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BS strategy for 2013 and beyond
Started by Lifeincali
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I don't think there's a secret formula here, what I'm a little worried about is not having a 30 minute writing break before the biology in which I can relax and get ready. You jump straight in from the verbal. Guess I'll just practice this in my prep exams.
I don't think reading scientific journals would help tbh. They're rather complicated and it might cause you to overthink certain things. Plus the ones I've read for classes were all pretty long and took me like 1+ hour to read. Although if you really want to do it, I'd suggest one (or two max) per week.
Also the things that I believe helped me the most in BS was obviously practice (TPRH bio passages were amazingly helpful) but more importantly taking classes that test you on "critical thinking/reasoning" skills. For example, I took a Biology class on development and it included a lot of analysis of experiments/graphs.
After those university-level classes, you'll feel like the passage experiments presented are easy. However, the BS is still very hard due to the time limit and lack of knowledge of what's going to be on the test. So what you really want to do is to practice not getting nervous when reading seemingly unfamiliar material and practice grasping the information/data in a decent amount of time.
Also the things that I believe helped me the most in BS was obviously practice (TPRH bio passages were amazingly helpful) but more importantly taking classes that test you on "critical thinking/reasoning" skills. For example, I took a Biology class on development and it included a lot of analysis of experiments/graphs.
After those university-level classes, you'll feel like the passage experiments presented are easy. However, the BS is still very hard due to the time limit and lack of knowledge of what's going to be on the test. So what you really want to do is to practice not getting nervous when reading seemingly unfamiliar material and practice grasping the information/data in a decent amount of time.
One way to do this is to get a Cell subscription and just open random articles and read the intro and results and draw conclusions. If you can do this systematically, I gaurantee that there will be no new info anyone can throw at you that will scare you. Yes, some of those journal articles are very difficult to interpret, but they really drive your reasoning/data analysis abilities. However, the above poster is correct in that most of this stuff will go over most undergrads heads and it won't be worth their time. AAMC does take these articles to make passages but they have the uncanny ability to simplify them down to our knowledge (mostly because they are smarter than us) and as questions that can be answered with logic.
Know:
What a control is.
What a knock out experiment is.
What happens if one knocks out a gene and then does an add back in experiment.
What a positive control would look like.
What a negative control would look like.
How to diagram a pathway.
How to intrepret results from a control on a graph.
How genes--->protein that effects a system.
What happens to the protein product if the gene is manipulated.
What happens to the mRNA product if antisense oligonucleotides are added.
What happens to a pathway if hormone/protein binding is inhibited.
How drugs work.
How antibodies work, what would happen if you threw antibodies to a receptor that regulated a pathway.
How antibacterials are made.
How antivirals are made.
How virus replicate.
How bacteria replicate.
Why are virus and bacteria so bad?
How do virus get in our cells? In prokaryotic cells?
Stuff like this...this is what much of science focuses on these days so this is what you find on the MCAT.
Yup basically just take a genetics class and ace it 😛
My genetics class did not include reviewing experiments. I wish it did. As a matter of fact, I wish all my science classes did.
~M
Just a quick question, I'll put it here haha (I Thought you guys might now this). So could miRNAs be involved in downregulation in knockout experiments? Because they serve to bind to a sense mRNA, and block it's activity correct?
MiRNA are common knock-out protocols. They essentially bind to the mRNA and inhibit it from going to the ribosome for translation.
Think about it this way. If I cloned a gene and used restriction enzymes to insert a segment that lit up (think gfp) and then threw in miRNA would I see gfp in the cell. Well no, because the miRNA would bind to the mRNA product of that gene (transcription of the gene still occurs uninhibited). The miRNA stops the mRNA it from being translated though. No translation = no protein = no gfp flash light. This is a common control mechanism for experiments.
What about RNA to block miRNA. Sometimes miRNA have negative effects. So we engineer sense mRNA that binds to the MiRNA. The mRNA could have luciferase activity. If the experiment worked correctly would I see luciferase activity in my cells? Well no, because the mRNA would bind to the bad miRNA. In turn the mRNA from the gene gets translated uninhibited, and all is well.
I didn't even think about this! Thanks for your help, it makes much more sense now! 😀
Plus, from what I remember, miRNAs are better than the antisense oligonucleotides because they don't get degraded as much (something to do with it being endogenous).
this is the best advice in the thread. i got a 13, 75% due to killing myself over my genetics course.
The optional section is at the end.
why would the 2013 BS section be markedly different from the current and past BS sections? I thought the change comes in 2015, not next year.
I found the new BS fairly easy.. . I took the new september one that everyone is freaking out about.
I would HIGHLY recommended getting TPRH science workbook. I did those problems over and over and over again. Some of the passages are highly experimental. Also, memorizing stuff I felt did nothing for that test.. about 5% of what I memorized were tested upon.
Also, go over your old labs that you did in bio and orgo.
I would HIGHLY recommended getting TPRH science workbook. I did those problems over and over and over again. Some of the passages are highly experimental. Also, memorizing stuff I felt did nothing for that test.. about 5% of what I memorized were tested upon.
Also, go over your old labs that you did in bio and orgo.
TPRH's bio passages are definitely VERY good practice. Not only do they help you memorize stuff by presenting content in their passages but they also have very good critical thinking questions. Honestly, I found TPRH's bio passages to be harder than the actual thing/AAMC practice tests.
But that's maybe because the practice tests and the actual thing don't rely on memorization as much. And since I used EK to learn the content, there were some questions in the TPRH SW that might've seem more difficult than they should've been.
I'm not sure. I think I've done some research on that topic last year (when I bought the books) and found that they were pretty similar (if not exactly the same). Honestly, I don't think it matters -- practice is practice.
