Study methods that work for you

[DeetleMSU]

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I've been studying for this Biochem exam (on Glycolysis/Glucogen metabolism) I have on Mondayfor the last two weeks and I'm still mixing up different enzymes from other energy cycles.. etc.etc. Usually I'm a flashcard kinda girl but it's just not sticking. 🙁

What study methods work best for you (writing, group study, reading over and over again, relistening to lectures, etc)?

 

[gotmeds?]

For biochem, lots of structure drawing. Especially when it comes to the cycles. If you know what the thing should look like after the next reaction, you can figure out what enzyme gets it there and what the new molecule is called.

 

[Scottish Chap]

I've been studying for this Biochem exam (on Glycolysis/Glucogen metabolism) I have on Mondayfor the last two weeks and I'm still mixing up different enzymes from other energy cycles.. etc.etc. Usually I'm a flashcard kinda girl but it's just not sticking. 🙁

What study methods work best for you (writing, group study, reading over and over again, relistening to lectures, etc)?

Group study never appealed to me. Watching lectures again was not a good use of time - at least for me. For rote-learning courses like biochemistry, I found that acronyms worked best. I could make an entire pathway from crazy acronyms. After that, be sure to focus on: 1) the unusual steps 2) the key regulatory steps and 3) the enzymes that are involved in inborn errors of metabolism and metabolic disease in general. Most test questions will focus on those. Also, keep drawing them out.

 

[njbmd]

I've been studying for this Biochem exam (on Glycolysis/Glucogen metabolism) I have on Mondayfor the last two weeks and I'm still mixing up different enzymes from other energy cycles.. etc.etc. Usually I'm a flashcard kinda girl but it's just not sticking. 🙁

What study methods work best for you (writing, group study, reading over and over again, relistening to lectures, etc)?

Whenever I studied any pathway, I started with the overall picture and went to the specific. For example Glycolysis. Why does an organism turn this pathway. What is the starting material and what is the end point. Does the endpoint of this pathway feed into other pathways? How much ATP is produced (used)? What reducing equivalents are produced (used)? My next task would be to identify the regulatory enzymes (irreversible steps).

I would then go through each step (on a large whiteboard). I would draw the structures in black, write the enzymes in blue, ATPs in red and reducing equivalents in green. I would circle the changes in each step or write a short summary of each step. Since I know that most enzymes are named according to function, I could tell what each step was doing. A kinase puts a phosphate onto a molecule. Phosphorylated sugar molecules do not cross the cell membrane so once glucose is phosphorlated by hexokinase (glucokinase), it's committed to further processing. Regulatory enzymes were starred with regulatory information noted at those steps.

By actively learning each pathway rather than staring at flash cards or structures on a page, I found that I was more efficient and retained the information longer. I went through loads of dry erase markers but colorcoding was the key to my system. Good luck!