So my friend told me that she has been suffering with gen chem 1. She studies for days and knows how to do the problems but then the test comes and her brain shuts down. She forgets how to to finish the problems even though she learned the material already. Could orgo go better for her if she's having trouble with how to turn problems into equations? I have heard orgo works a different part of the brain... Could anyone try to give her some advice? She has never felt like this until taking this subject
-
CycleTrack and SDN are teaming up to make medical school admissions more transparent and accessible! Read the announcement to learn how we’re supporting the future of CycleTrack’s free application-tracking tools .
What is wrong?
Get help with your application
Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.
Fixed
Sounds like test anxiety to me. Your "friend" should try sitting either in the front row or off to the sides/corners of the room on exam day.
Here's the problem. To master something, you can't just know how to "do" it. You have to be able to teach it.
Yeah I think the problem might be that your "friend" shouldn't learn how to do the problems. Cause then you are only knowing how to do a narrow set of problem types and not focusing on the concepts. She has to learn WHY she does each step in the problems she does, and that's way more valuable in the end cause then you know the material, as opposed to how to do a type of "problem", which will help her a lot more on exams when they give you questions that require you to think outside the box.
This is the key ^^^^^^
I teach both general chemistry and organic chemistry. They're totally different animals in terms of content. General chemistry is much more math based, whereas orgo is more of an art form in my mind. One of the biggest traps I see my students fall into is practicing the questions that they know over and over again to reinforce the idea that they understand it, even if they don't get the big picture. Run towards what you don't understand.
