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I see biochem popping up again and again and it was the subject I was most worried about and felt least prepared for when beginning to study. Just thought I would share how I studied it, for what it's worth. I haven't gotten my score back yet but I had 5-10 biochem related questions on the boards and actually felt pretty good about them.
I learned SO little biochem in my pass/fail first year class that it's not even funny. I think what I learned in the class was more general principles (very general things, like if an enzyme is defective, the substrate before it piles up). And I was not pre-med in college and took no biochem there. So I was very much starting from scratch.
I spent the first 4 days of studying on biochem. I used High Yield Biochem and annotated the **** out of FA. I literally pored over that book, and when I didn't understand what was there, I looked at Kaplan Biochem. I did 50 questions per day. At the end of the four days I had learned some, but still felt pretty clueless. I then put it away for a couple weeks and studied other stuff.
Then I came back to it here and there - a few hours some afternoon, or a little bit on a Sunday morning (an awful thought, I know). I would maybe look at the lysosomal storage disease page some night before bed, etc. and I would go over the pathways over and over at random times to just make sure I kept understanding them.
I also knew nothing, I'm ashamed to say, about cell biology and simple things like DNA replication. For that I used the Kaplan Biochem and it was very helpful.
So whatever, I took my boards and I am proud of all the biochem I learned. I definitely didn't have any questions outside of the realm of FA, but I never would have gotten them right if I hadn't understood what I was memorizing by using other sources. I swear it can be done and you just have to realize it's one of those things that takes a lot of coming back to here and there to drill it in your head.
Hope this helps someone!
I learned SO little biochem in my pass/fail first year class that it's not even funny. I think what I learned in the class was more general principles (very general things, like if an enzyme is defective, the substrate before it piles up). And I was not pre-med in college and took no biochem there. So I was very much starting from scratch.
I spent the first 4 days of studying on biochem. I used High Yield Biochem and annotated the **** out of FA. I literally pored over that book, and when I didn't understand what was there, I looked at Kaplan Biochem. I did 50 questions per day. At the end of the four days I had learned some, but still felt pretty clueless. I then put it away for a couple weeks and studied other stuff.
Then I came back to it here and there - a few hours some afternoon, or a little bit on a Sunday morning (an awful thought, I know). I would maybe look at the lysosomal storage disease page some night before bed, etc. and I would go over the pathways over and over at random times to just make sure I kept understanding them.
I also knew nothing, I'm ashamed to say, about cell biology and simple things like DNA replication. For that I used the Kaplan Biochem and it was very helpful.
So whatever, I took my boards and I am proud of all the biochem I learned. I definitely didn't have any questions outside of the realm of FA, but I never would have gotten them right if I hadn't understood what I was memorizing by using other sources. I swear it can be done and you just have to realize it's one of those things that takes a lot of coming back to here and there to drill it in your head.
Hope this helps someone!
