Prep for Biochemistry on the New MCAT

I cannot recall how many times I have been asked "Do I need to know this ? " or how many time s I asked myself that question while in medical school.

Too often, students new to medical science will read a chapter, watch a video or complete an experiment and wonder why. Getting around this mental hurdle will make your studies much more enjoyable and effective.

The new MCAT purports to be a more comprehensive exam for identifying future physicians and early feedback from April testers confirms this fact. The new psychology and sociology content was a big focus for spring studiers, but the exam has also extensively deepened its focus on biochemistry, a familiar science to premed students.

Comprising 25 percent of both the chemical foundations section and biological foundations section, this detail-heavy area of chemistry can be a frustrating part of MCAT preparation.

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Remember that cramming and the MCAT do not mix. Don't wait to start with biochemistry practice. This seems obvious, but when faced with immense amounts of material, many students choose to put it off, studying other material first because it makes them more comfortable.

Biochemistry is a high-volume subject that builds its concepts on the fundamentals. Most of these fundamentals you have already learned in general chemistry and they will apply here. For example, the properties that allow you to identify a basic, polar or nonpolar amino acid side chains were seen in the first semester of college chemistry.

A single lecture in biochemistry can contain days of prime MCAT study material. When learning biochemistry, you should not view it as a list of facts that have to be memorized. Look for study materials that include topical examples of general principles, or discuss medical correlations to the content.

This allows you not just to learn, but will serve to gain your interest and keep you engaged. Enthusiasm is a big part of ensuring hard work, even when times get tough.

Your first priority should be to concentrate on comprehension and on building a mental foundation to which you you can add facts. For the MCAT, this means you must read through the Association of American Medical Colleges' official guide to determine what you really do need to know and prioritize it.

With this strategy, you can build on this foundation without exhaustive effort on your part to drill facts. Most of the biochemistry will be tested in many contexts, so it's much easier when you can relate new material to a foundation of understanding.

The new MCAT is all about combining information and understanding. Take the Bohr effect, for example. When you exercise, increases in temperature, CO ₂ and 2,3-BPG all occur in your muscle. All of these changes will facilitate oxygen release from hemoglobin. You will recall these facts more easily if you understand that that active muscle is metabolic tissue and needs oxygen to survive. Integrating larger concepts allows you to predict reactions throughout the body.

[Practice with three sample biology and biochemistry MCAT questions.]

There are many pathways and reactions that require memorization -- amino acids, anyone? These can be learned with repetition, but you have seen the basis of many already.

Knowing the terminology and nomenclature will make learning easier and faster. For example, enzymes are usually named for what they do or have a class of enzymes that share a common mechanism.

Once you get learn this, you can be presented with a brand new enzyme you may not have seen before and deduce what its function or location in the body is.

When you do need to memorize pathways, begin with the big picture. Begin with knowing the starting and end materials of this path and the purpose it serves in the body.

Once you have mastered the easy steps and understand the overall pathway, test your recall and put it to paper. If you can, get a dry erase board or bulletin board and work with friends to practice drawing the pathways. Start out with just the substrates and products for each step in order. Draw it out until you have the basics down. Next, add the enzymes and slowly build in more detail until eventually you can add-in the cofactors and important by-products.

[Learn to sharpen critical analysis and reasoning skills for MCAT success.]

Rely on your knowledge of nomenclature to remind you what the goal of each step is. By learning the terminology first and then understanding the pathways you improve your ability to memorize them.

Another difficult part of biochemistry on the new MCAT is interpreting and making conclusions from figures, plots and graphs. This is a valuable skill for any future physician. Learn the common assays and analytic techniques the MCAT will use in biochemistry.

When you see an unfamiliar figure, examine the x- and y- axes, to determine what the graph represents. When you see a Michaelis-Menten curve, a staple of MCAT biochemistry, you want to be able to spot your competitive, noncompetitive or uncompetitive inhibitors by sight.

Like the MCAT, biochemistry can be overwhelming at first. There is no easy way to learn every amino acid or metabolic reaction, but your goal is to master MCAT biochemistry, not all biochemistry. Your brain is great at forming connections and spotting patterns so use the above techniques to study more efficiently.

Anthony Lafond, M.D.-Ph.D., is the national MCAT curriculum director at Next Step Test Preparation, which provides one-on-one MCAT tutoring programs. He has scored a 42 on the exam and taught the test for over a decade.