Trying to compile a list of MCAT knowledge to Learn Passively over a longer period of time

[Rei02sThrowaway]

Hello, so I'm trying to put together some content that is high yield on the new MCAT and can be learned passively over a longer period of time. Right now, the only material that I am learning like this are the Amino Acids. Learning the structure, properties and codes of one amino acid per day.

I see a lot of value in learning like this, however, and was hoping that others might be able to think of other content that would lend itself to learning over a longer period of time.

Thanks!

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[Bears458]

Hello, so I'm trying to put together some content that is high yield on the new MCAT and can be learned passively over a longer period of time. Right now, the only material that I am learning like this are the Amino Acids. Learning the structure, properties and codes of one amino acid per day.

I see a lot of value in learning like this, however, and was hoping that others might be able to think of other content that would lend itself to learning over a longer period of time.

Thanks!

Don't worry too much about the small details for the MCAT. Get use to reading passages and answers questions.

 

[justadream]

Memorizing the amino acids (or many other things that are pure memorization) is definitely useful but I don't really see the value in learning is passively over a long period of time. It takes way too long and you're almost assuredly going to forget it if you stop reviewing for a few weeks (which will probably happen).

I tried doing what you did and forgot everything anyways. Just study for a few months before the test. Any longer and you're going to forget everything.

 

[Rei02sThrowaway]

Don't worry too much about the small details for the MCAT. Get use to reading passages and answers questions.

I'm thinking more along the lines of high yield, not unimportant facts that I want to know like the back of my hand. Not formulas or anything like that but things that are memorization intensive but almost certainly going to show up on test day. I know that amino acids fall into this category but I'm sure there exist other things that would otherwise eat up a lot of my time trying to memorize (read:cram) all at once.

 

[Rei02sThrowaway]

Memorizing the amino acids (or many other things that are pure memorization) is definitely useful but I don't really see the value in learning is passively over a long period of time. It takes way too long and you're almost assuredly going to forget it if you stop reviewing for a few weeks (which will probably happen).

I tried doing what you did and forgot everything anyways. Just study for a few months before the test. Any longer and you're going to forget everything.

Hmm I appreciate your thoughts but want to avoid burning out on too much content all at once. I don't want to "spread it out" as much as i want to ease into learning it and then have it more readily available when 3 months from now i have 2+ months to focus on my test taking almost exclusively.

 

[Bears458]

I'm thinking more along the lines of high yield, not unimportant facts that I want to know like the back of my hand. Not formulas or anything like that but things that are memorization intensive but almost certainly going to show up on test day. I know that amino acids fall into this category but I'm sure there exist other things that would otherwise eat up a lot of my time trying to memorize (read:cram) all at once.

Oh ok I see. Honestly I found that just my premed classes help me for the MCAT. I know some of the classes cover more than what is on the MCAT, but I think reviewing what you have already learned could be a good approach... I guess you may have to find something that works for you.

 

[Rei02sThrowaway]

Oh ok I see. Honestly I found that just my premed classes help me for the MCAT. I know some of the classes cover more than what is on the MCAT, but I think reviewing what you have already learned could be a good approach... I guess you may have to find something that works for you.

I definitely agree with that! The prof I had for biochemistry was excellent so I'm using his notes as a primary source in my studying.

 

[StudyLater]

1. content that is high yield on the new MCAT and can be learned passively over a longer period of time.
2. Learning the structure, properties and codes of one amino acid per day.
3. I see a lot of value in learning like this

1. AAMC has provided an outline for you. You should know everything on there - forget what prep companies tell you ("hey, it's fine...you don't need to know X"). That outline and nothing else should be your guide to topics you need to know for test day. Everything on there is high yield because they could give you an entire passage on it.
2. If you want to do the mental equivalent of learning one amino acid's structure, properties, and codes each day, then your MCAT date is probably ~5-6 years too early, right now (info about one amino acid is probably ~0.05% of the material on the test). I would have even failed the first exam of my biochem class if I studied like that.
3. The idea isn't practical the way you've proposed it. Also, have you tried to gather any data on this? See if you can find any research on test performance of those who spread out their study for major standardized exams (MCAT, GMAT, LSAT, GRE, DAT, PCAT...etc.) over 1-2+ years vs. those that "crammed" for a few months. A lot of us simply don't care about maybe doing slightly better/making the study process easier by doing what you propose, because we either A. don't have the time or B. have studied this way before.

I would say, if you're someone with plenty of time, modify this idea to doing the mental equivalent of totally memorizing 10 amino acids per day, and you could be in decent shape after 6-7 months, assuming you are able to progressively build your study time each day to cover everything learned in the previous days.

 

[Rei02sThrowaway]

1. AAMC has provided an outline for you. You should know everything on there - forget what prep companies tell you ("hey, it's fine...you don't need to know X"). That outline and nothing else should be your guide to topics you need to know for test day. Everything on there is high yield because they could give you an entire passage on it.
2. If you want to do the mental equivalent of learning one amino acid's structure, properties, and codes each day, then your MCAT date is probably ~5-6 years too early, right now (info about one amino acid is probably ~0.05% of the material on the test). I would have even failed the first exam of my biochem class if I studied like that.
3. The idea isn't practical the way you've proposed it. Also, have you tried to gather any data on this? See if you can find any research on test performance of those who spread out their study for major standardized exams (MCAT, GMAT, LSAT, GRE, DAT, PCAT...etc.) over 1-2+ years vs. those that "crammed" for a few months. A lot of us simply don't care about maybe doing slightly better/making the study process easier by doing what you propose, because we either A. don't have the time or B. have studied this way before.

I would say, if you're someone with plenty of time, modify this idea to doing the mental equivalent of totally memorizing 10 amino acids per day, and you could be in decent shape after 6-7 months, assuming you are able to progressively build your study time each day to cover everything learned in the previous days.

okay. i dont really want to spend the time justifying what i'm doing as much as i'm trying to put together a list of content that is difficult to learn all at once.

I'm working with a test prep company whose data suggests that studying over a longer period of time is beneficial, based on their students' scores. Thus, I am spending 5-8 months studying for the exam. This one amino acid a day is not ALL i am doing. it's supplemental a way to memorize a tiny part of the MCAT that will definitely be on the MCAT.

There are certain topics that have a high probability of showing up on test day and are difficult to learn all at once. Amino acids is one example of that. I don't want to waste my valuable time trying to wrap my head around 30 things at once when I'm prepping so I'm trying to spread out these memorization intensive but still very important, need to know topics over a longer period of time to study. Thus, one amino acid a day until i'm reviewing all of them and know them cold. I know that amino acids are extremely high yield, so I want to know them inside and out. There's nothing wrong with taking 20 twenty days to learn the 20ish amino acids. It's not the only thing I'm doing, it's a supplement.

So, any thoughts? I've heard that there are a lot of hormones that might be worth learning one day at a time but I think it's more conducive to learning with the relevant system of the body

 

[StudyLater]

As far as I'm concerned, most of the material is memory-intensive. The more you can safely add to your long-term memory for this exam, the better, in my opinion. Metabolic processes (in the middle of it now) - reactions, substrates, products, enzymes, regulators. Structures/functions/regulation of the various bodily systems. Enzyme kinetics/inhibition/regulation. Steps of DNA replication/transcription/translation and their associated biomolecules. Seriously though, man, look through the AAMC outline - it's super helpful and will afford you great perspective about what they want. I really don't personally know what another person would consider memory intensive. Maybe you've known metabolic pathways like the back of your hand since you were six. When you've got the outline in front of you (it's not terrible, don't worry), you can make those decisions as you run through the material.

As a side note, take prep company advice with a grain of salt. Whoever it is - their word is by no means law, and you don't have to limit yourself because of someone else's suggestion. You could try seeing where your limits are with this kind of material before making judgment about how you wanna do it going forward. Try memorizing the TCA cycle, for example, in its entirety, and see how long it takes you. I'll bet you don't know how capable your memory really is, yet. Test yourself and figure it out. The really hard part is going to be staying focused 5+hrs/day on the material.

 

[Rei02sThrowaway]

As far as I'm concerned, most of the material is memory-intensive. The more you can safely add to your long-term memory for this exam, the better, in my opinion. Metabolic processes (in the middle of it now) - reactions, substrates, products, enzymes, regulators. Structures/functions/regulation of the various bodily systems. Enzyme kinetics/inhibition/regulation. Steps of DNA replication/transcription/translation and their associated biomolecules. Seriously though, man, look through the AAMC outline - it's super helpful and will afford you great perspective about what they want. I really don't personally know what another person would consider memory intensive. Maybe you've known metabolic pathways like the back of your hand since you were six. When you've got the outline in front of you (it's not terrible, don't worry), you can make those decisions as you run through the material.

As a side note, take prep company advice with a grain of salt. Whoever it is - their word is by no means law, and you don't have to limit yourself because of someone else's suggestion. You could try seeing where your limits are with this kind of material before making judgment about how you wanna do it going forward. Try memorizing the TCA cycle, for example, in its entirety, and see how long it takes you. I'll bet you don't know how capable your memory really is, yet. Test yourself and figure it out. The really hard part is going to be staying focused 5+hrs/day on the material.

Hmm metabolic processes definitely seem like a good addition to this list (definitely a long way from the back of my hand)! I could see adding a step a day a slowly filling up the various pathways.

Trust me, I've checked out the AAMC outline.. ;__; I was originally planning on self studying but I felt like i was getting overwhelmed (especially on SDN) by the amount of material that's how there (and the various books available to go through this information) and getting caught up in what's the "best". So I've kind of elected to go the other way for a limited period of time (~10 weeks).

As I've watched this place saturate with opinions about the new exam, I'm pretty happy about outsourcing a majority of the leg work to a serious company that advertises its results. So at least for the next 3 months or so, their word is gospel and I, the mindless drone.

 

[basophilic]

"passive learning" is waste of time.
if you want to do something in advance, i'd recommend this: fill out entire AAMC outline using all details in corresponding textbooks/prep books/wikipedia (in essence, make your own 200+ pg study guide); then go back through and condense the concepts into few key phrases and add to study guide with different font color; then depending on how much time you've left, go back through again and this time make compare/contrast tables and concept maps of key concepts; in other words, each time make some different use of the material rather than "passively learning" it
this only applies to psych/soc and bio/biochem; for chem/phys just do practice problems from textbooks and EK1001

 

[raiderette]

Any company that is advertising its success with the new MCAT is blowing smoke. The scores are not even out yet for April and the percentages are not out for May test takers. If you read through the MCAT pages, the only thing we could all agree on is that no company got it right. In a year or so, there will be companies that nail the material. Until we see actual scores, no company can tout success.

 

[StudyLater]

I've been doing something like what basophilic has suggested, complete with pretty pics. 😉

Put in the personal work or don't. It really is up to you, but I don't know how you're going to get through all of this (by "this" I mean the whole thing - the student to physician process) with no faith in your own work ethic or mental capabilities. Minimizing things is largely an unnecessary practice. You can memorize all of this, quickly (~2mos) - that's the bottom line. The thing that makes it scary is the denial of instant gratification - you can't get it all quickly (<5 days), like the material for most college exams you've taken. You've got to have a certain level of faith in yourself to believe you can get through the material and have enough expertise by test day to do well.

The reason I'm saying this is you have to put in the work, despite whomever you're outsourcing the legwork to. You know how I've interpreted this thread? "I believe I am incapable of looking through the AAMC MCAT2015 outline and determining what my weaknesses are. Could you please do that for me?" Like I said, I can guess, but I can't know what you're going to have significant trouble memorizing. So basically what you're asking is unanswerable by anyone but yourself. And you've got to do yourself the favor of reading the outline (this is just the outline, man, come on) to benefit yourself. I don't even know why I've got to convince you to do this...

Everyone is overwhelmed. You'll be overwhelmed until you're an attending, and, depending on the specialty/hours/call reqs, probably some time after that. Please get used to the feeling if this really is what you wanna do (hopefully you've gotten involved in the profession to make sure of that).

 

[Rei02sThrowaway]

by "overwhelmed" i mean spreading myself thin among the resources. If I don't have to put in the work to organize myself and can outsource this effort to those with greater resources and a greater track record, i will. As you've said, the only resource I can fully trust is the AAMC's official outline. However, even then the outline did not outline that every amino acid and its structure were important to know.

If a company has organized its material effectively around the material and wants to help me get a score that it can advertise, I would like to jump aboard that. I'm doing a 10 week immersive program and following it up with self-study for the next 5 months, so I'm getting the best of both worlds. If you want to do it in 2 or 3 months, then that's fine, go ahead. I know myself and I know that's not optimal for me, even though it might be for others.

And I still don't know why i'm spending the time justifying my plan of action to you or anyone. I get that hivemind of SDN likes to self study because it's cheaper and can be customized and that's fine.

I've read through the outline. I know a lot of things conceptually but can see that some things that I've learned for tests might be easily forgotten

All i wanted to know was whether anyone could think of material that would lend itself to studying once a day, like the amino acids are. Geesh.

 

[Rei02sThrowaway]

I've been doing something like what basophilic has suggested, complete with pretty pics. 😉

Put in the personal work or don't. It really is up to you, but I don't know how you're going to get through all of this (by "this" I mean the whole thing - the student to physician process) with no faith in your own work ethic or mental capabilities.

Everyone is overwhelmed. You'll be overwhelmed until you're an attending, and, depending on the specialty/hours/call reqs, probably some time after that. Please get used to the feeling if this really is what you wanna do (hopefully you've gotten involved in the profession to make sure of that).

lol, nothing screams SDN quite like questioning someone's motivation to become a physician. sigh.

 

[RaspberrySlushy]

What about psych/sox vocab? I'd do a few a day though b/c there are A Lot of terms.

I think this could be high yield as this section seems to heavily rely on memorization. Theories, researchers, and vocab, vocab, vocab. Of course you have to apply it, but first you have to know it. And the questions in that section on the practice test just seemed a lot more based on memorization than other sections.

 

[Rei02sThrowaway]

What about psych/sox vocab? I'd do a few a day though b/c there are A Lot of terms.

I think this could be high yield as this section seems to heavily rely on memorization. Theories, researchers, and vocab, vocab, vocab. Of course you have to apply it, but first you have to know it. And the questions in that section on the practice test just seemed a lot more based on memorization than other sections.

i think that's a really good thought! from what i've seen, there's like an overwhelming amount of material that could show up for that section so memorizing one theory and the relevant terms/authors a day could be really useful.

 

[RaspberrySlushy]

That would be a great way to group terms together.

Btw, I think I'm taking the same course as you, about 99% sure from what you said. I wasn't going to take one but an amazing opportunity came up and I'm taking the program.

 

[Rei02sThrowaway]

ah cool to hear! I'm staying at university pointe. Really looking forward to wrecking this test >: )

 

[ChrisMack390]

You need to study ~40 hours / week for ~12-16 weeks.

Everything else has been tried. This has worked.

 

[RaspberrySlushy]

Okay yes, you're in the same program as me in the same city. It's going to be a ton of work, which is a good thing. I actually started a little early b/c of some timing stuff and OMG it's a little overwhelming. But I think it'll really help.

 

[Rei02sThrowaway]

So have I! I just wanted to get aquatinted with the style of going through a chapter and the EMP stuff, taking lotsa notes, drawing lots of pictures. I haven't decided if I want to use physical cards or Anki for the conceptual flash cards. I definitely feel like you'll get the most of out the program if you just throw yourself at it so that's kind of the approach I'm taking.

I'm signed up for the 23 of September MCAT but Im thinking of either canceling it or taking it and voiding it as a practice, depending on how I feel with the program. They definitely reccomend studying over a longer period of time if you can, so I'm still deciding.

Also, the sdn hivemind is a joke.

 

[RaspberrySlushy]

Cool. I'm also signed up for September 23 test and planning on keeping it unless my scores are bad leading up to it.

The first lesson was pretty intense! I like this program b/c it's essentially guided self-study with some tutoring and group stuff.

 

[Rei02sThrowaway]

they recommend a 515 average score for your last couple full lengths before deciding to take it... needless to say, i'm nervous about getting to that point!

 

[mikil100]

they recommend a 515 average score for your last couple full lengths before deciding to take it... needless to say, i'm nervous about getting to that point!

Unfortunately there are no exams that will accurately tell you where your score really lies, and sometime in Fall there will be one AAMC exam that has a grade to it.

 

[StudyLater]

I've kind of elected to go the other way for a limited period of time (~10 weeks).

I'm doing a 10 week immersive program and following it up with self-study for the next 5 months

For some reason I missed the bolded portion. I thought you weren't going to self-study at all, which is why I was worried. It's awesome you've got that much free time for self-study. 🙂

However, even then the outline did not outline that every amino acid and its structure were important to know.

That's why I'm saying we should just know as much as we can about everything in the outline. Amino acids are themselves a whole big heading (content category 1A under BBFLS). I'm trying to know as much as possible about all of those bolded headings.

All i wanted to know was whether anyone could think of material that would lend itself to studying once a day, like the amino acids are. Geesh.

I gave you some ideas, right? Metabolic processes cover a ton of material (glycolysis, fermentation, gluconeogenesis, glycogenesis/lysis, PPP, PDH complex, TCA cycle, ETC, FA anabolism, FA catabolism [beta-oxidation], protein catabolism, ketogenesis/lysis, and the various substrates/products/regulating molecules). However, I don't know what your studies emphasized/didn't emphasize as much. For example, for myself, I don't even have to think that hard to list the key proteins in DNA replication/transcription/translation, because that was so heavily discussed throughout my studies in biochem and genetics. For you, it may actually require sitting down and memorizing. Similarly, you may have loved ochem and know all the carbonyl rxns by heart, whereas I will have to memorize those. I just don't know what you've done, personally, so I can't accurately comment - I'm sorry.

IUPAC naming. R/S. All Ochem rxns. Personally I've always been weak on lenses/sound in physics. Psych/Soc major researchers/theories. Bodily systems. Yeah.

 

[Rei02sThrowaway]

For some reason I missed the bolded portion. I thought you weren't going to self-study at all, which is why I was worried. It's awesome you've got that much free time for self-study. 🙂



That's why I'm saying we should just know as much as we can about everything in the outline. Amino acids are themselves a whole big heading (content category 1A under BBFLS). I'm trying to know as much as possible about all of those bolded headings.



I gave you some ideas, right? Metabolic processes cover a ton of material (glycolysis, fermentation, gluconeogenesis, glycogenesis/lysis, PPP, PDH complex, TCA cycle, ETC, FA anabolism, FA catabolism [beta-oxidation], protein catabolism, ketogenesis/lysis, and the various substrates/products/regulating molecules). However, I don't know what your studies emphasized/didn't emphasize as much. For example, for myself, I don't even have to think that hard to list the key proteins in DNA replication/transcription/translation, because that was so heavily discussed throughout my studies in biochem and genetics. For you, it may actually require sitting down and memorizing. Similarly, you may have loved ochem and know all the carbonyl rxns by heart, whereas I will have to memorize those. I just don't know what you've done, personally, so I can't accurately comment - I'm sorry.

IUPAC naming. R/S. All Ochem rxns. Personally I've always been weak on lenses/sound in physics. Psych/Soc major researchers/theories. Bodily systems. Yeah.

Those are all good thoughts! ...a number of which i hadn't considered (i.e. ochem rxns).