How do you approach biochemical pathway passages?

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typicalindian

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Whenever I get A passage that is describing a complex pathway to me and is accompanied by a diagram of said pathway, I always run out of time. Do you guys think for these types of passages I should stick to readin passage then questions? Or read questions then find appropriate answers from the passage?

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Whenever I get A passage that is describing a complex pathway to me and is accompanied by a diagram of said pathway, I always run out of time. Do you guys think for these types of passages I should stick to readin passage then questions? Or read questions then find appropriate answers from the passage?

i woudl read the question first (i do this regardless for all science passages)--read first question then look at the passage and skim/read til i find the answer
 
For these type of passages, I skim the passage itself, skip the diagram completely, and get to the questions quickly. Then depending on the questions, I reference back to the diagram to find the answer.
 
I found that more often than not, the pathway diagram was not necessary to arrive at the correct answer. It may have been included as a distractor.

Key is to realize that this is a test that tries to get at how well you can think on your feet. You'll almost never have a question that involves intense calculations or a deep dive into a complex biological or chemical process.

My advice to you would be to try and see if you can find a way to "see around" the bulk of the pathway and get straight at what it is you're being questioned on. That may be best accomplished by simply stripping all the extraneous detail and focusing on products, reactants, and any intermediates, enzymes, etc. that may have something of critical importance to tell you, such as points in the pathway where the reaction can be diverted into another pathway etc.

That probably doesn't help much.
 
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i woudl read the question first (i do this regardless for all science passages)--read first question then look at the passage and skim/read til i find the answer

Yup!

You often don't have to understand the complex shiz at play to get everything right.
 
These biochemical pathways are killing me on PR practice online...I ll try to approach them differently now--not trying to understand these pathways at first glance.
 
Whenever I get A passage that is describing a complex pathway to me and is accompanied by a diagram of said pathway, I always run out of time. Do you guys think for these types of passages I should stick to readin passage then questions? Or read questions then find appropriate answers from the passage?

I read the passage and ignore the figure unless a question asks about it. Then I just interpret enough to answer the question. I also answer the question from background knowledge if possible.

So I agree with SLC. Don't get distracted.
 
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