How to ace Biochemistry? Need help!

[exacto]

Taking a biochem class at my college and the teacher literally reads off his PowerPoint which is taken directly from the book, so basically he is just regurgitating information straight from the book...

He is incredibly boring, and monotone as well, so it's really hard to enjoy or even to follow along with him.

What is the best way to do well in this course? I really need to get a good score, and i feel like without the teachers help, its' gonna be harder. So for those who have taken biochem, whats the secrets???? lol

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[cryhavoc]

Well, I basically just make flashcards for every little fact, draw out each pathway, molecule, amino acid, etc hundreds of times until my hand wants to fall off, and use every very dirty mnemonic device known to man. And study, all day, everyday. But that is only helping me pass at the moment. Hopefully. :/

Seems when I don't focus on the tiny facts, they bite me, and even when I reproduce the diagrams perfectly the night before the test, I still mix things up.

Glad I'm taking before medical school so I'll at least recognize it later on and not have to start from scratch.

 

[CaliforniaDreamer]

What kind of biochem class is it?

 

[exacto]

What kind of biochem class is it?

General introduction into biochem

 

[supremus]

..........................

 

[LChristmas]

Got an A in my biochem course that was also just a general intro to biochem (no lab). The teacher also just read verbatim off of his powerpoints, and it got to the point that I wouldn't even write a single note in a class because he did not deviate one iota from his powerpoint. He was monotone, very boring, but at least tried to insert some sci-fi humor that went straight over my head.

I used flashcards for all of the AAs and enzymes in glycolysis and TCA. We had to regurgitate the entire TCA (reactants, products, & enzymes) at each step, and for that I just kept writing it out until I couldn't get it wrong. It was the first question I answered on the final (literally just a blank page that said, "Draw the complete TCA cycle."), so I filled it in and haven't looked at it since. Couldn't even tell you a single enzyme in it.

I also did all of the assigned practice problems and went to office hours when I had any issues.

Good luck!

 

[exacto]

Book used?

Test format?

no clue about the test format, but the book is "principles of Biochemsitry" by Lehninger

 

[exacto]

Got an A in my biochem course that was also just a general intro to biochem (no lab). The teacher also just read verbatim off of his powerpoints, and it got to the point that I wouldn't even write a single note in a class because he did not deviate one iota from his powerpoint. He was monotone, very boring, but at least tried to insert some sci-fi humor that went straight over my head.

I used flashcards for all of the AAs and enzymes in glycolysis and TCA. We had to regurgitate the entire TCA (reactants, products, & enzymes) at each step, and for that I just kept writing it out until I couldn't get it wrong. It was the first question I answered on the final (literally just a blank page that said, "Draw the complete TCA cycle."), so I filled it in and haven't looked at it since. Couldn't even tell you a single enzyme in it.

I also did all of the assigned practice problems and went to office hours when I had any issues.

Good luck!

Thanks, that sounds like the way to go....i hate memorization classes...

 

[mikil100]

Taking a biochem class at my college and the teacher literally reads off his PowerPoint which is taken directly from the book, so basically he is just regurgitating information straight from the book...

He is incredibly boring, and monotone as well, so it's really hard to enjoy or even to follow along with him.

What is the best way to do well in this course? I really need to get a good score, and i feel like without the teachers help, its' gonna be harder. So for those who have taken biochem, whats the secrets???? lol

Sounds like my biochem professor.
He asks questions on the most minute details, too.

I've accepted that I will be getting my first B in over two years

 

[deleted577188]

Sounds like my biochem professor.
He asks questions on the most minute details, too.

I've accepted that I will be getting my first B in over two years

hoooooooooooomyyyyyyygawdddddd chill lol

 

[exacto]

any other tips besides flash cards and a **** ton of memorization of all the pathways,amnio acis, etc?

 

[Theafoni]

Same situation as you currently. Class is really different from gen chem, and o chem, the practice problems the instructor assigns are useless. Everything taught is on the slides, but to ace it, you have to literally memorize everything on the slides themselves. There is hardly any logic, and it can be difficult for people who'd rather think than just absorb information because there is really nothing to think about--just remember everything. It's really annoying.

I use mnemonics. For instance for the krebs cycle, a common acronym I saw on youtube: Can I Keep Selling Sex For Money, Officer?

C - citrate
I - isocitrate
K - a-ketoglutarate
S - succinyl CoA
S - succinate
F - fumarate
M - malate
O - oxaloacetate

Other than repetition (go over material several times) and active learning (drawing out, flashcards) relating biochem terminology to common things makes it memorable. The more gross, dirty, vulgar things are, the more likely you'll remember them.

 

[exacto]

Same situation as you currently. Class is really different from gen chem, and o chem, the practice problems the instructor assigns are useless. Everything taught is on the slides, but to ace it, you have to literally memorize everything on the slides themselves. There is hardly any logic, and it can be difficult for people who'd rather think than just absorb information because there is really nothing to think about--just remember everything. It's really annoying.

I use mnemonics. For instance for the krebs cycle, a common acronym I saw on youtube: Can I Keep Selling Sex For Money, Officer?

C - citrate
I - isocitrate
K - a-ketoglutarate
S - succinyl CoA
S - succinate
F - fumarate
M - malate
O - oxaloacetate

Other than repetition (go over material several times) and active learning (drawing out, flashcards) relating biochem terminology to common things makes it memorable. The more gross, dirty, vulgar things are, the more likely you'll remember them.

haha i dig that, yeah i think the more profane and vulgar the mnuemoics the easier it is to store in the memory bank... thankyou

 

[Bottle]

Seriously? I though biochem was basically o-chem but in biological systems. I'm taking cell bio right now and I hate the fact that it represent proteins in circles attached to each either and call it "activation".

 

[ZedsDed]

The same strategy that worked in organic, know everything. Good luck

 

[Lawpy]

Same situation as you currently. Class is really different from gen chem, and o chem, the practice problems the instructor assigns are useless. Everything taught is on the slides, but to ace it, you have to literally memorize everything on the slides themselves. There is hardly any logic, and it can be difficult for people who'd rather think than just absorb information because there is really nothing to think about--just remember everything. It's really annoying.

I use mnemonics. For instance for the krebs cycle, a common acronym I saw on youtube: Can I Keep Selling Sex For Money, Officer?

C - citrate
I - isocitrate
K - a-ketoglutarate
S - succinyl CoA
S - succinate
F - fumarate
M - malate
O - oxaloacetate

Other than repetition (go over material several times) and active learning (drawing out, flashcards) relating biochem terminology to common things makes it memorable. The more gross, dirty, vulgar things are, the more likely you'll remember them.

That's actually a very good mnemonic for the citric acid cycle. Good job lol.

Sadly, i'm not really a mnemonic guy but more of a visual learner. I just draw out pathways several times till i pretty much mastered them. It helped me deal effectively with lipid metabolism, pentose phosphate pathway, and nucleotide metabolism where mnemonics are hard to construct. It also helps big with regulation

 

[CaliforniaDreamer]

That's actually a very good mnemonic for the citric acid cycle. Good job lol.

Sadly, i'm not really a mnemonic guy but more of a visual learner. I just draw out pathways several times till i pretty much mastered them. It helped me deal effectively with lipid metabolism, pentose phosphate pathway, and nucleotide metabolism where mnemonics are hard to construct. It also helps big with regulation

The pentose phosphate pathway was the biggest mind**** to me, I had like 5 or 6 total seconds in which I fully grasped it and its purpose.

 

[625233]

Is biochem more like Bio 1 (just memorize alphabet soup) or more o-Chem ljke? Knowing how to get from A to B and using critical thinking?

 

[Lucca]

Is biochem more like Bio 1 (just memorize alphabet soup) or more o-Chem ljke? Knowing how to get from A to B and using critical thinking?

It's kind of both. There's a lot that is just straight memorization (enzyme pathways, amino acids and amino acid chemistry, regulation mechanisms) and there is also a lot of critical thinking (at least in my class there is) questions like "here's this new pathway you have never seen before, using your knowledge of biochem answer these questions about the pathway" and it'll usually go into some gene mutating and producing a non functional enzyme or some form of regulation etc.

We also draw a lot of mechanisms in my class, reaction mechanisms like in Ochem.

 

[cryhavoc]

Make sure you take the easiest professor you can. I know people with take home tests, and minimum memorizing. My professor wants every single details of everything memorized, and even with that, he never just asks for you to reproduce it, he asks to reproduce if such and such went wrong or an enzyme like this one was replaced that also did this. He's a little too hardcore for people trying to nurse their science GPA . . .

 

[ridethecliche]

Use zinc fingers to unzip leucine zippers.

 

[edgerock24]

Moof University videos: http://www.moofuniversity.com/biochemistry/

 

[bluetovah]

Mnemonics can help. I also looked for patterns. Finding symmetry in molecules or similarities among different molecules. Visualizing things really helped me, too. Draw the molecules in the TCA cycle the same way with the same orientation, and then you can easily see which carbon lost a hydrogen or whatever. And study with a whiteboard. Draw everything and draw often.

 

[amazing tekkers]

Do you know what Anki is? Well it's a simple program that can help you create flashcards, it basically allows you to keep things in your working memory for a long time.

I aced biochem using this thing http://ankisrs.net/

@mehc012 can probably explain

anki central http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/anki-central.1064361/

 

[cryhavoc]

Any tips for preparing for my final? So much all at once! I wanna assume giving the huge amount, knowing the most important topics from each of the 30+ chapters would ensure success, but this is not a make-sense topic. I'm going to be drilled on minutia.