How do you memorize viral classification?

[FadingPromise]

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First aid, 2010 edition, page 167/169 has crapload of buzzword, viral capsid structure, and "enveloped" or not factoids in. I am having difficulty organizing this material in my head. Can anyone help out with how they structured this knowledge for memorization? Thanks.

 

[Vikingwizardguy]

my older brother's kaplan micro book had a cool little fill in the blank chart at the end. I basically start and end my day by repeating that little flow chart. It'll basically have DNA up top, then two arrows pointing down, one for enveloped, one for naked. From there it breaks it down into complex or icosohedral and then circular and linear. A similar thing is done for RNA except it's negative and positive. Repeat repeat repeat.

 

[Inuranic]

I kinda flew by the seat of my pants with this, but I used First Aid's "Always Bring Polymerase", "Naked CPR and PAPP smear" and BOAR mnemonics. So, anything that isn't Always Bring is positive strand, positive stand is icosahedral, and negative strand is helical. There isn't much left after that, it's easier to absorb the actual manifestations of the disease (in my opinion), and I just ignored the circular/linear strand stuff (except for Hep B, 'cause it's weird).

When I actually was taking micro I know that I knew that chart well enough to figure out circular/linear, but seriously, if the boards wanted to waste a question on that, I was willing to get it wrong. I'm not a machine.

 

[FadingPromise]

my older brother's kaplan micro book had a cool little fill in the blank chart at the end. I basically start and end my day by repeating that little flow chart. It'll basically have DNA up top, then two arrows pointing down, one for enveloped, one for naked. From there it breaks it down into complex or icosohedral and then circular and linear. A similar thing is done for RNA except it's negative and positive. Repeat repeat repeat.

Interesting. But sounds like hard-core effort driven memorization. I was hoping for something that would make the memorization easier...🙁 I suppose there is no short cut and time to man-it up.

 

[FadingPromise]

9844719]I kinda flew by the seat of my pants with this, but I used First Aid's "Always Bring Polymerase", "Naked CPR and PAPP smear" and BOAR mnemonics. So, anything that isn't Always Bring is positive strand, positive stand is icosahedral, and negative strand is helical.[/B] There isn't much left after that, it's easier to absorb the actual manifestations of the disease (in my opinion), and I just ignored the circular/linear strand stuff (except for Hep B, 'cause it's weird).

When I actually was taking micro I know that I knew that chart well enough to figure out circular/linear, but seriously, if the boards wanted to waste a question on that, I was willing to get it wrong. I'm not a machine.

didn't see this...pretty helpful reasoning. Thanks man 😀

 

[Vikingwizardguy]

oh ya that's if u wanna be nitpicky but there're a bunch of mnemonics out there as was mentioned. Those alone will get you a bunch of points. I'd also like to add PERCH for the picorna.

Polio
echo
rhinovirus
coxsackie
hep A

 

[username456789]

I kinda flew by the seat of my pants with this, but I used First Aid's "Always Bring Polymerase", "Naked CPR and PAPP smear" and BOAR mnemonics. So, anything that isn't Always Bring is positive strand, positive stand is icosahedral, and negative strand is helical. There isn't much left after that, it's easier to absorb the actual manifestations of the disease (in my opinion), and I just ignored the circular/linear strand stuff (except for Hep B, 'cause it's weird).

When I actually was taking micro I know that I knew that chart well enough to figure out circular/linear, but seriously, if the boards wanted to waste a question on that, I was willing to get it wrong. I'm not a machine.

FA's virus section is actually pretty money. Add this and you should be golden (honestly that mnemonic helped me get them all down in no time, vs just trying to straight memorize a list).

Having said that, it did not come in handy one bit on my exam. I had zero questions that involved knowing a specific virus's classification or anything, but a bunch of questions about antivirals.

 

[drizzt3117]

I made some mnemonics for them that are on the mnemonics thread. I didn't have any qs about them either.

 

[IMGUSMLEStep1]

here's one from my blog:
http://imgusmlestep1.blogspot.com/2010/06/virology-cheat-sheet.html

here's drizzt's post from the mnemonics thread:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showpost.php?p=9829199&postcount=54