question about mcat distractions and more

[batista_123]

should you be able to recognize certain peaks in NMR or the mcat writers will provide you with the table?

also, what do you recommend for me? every time i open the mcat book, i start thinking about how instead of going to med school i could buy old crappy homes and fix them up and sell them for a huge profit, but then when a close the book and walk away, i want to study for the mcat. when i go back and open the book again, my mind starts wandering off to real estate again. what do you recommend that i do?

also, for mass spectrometry, i dont understand how you get peaks. you bombard the molecule with a bunch of electrons, then it breaks into pieces, then what happens?

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[Katatonic]

Why do you want to go into medicine? Specifically, why medicine instead of any other career like real estate? That's what keeps my head buried in the books.

 

[niranjan162]

should you be able to recognize certain peaks in NMR or the mcat writers will provide you with the table?

also, what do you recommend for me? every time i open the mcat book, i start thinking about how instead of going to med school i could buy old crappy homes and fix them up and sell them for a huge profit, but then when a close the book and walk away, i want to study for the mcat. when i go back and open the book again, my mind starts wandering off to real estate again. what do you recommend that i do?

also, for mass spectrometry, i dont understand how you get peaks. you bombard the molecule with a bunch of electrons, then it breaks into pieces, then what happens?

u can do both

 

[BlueElmo]

Just imagine how you would feel if you got the score you wanted. That was the motivation for me, however much I loathed those MCAT books.

 

[fairy tale]

should you be able to recognize certain peaks in NMR or the mcat writers will provide you with the table?

also, what do you recommend for me? every time i open the mcat book, i start thinking about how instead of going to med school i could buy old crappy homes and fix them up and sell them for a huge profit, but then when a close the book and walk away, i want to study for the mcat. when i go back and open the book again, my mind starts wandering off to real estate again. what do you recommend that i do?

also, for mass spectrometry, i dont understand how you get peaks. you bombard the molecule with a bunch of electrons, then it breaks into pieces, then what happens?

real estate is not that profitable any more.. so just open your MCAT book and imagine yourself being a doctor you need to find some people who will support you and convince you that you can do it. everyone gets the thoughts "what if" now and then, but if you really want to be a doctor, you will ignore negative thoughts and willl stay focused. you have to Believe that you can achieve your goal and you will !! good luck

 

[silverlion]

you need to find some people who will support you and convince you that you can do it. everyone gets the thoughts "what if" now and then, but if you really want to be a doctor, you will ignore negative thoughts and willl stay focused. you have to Believe that you can achieve your goal and you will !! good luck

AMEN TO THAT!

To Batista:

As far as NMR is concerned....just know that there is not much detail you need to know. Ofcourse how you get the peaks is something that a little basic. I read it from the EK orgo chem book and found it quite sufficient (probably the only thing in the EK orgo that is sufficient)...I dont remember it properly right now and so dont want to write anymore....but check back in a couple of days....I'll put up a decent explanation here by then....

 

[rama kandra]

Flipping houses requires capital my friend.

I've spent a good chunk of the last few years thinking the same stuff... heck I even went to graduate school for a related field and ended up coming back to my roots - medicine. Or at least I hope I can get there. Heh.

But aside from the pipe dream of 'making it big with less effort,' consider the fact that buying a property requires a lot of money and speculation. Further, you will have to know a lot about construction and repair and find good people to do the work for you. Also the current economic crisis is due to the housing bubble. Right now it is a buyer's market - so you have this idea of snapping up a few good buys and selling for the long term. That long term could take a few years, and remember EVERYONE is buying real estate in the same hope.

Certain hoods in my borough of Brooklyn are known as 'hood,' and others are, 'up and coming,' and nobody really knows what is going to happen. So next time this idea comes into your mind, just imagine what it will feel like when you've sunk a good 300+K into a house, restored it for another 100K and than found nobody to buy it for at least a year. Oh, and lets not forget that you will be just like any other sleazy contractor/real estate agent on the planet.

They don't save lives, or get any respect. You could make money that way, but I don't know any doctor who cannot do the same on the side with better results.

 

[silverlion]

should you be able to recognize certain peaks in NMR or the MCAT writers will provide you with the table?

also, for mass spectrometry, i don't understand how you get peaks. you bombard the molecule with a bunch of electrons, then it breaks into pieces, then what happens?

Ok...so here's what I have...

All you need to know for NMR is to be able to read an NMR graph. NMR spectrometry does not have a generic pattern for functional groups. It is compound specific and if you know the general rules (like the no. of equivalent hydrogens and the n+1 rule then you'll be fine)

IR is the one where specific functional groups have a similar pattern. As far as I know the IR patterns are to be memorized as recently they've started asking questions where your knowledge of what the peak looks like is important. Having said that, there are not hundreds of peaks you need to remember. Just 6-7 peaks for the carbonyl and Nitrogen containing functional groups.

Finally mass spectrometry...This is something that in my opinion does not require much detail at all. A mass spectrometer is useful in identifying molecular masses of samples/compounds and also identifying the compounds themselves.

The general principle is that you bombard a sample with electrons. The sample will ionize as the beam of electrons would knock out electrons forming cations...
The cations would move towards a detector that would be at the end of a a vacuum tube. Pressure here is of the order of 10^-5 to 10^-6 torrs.

The ions are subjected to an Electromagnetic field that causes them to move in a curved path. The curve depends on the mass to charge ratio.
As the charge is usually +1 the curve is directly related to mass...

By adjusting the EM field different groups of ions can be directed towards the detector and their abundance is calculated relative to a base peak...

It is not important to know much more than this...

Hope this helps...if you need more info. then just read it online...there are many animated modules on the internet that give surprisingly high levels of detail...