Posts tagged #mcatlearninghub

MCAT Mnemonics: Physics/Chemistry

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We are still on the MCAT mnemonics series. This blog we continue with mnemonics for physics and chemistry
-Formulas
Work = Mass * Acceleration * Distance : Lots of Work makes me MAD


Ideal gas law: PV = nRT: Pure Vodka Needs Red Tabasco

Gibb’s free energy: ∆G =∆H – T∆S: Good Honey Tastes Sweet


Ohm’s law: Volts = Amps * Resistance: Vampires Aren’t Real


-Order of increasing wavelengths: Gamma rays, X-rays, Ultraviolet, Visible light, Infrared, Microwaves, Radio waves = Great Xylophones Use Very Interesting Musical Rhythms


-Visible spectrum: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet = ROY G BiV


-Redox reaction: Leo says Ger = Loss of electrons is oxidation, Gain of electrons is reduction; Oil Rig = Oxidation is loss, Reduction is gain


-Cations & anions: Cats have paws = cations are pawsitive; cation = the letter t in cation resemble a plus sign

-Electrodes
PANIC: Positive is Anode, Negative Is Cathode
Red cat: Reduction at cathode
An ox: Anode for Oxidation


-Sequence of orbitals: Susan Plays Darts, Football and is Good at Hiding In Kitchen = s p d f g h i k


-Noble gases: Harry Needs A Kaleidoscope for X-Mas Right away = Helium, Neon, Argon, Krypton, Xenon, Radon


-Electronegativity: Fluorine > Oxygen > Chlorine > Nitrogen > Bromine > Iodine > Sulfur > Carbon > Hydrogen > Phosphorus = FOCIN BrIS CHP (pronounce)


Once again, this is just tips of the iceberg. You still need to apply what you remember to various scenarios in the MCAT exam!
Jane

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

Time Management Strategies for MCAT

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Since MCAT is a timed test, one of the most common issues that students have with the MCAT is time management. By the time they realize that there’s only five minutes left, panic kicks in and they start to answer the questions without thinking clearly. All of these could be avoided if you have good time management strategies. It would a shame to run out of time towards the end only to find out that some of the questions could be correctly answered in just a few seconds. Here are some pacing tips to keep you calm and walk through MCAT strategically!

  • Time per question
    Most questions are passage-based; science sections have 10 passages and 9 for CARS. In the science sections, you will have ~ 1 minutes 35 seconds per question; for CARS, you will have ~1 minutes 40 seconds per question. Keep in mind that you need to allot the time for reading the passage as well. The following is the suggested amount of time you should spent for each passage including time reading the passage
    Sciences: 4 questions passage: 6.5 minutes
    5 questions passage: 8 minutes
    6 questions passage: 9.5 minutes
    CARS: 5 questions passage: 8.5 minutes
    6 questions passage: 10 minutes
    7 questions passage: 11.5 minutes
  • Keep an eye on the timer
    Before you start the passage, note down how much time you will spend on the passage; you may write on the notepad provided the time you need to finish so you can keep your eyes on the timer as you work through the questions. When you are running out of time, make notes and mark the questions so you can come back to on them later you if you have time left.
  • No guessing penalty
    There is no guessing penalty so do not leave any question blank!!! This might come in handy when you are running out of time, especially for CARS. To finish all 9 passages for CARS, you have ~10 minutes/passage. Some sources say people might have to randomly guess on at least one passage just to complete the entire CARS section. Even with a random guess, you still have a 25% chance of getting the questions right.
  • Above mentioned strategies will only work if you PRACTICE, especially the ones that resemble the real MCAT. Remember the 3 Ps: Plan you study, Put that into action, and Practice!!!
    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

MCAT Warm Up Tips

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Happy New Year 2025!!! It’s time to enter the MCAT race! It’s a race against yourself and time once you have registered to do this exam. Just like running a marathon, you need a good warmup and efficient training to get an extraordinary performance. So, to start off 2025, we will provide you with MCAT warmup tips to help you with MCAT race.
• At the beginning of the MCAT I course, we will provide you with a schema development. Please finish reading the passages included. This is where you can self-assess your English reading skills and know where you need to improve e.g. vocabulary, comprehension etc.
• The reason that we emphasize that you finish reading the schema is that this is an applicable skill for all subjects in MCAT. What you are doing in the exam is basically reading the exam questions and try to answer them correctly. In order to do this, you need to at least understand what you are reading. After understanding the content, then you can proceed to critical thinking.
• Another skill that you might want to work on is your mental math. A lot of questions in the science sections involve quick calculations. Also, you need to familiarize with the math fundamentals e.g. arithmetic, algebra, logarithms and exponents.
• The last tip for the warmup is to attend all the classes!!! Needless to say that interaction during the classes will help you study more efficiently. You can tackle any question you have right away.
Remember these are just warmups. The real workout is yet to come. This will require your full effort and input into MCAT study journey. So get ready for the race!!!
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