวกับ glucose metabolism และ lipid metabolism ซึ่งการทำแบบนี้จะช่วยให้เห็นในภาพกว้างของระยะเวลาในการเตรียมตัวทั้งหมดก่อนสอบ และเป็นการกระตุ้นตัวเองว่าเวลาใกล้สอบแล้วนะ พร้อมหรือยัง ไฟจะลนก้นแล้วหรือยังนะ ล้อเล่นนะคะ ซึ่งถ้าน้องๆเซ็ท timeline แบบนี้ น้องๆจะไม่มีความ panic แบบนี้แน่นอน ตรงกันข้าม น้องๆจะรู้สึกว่าตัวเองพร้อมแล้วที่จะลุยในสนามจริง

• อีกอย่างที่สำคัญไม่แพ้กันคือเวลาพัก อย่าลืมใส่เวลา break เข้าไปใน to-do list ด้วยนะคะ เป็นการพักสมองเบาๆ สักวันในสัปดาห์ที่ฝ่าฟันเนื้อหาทั้งหมดมา เครียดไปก็ไม่ดีนะคะ! เป็นการ recharge ตัวเองเพื่อการเรียนในสัปดาห์ถัดไปค่ะ

ทั้งหมดนี้เป็นเพียงเทคนิคเล็กๆน้อยๆที่พี่มาเสนอนะคะ โดยน้องๆสามารถปรับเปลี่ยนให้เข้ากับตัวเองเพื่อให้การเตรียมตัวมีประสิทธิภาพมากขึ้นค่ะ ทาง Learning Hub พร้อมพาน้องๆลงสู่สนามจริงค่ะ! เพราะการเริ่มต้นที่ดี มีชัยไปกว่าครึ่งนะคะ happy learning ค่ะทุกคน แล้วพบกันใน blog ถัดไปค่ะ

อ.เจน 🙂

MCAT Skills

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MCAT Skills

The MCAT, apart from testing the content and its applications, also tests a few requisite skills: statistical reasoning, deducing a conclusion and analytical thinking. And before I get into the details, this is written specifically for a Thai audience as I have had experiences teaching students in Thailand.

So, let’s get to the skills: (there might be more but I believe that these are the most important) **I am basing this only on Biology and Biochemical Paper as I teach only this paper**

  1. Statistical Reasoning: basically, students have to be able to read and more important – understand the graphs, figures and the numbers. You must understand WHAT the graph is trying to say, what it has NOT included and which part of the passage does it resonate with? Once this skill is accomplished, we move on to the next:
  2. Analytical thinking and Deducing a conclusion: once we have read the graph, we can analyze and come to the conclusion. Literally, common sense right? (See, the steps are something that you use in your everyday life!). Now, you use that information to analyze (what goes up, what goes down, then what happens and what not) to arrive to a conclusion (when this variable increases, this variable decreases as an example). Once, we have arrive at such a conclusion, we can then look for a similar pattern in the answer to choose the correct choice.   **(Again, this is just the way I do it, I don’t force my students to follow my way if they can come up with a faster and better way)***

I believe that even before the content is started, students must be acclimatized to these skills for scientific studies. These skills can then be applied with the content to increase your familiarity with the thought-process and repetitions will increase your accuracy. Now that we are done for scientific studies, let’s move on to CARS.

I have had numerous inquiries regarding how to learn CARS and to answer honestly, and also from the POV of my CARS tutor, it is to do as many papers as possible with the correct foundational skills already perfected. What I mean is first develop a few basic skills then move on to do the questions.

First and foremost, learn to read in academic English. Remember, CARS is one whole paper, therefore, it makes up one whole part of your total MCAT score. And the reading skills gained in CARS can be applied to ALL papers. So it is worth it to learn to read and automatically understand academic English.  

Secondly, there are certain skills needed such as drawing a conclusion, finding the assumptions and predicting the future thoughts of the writer. Again, these skills should be laid before the CARS question bank and developed with the CARS question bank. 

These skills are vital to your making it to above the 505 in the MCAT scores. And remember, that most of the skills are based on logic. You don’t need to have a statistical background nor be a great English reader but what is needed is your ability to connect the dots, analyze them and draw a conclusion. Just like how you perceive information in your everyday life and make decisions based on that. To repeat, these skills are already in you, you just need a nudge in the right direction.

I hope this has helped you, if not much, then at least laid down a process for your preparation.

I believe in you!

Good Luck!!

Rani 🙂