ACS Biochemistry Exam

[arory]

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Hi all,

Has anyone taken the ACS Biochemistry exam? How did you go about preparing for it? It covers both Biochem I and II material.

 

[aldol16]

Look over your class notes from biochemistry and supplement that with Lehninger if you have any concepts you want to brush up on. It's not a particularly difficult exam.

 

[arory]

Look over your class notes from biochemistry and supplement that with Lehninger if you have any concepts you want to brush up on. It's not a particularly difficult exam.

Do you have any recommendations for practice materials? I heard that it's very problem oriented. Is it like the Biochem on the MCAT? Would the Biochem section bank be helpful for the ACS Biochemistry exam?

 

[aldol16]

Oh, it's not really like the biochem on the MCAT. It's not passage-based and in my opinion, it's much easier. I think if you prepare well for the MCAT biochem, then you should do just fine on the ACS biochem. You do have to know more about the various biochemical techniques for the ACS biochem exam though, as it's more geared towards assessing whether students are ready for graduate school.

 

[arory]

Thanks! I am studying hard. Do you have a good source for the lab techniques or should I just go off the techniques covered in Lehningers? Would you say the questions are like the ones in the back of the chapters of the lehningers textbook in terms of level of difficulty?

 

[arory]

Oh, it's not really like the biochem on the MCAT. It's not passage-based and in my opinion, it's much easier. I think if you prepare well for the MCAT biochem, then you should do just fine on the ACS biochem. You do have to know more about the various biochemical techniques for the ACS biochem exam though, as it's more geared towards assessing whether students are ready for graduate school.

Sorry forgot to tag you!

 

[arory]

@kraskadva and @Akewataru if you've ever taken it I would appreciate any advice as well 🙂

 

[kraskadva]

@kraskadva and @Akewataru if you've ever taken it I would appreciate any advice as well 🙂

Don't stress. (Which is the same advice I give all my students, not sarcasm.)

Does your school do a 1 semester course (through basics, kinetics, & glycolysis/CAC/ETC) or a 2 semester course (Option 1 + LOTS of metabolic pathways)?
Because the test is designed for the 2 semester course, so if you've had the one, then your teacher will be putting a helluva curve on it, on top of the very large curve applied by the ACS.

 

[arory]

Don't stress. (Which is the same advice I give all my students, not sarcasm.)

Does your school do a 1 semester course (through basics, kinetics, & glycolysis/CAC/ETC) or a 2 semester course (Option 1 + LOTS of metabolic pathways)?
Because the test is designed for the 2 semester course, so if you've had the one, then your teacher will be putting a helluva curve on it, on top of the very large curve applied by the ACS.

I took Biochem 1 and 2. Are the questions of similar difficulty to the lehninger chapter questions?

 

[kraskadva]

I took Biochem 1 and 2. Are the questions of similar difficulty to the lehninger chapter questions?

Yeah, pretty much.
And it's just an ACS...you've had one of those before, yes? It's all MC, 4 options (1-2 clearly wrong, 1-2 to trip you if you don't know the concept well, and the correct 1)
If you've been doing pretty well in the course so far and feel like you 'get it', at least mostly, then you'll be fine on the ACS. If you haven't been doing well/don't get it, then there's not really anything you can do at the 11th hour. Standardized testing is standardized. Which means you should hit around your class average on the ACS. And scoring for the ACS is percentile based (and those %iles are from 20 years of administering the same exam), so you don't have to get everything right to get a good score. So...don't stress about it.

 

[Prolix]

Yeah, pretty much.
And it's just an ACS...you've had one of those before, yes? It's all MC, 4 options (1-2 clearly wrong, 1-2 to trip you if you don't know the concept well, and the correct 1)
If you've been doing pretty well in the course so far and feel like you 'get it', at least mostly, then you'll be fine on the ACS. If you haven't been doing well/don't get it, then there's not really anything you can do at the 11th hour. Standardized testing is standardized. Which means you should hit around your class average on the ACS. And scoring for the ACS is percentile based (and those %iles are from 20 years of administering the same exam), so you don't have to get everything right to get a good score. So...don't stress about it.

I believe there are 5 choice per each question. I mainly studied the metabolic cycles for it.

 

[aldol16]

Thanks! I am studying hard. Do you have a good source for the lab techniques or should I just go off the techniques covered in Lehningers? Would you say the questions are like the ones in the back of the chapters of the lehningers textbook in terms of level of difficulty?

I never did those problems so I don't know. But you should know at least what the lab techniques do and at a very basic level, how they work. They're not going to give you questions that have complex steps that take 20 minutes to solve. Because then they could only give you 2 or 3 questions total. To be able to give you that volume of questions, they need to make the questions brief and basic so that you can solve them quickly.