Worth memorizing biochemical pathways?

[TheLadyVanishes]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

I've mostly been studying with the TBR books and there's a whole chapter devoted to detailed mechanisms of glycolysis and other metabolic pathways.

So far I've taken 4 AAMCs and there are usually questions about the inner mitochondrial membrane or reduction potentials of different electron carriers, but nothing too specific.

Is it worth trying to memorize this stuff or will I probably be ok with just knowing the basic idea?

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

No. God no. You could not possibly find a bigger waste of your prep time.

 

[angldrps]

Do yourself a favor and dont use TBR for biology content. Just use it for the passages to practice. Trust me, I learned the hard way after bombing my first MCAT. For my retake, I relied on TPR, and went from an 8 to an 11. Even EK Bio would be good. TBR bio has a crazy amount of unnecessary details that you just don't need to know as MCAT Bio involves more critical thinking than regurgitating memorized facts. You will understand this once you take AAMC 11 Bio.Majority of the info is already in the passages plus MCAT Bio has more experimental passages so you would be wasting time memorizing all the details TBR gives you. The same concept in TBR will have a 40 page chapter where TPR will cover everything you need to know in 20. If you can't get the TPR hyperlearning bio book, I would recommend EK Bio (not EK 1001)

 

[gtbROX]

Do yourself a favor and dont use TBR for biology content. Just use it for the passages to practice. Trust me, I learned the hard way after bombing my first MCAT. For my retake, I relied on TPR, and went from an 8 to an 11. Even EK Bio would be good. TBR bio has a crazy amount of unnecessary details that you just don't need to know as MCAT Bio involves more critical thinking than regurgitating memorized facts. You will understand this once you take AAMC 11 Bio.Majority of the info is already in the passages plus MCAT Bio has more experimental passages so you would be wasting time memorizing all the details TBR gives you. The same concept in TBR will have a 40 page chapter where TPR will cover everything you need to know in 20. If you can't get the TPR hyperlearning bio book, I would recommend EK Bio (not EK 1001)

This. 100%. I've been using TPR and EK for all the sciences and I've been happy with the results. And you can be too! =]

But to answer your question, don't memorize the individual enzymes and everything of that pathway. Just understand the general #s of ATP, NADH, FADH2 from glyc., krebs, ETC, ferment.. I doubt you really need to know that much about it because most of the time I encounter it on AAMC prac. tests it's usually in a passage that gives all the details.

 

[rootz02]

The questions on those enzymes will be application based (from the passage), where they'll name some inhibitor and ask about elevated products between compartments. Or radioactive markers and where their detection will show up.. The mcat will never ask you to identify pfk2 as the enzyme that phosphorylates fructose 6 phosphate.

That being said, I would definitely know the committed steps that are enzymatically irreversible. These steps are also subjected to tight regulation. This also allows you to review general regulation mechanisms (allostery, for ex).

 

[JoshuaGuit]

I would have a good understanding of cellular respiration, but as far as memorizing the specific names there's no point

 

[Narmerguy]

Yeah I wish the stuff about BR was more common knowledge =\ I did all my bio review using it and I was constantly frustrated by the insane amount of detail that they covered. By the end I was simply losing energy and just couldn't even try to study/remember all the crap they were throwing out. It's way too much.

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

Yeah I wish the stuff about BR was more common knowledge =\ I did all my bio review using it and I was constantly frustrated by the insane amount of detail that they covered. By the end I was simply losing energy and just couldn't even try to study/remember all the crap they were throwing out. It's way too much.

TBR is fine as long as you realize you aren't supposed to memorize even half the stuff in those books. They're like textbooks; you don't memorize everything, just the important concepts, overall picture, and major details. I think where people run into trouble with TBR is that they don't realize when the books are giving illustrative examples and not covering actual material. For example, in genetics TBR launches into a long winded blow-by-blow of the LAC operon...that's to put everything you just read in context, it's not there for you to actually commit to memory. Likewise, in the metabolism chapter TBR says at the very beginning that you don't need to know even 90% of the stuff in that chapter and that it's just there for background info.

Personally I found TBR to be pretty helpful; I went from a 9 in BS on AAMC 3 to a 13 on AAMC 4 just by reading through TBR bio. I'd actually go counter to SDN wisdom regarding TBR bio: It's useful for content review, but bad for passages.

 

[angldrps]

TBR is fine as long as you realize you aren't supposed to memorize even half the stuff in those books. They're like textbooks; you don't memorize everything, just the important concepts, overall picture, and major details. I think where people run into trouble with TBR is that they don't realize when the books are giving illustrative examples and not covering actual material. For example, in genetics TBR launches into a long winded blow-by-blow of the LAC operon...that's to put everything you just read in context, it's not there for you to actually commit to memory. Likewise, in the metabolism chapter TBR says at the very beginning that you don't need to know even 90% of the stuff in that chapter and that it's just there for background info.

Personally I found TBR to be pretty helpful; I went from a 9 in BS on AAMC 3 to a 13 on AAMC 4 just by reading through TBR bio. I'd actually go counter to SDN wisdom regarding TBR bio: It's useful for content review, but bad for passages.

TBR is EXCELLENT when it comes to Physics and Gen Chem. They really need to stop writing their bio and ochem books like a text book. We are buying TBR books for a reason and not studying from our text books. I wish I had known this before wasting my $$ on their bio, ochem, and verbal (the worst one) books.

 

[Narmerguy]

TBR is fine as long as you realize you aren't supposed to memorize even half the stuff in those books. They're like textbooks; you don't memorize everything, just the important concepts, overall picture, and major details. I think where people run into trouble with TBR is that they don't realize when the books are giving illustrative examples and not covering actual material. For example, in genetics TBR launches into a long winded blow-by-blow of the LAC operon...that's to put everything you just read in context, it's not there for you to actually commit to memory. Likewise, in the metabolism chapter TBR says at the very beginning that you don't need to know even 90% of the stuff in that chapter and that it's just there for background info.

Personally I found TBR to be pretty helpful; I went from a 9 in BS on AAMC 3 to a 13 on AAMC 4 just by reading through TBR bio. I'd actually go counter to SDN wisdom regarding TBR bio: It's useful for content review, but bad for passages.

I think my frustration is that TBR makes no attempt to specify which information is critical and which isn't, so I'm left searching other sources to see what they recommend. I leaned so heavily on EK that I felt like I was studying both (I pretty much did).

 

[docforsure]

i hate those pathways. I'm a MS3 and I had to relearn all of that **** once during 1st year, again during 2nd year and then again this summer for Step1. There is no way you will ever "learn" that stuff. Just look at it right before the test

 

[mushuwu158]

No. The only thing you will ever need to know about glycolysis and krebs is what goes in, what comes out, and where it happens. And even that's probably more information than you'd need.

 

[RSum]

No. Just reason your way through it