Journal Discussion Group

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JustinD

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Hey MCATers,

Seeing as the new MCAT exam really tests your understanding of scientific concepts in the context of experimental evidence, I think its a very wise idea to study by reading scientific journals pertaining to topics on the MCAT. The way this will work is every week I will post a scientific journal that everyone will read. Then, we will all meet on a specific day (likely a Saturday in the afternoon, depending on when people are free) via skype. For roughly an hour we will discuss the journal page by page.

If your in, either put your Skype here or private message me your username and I will create a group. I'll provide a link to the paper (will likely be a recent one relating to biochemistry / biology) and time to be online skype once I recieve 4-5 skype usernames.

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A few of us had a great discussion of the first biochemistry paper. We spent about 30 minutes discussing the article and its figures and results over Skype. I think it was a good article as it went over basic concepts like Michaelis Menten kinetics, PCR amplification, tRNA, competitive inhibitors etc.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25409504

Were planning on discussing 1-2 articles per week and switching between biochemistry and the social science topics. If you want to participate let me know your Skype!
 
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what happens when the group gets large though, or when everyone is (hypothetically) starts talking over one another?
 
what happens when the group gets large though, or when everyone is (hypothetically) starts talking over one another?

What I did for the first journal discussion was split the pages up. So I was responsible for pages 3, 5, 7 while someone would be responsible for 2, 4, 6 etc. This way one person can lead a discussion for their page. This method would work even if there are a large number of people in the discussion.
 
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IMO, we can do this online in this forum. Most of us are super busy to do skype. I recommend:
Assign one article per week
Each of us do some bulletin points.
We look at each other's and give review.

It's more efficient this way and I'm sure a lot of people will contribute. On the other hand, the skype thing won't last long imo and it'd take a lot more works. People want easy/convinience and consistency.
 
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Great idea, I was wondering if this is still going on too but we can get together via Skype or Gchat, PM if you're interested. This can apply to verbal too I guess. Good luck.
 
I'd be down to revive this if it's not going on anymore (assuming OP has since taken the test). Hope you did well OP!
 
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