Science in 60

MCAT TIPS AND TRICKS

Introduction:

Hi! I am Rachel aka Sciencein60 on Instagram! I wrote my MCAT in the summer of 2020 (July 23, 2020 I believe). I was very happy with my score and now I want to help others achieve their MCAT goals as well. There will be a lot of overlap between this document and my videos, but this document will allow me to go into more detail and explain things better. I would like to mention that these are tips and tricks that worked for me, but they may not work for everyone. Please take everything I say with a grain of salt, and make sure that you are fact-checking and using these tips at your own discretion. Good Luck with studying! I am rooting for you!

CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS

TIPS

• Save calculation and long questions until the end of the section. They take the most time and are worth the same as every other question
• As I went through the notes, whenever I came across an equation, I would write it at the front of my notebook to make it easier to come back to later.
• Make flashcards for the equations that you come across

CONTENT/MEMORY TOOLS

Electricity and Magnetism

• The V=IR triangle

• If you are looking for “I” you are left with V/R
• If you are looking for “R” you are left with V/I
• If you are looking for “V” you are left with IxR

• The right hand rule for direction of magnetic field lines

• Put your right thumb in the direction of the current
• Close your hand
• Your fingers will wrap in the direction of the field lines

• The right hand rule for magnetic force

• Put your right thumb in the direction of the velocity of the positive charge
• Put your right fingers in the direction of the magnetic field lines
• Your palm will face the direction of the force

• If you have multiple identical resistors in parallel, the total resistance is equal to the resistance of each resistor divided by the number of resistors

• If you have 5 resistors in parallel and each have a resistance of 25 ohms the total resistance will equal 25/5

Gas laws

• Think Brooklyn 99 (both have V, T and P rhyme)

• Charles: TV

• k=V/T

• Boyle’s: k=PV

pH

• Don’t use 14=pOH+pH to solve for pH when give [OH-]

• pH=14+log[OH]

• Saves time and energy

• pH=-log[H+]

• ex/ [H+] = 9.5x10-6 
• pH = 6-0.95 (estimate)

Reactions/Thermodynamics

• Spontaneous Reactions

• ΔG = - spontaneous
• ΔG = + nonspontaneous

• Equilibrium

• Put K before Q
• If K>Q, the reaction goes →
• If K<Q, the reaction goes ←
• If K is put in front of Q then the arrow (greater than or less than sign) points in the direction of the reaction

• Heat Transfer

• q=mcΔT looks like q=mcat

• Balancing reactions

• Combustion

• Balance all non-hydrogen/oxygen atoms first
• Balance hydrogen next
• Balance oxygen last

• Redox in acidic conditions

1. Split into the two reactions
2. Balance all non-hydrogen/oxygen atoms
3. Balance oxygen by adding H2O
4. Balance hydrogen by adding H+
5. Found the charge on each side of the equation
6. Add electrons to balance the charges
7. Multiple the equations so that the electrons match on each side
8. Add the equations together
9. Remove any terms that appear on both sides

1. Ex/ if you have two h2o on the right and four of the left, you will be left with two on the left

• Basic conditions

• Same as acidic conditions but insert another step after step 4
• Add the same amount of OH- as H+ to both sides of the equation
• Combine the OH and H+ on one side to make H2O

Fluid dynamics

• In a closed loop the flow is the same everywhere. That means that areas with higher total cross sectional area will have a lower velocity.

• Remember that the capillaries have smaller individual cross sectional area but higher total cross sectional area than the bigger vessels and that is why the blood moves slower there.

Molecules and Organic Chemistry

• Hybridization

• Count the number of atoms your atom is attached to
• Count the number of lone pairs
• Add them together
• The number you get determines the hybridization state
• 4= sp3
• 3=sp2
• 2=sp

• Two remember this count: s,p, p, p (sp3), there are 4 components
• S, p, p, (sp2) = 3
• S, p, (sp)+ 2

Kinematics

• Use 10 m/s^2 for acceleration due to gravity instead of 9.8. It will be SO much easier without a calculator

Lenses

• Convex lenses have a positive r and f value
• Concave lenses have a negative r and f value

• Going into the con(cave) is negative

Enantiomers

• Label each chiral centre as S or R
• If every chiral centre flips, then it is an enantiomer (SS→ RR, SR→ RS, RS→ SR)
• If some but not all flip, then it is a diastereomer

• (SS→ SR, SS→ RS)

• Meso

• Both chiral centres have the same groups attached and they have opposite chirality

CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND REASONING

• Third party CARS passages are not that helpful, use AAMC
• Take a short break and do something to refocus between passages
• Find a strategy that works for you for the order of passages

• Easiest passages first
• Hardest passages first
• Order they appear (I did this one)

• Don’t be afraid to skip a question and come back

• Come back before starting a new passage (!!!!!!)

• Redwood MCAT newsletter is very helpful
• Practice reading long and boring essays and try to understand the meaning
• Also practice reading comprehension by reading more and trying to understand the purpose of each paragraph
• Different Strategies for CARS

• Make an outline

• One sentence after each paragraph to explain the main points

• Highlighting (I did this)

• Highlight key words that would explain what the paragraph was about

• Don’t bring outside information into the section

• The only outside info that you can use is vocabulary

BIOLOGY AND BIOCHEMISTRY

TIPS

• Memorize the AMINO ACIDS

• You obviously won’t be asked to draw them, but you NEED to know them by sight. The better you know them, the easier it will be
• Know the structure, full name, three letter code, and the one letter code

CONTENT/MEMORY TOOLS

Amino acids

• Finding the pI of an amino acid

• pI= the pH when the molecule is neutral
• Neutral

• Gly, Pro, Met, Leu, Ala, Ile, Gln, Asn, Cys, Thr, Ser, Trp, Tyr, Phe, Val
• Average the pKa of the amino group and the carboxyl group

• Positive

• His, Arg, Lys
• Average pka of amino group and R group

• Negative

• Asp, Glu
• Average the pka of the carboxyl group and the R group

• Amino acids

• Look at the photo down below
• Glycine - has nothing on it
• Alanine - just one line
• Valine - makes a  V shape
• Leucine - makes an L shape (plus a line in the middle)
• Isoleucine - makes half an “I” shape
• Methionine - makes an M shape, the S goes at the top corner of the M
• Proline - looks much different than everything else, just remember it (lol)
• Phenylalanine - just an alanine with a phenyl group at the end
• Tyrosine - phenylalanine with an OH group
• Tryptophan (W) - makes a W shape
• Threonine - makes a t shape
• Serine - same as threonine without one of the arms
• cysteine - sounds like Sistine Chapel and you have to be quite in the chapel so you say” SHHHHHH” so it has an SH group
• Asparagine and Glutamine are similar, but asparagine has one less carbon, A comes before G so it has less carbons
• Lysine (K) makes two K shapes
• Glutamate and Aspartate look the same, but aspartate has one less carbon

• protonation

• pH>pKa the proton goes to solution
• pH<pKa the proton goes to the molecule
• Bigger number gets the proton

Lungs

• Bohr Effect

• Decrease in pH (increase in [H+]) and increase in Pco2 leads to decrease in hemoglobin’s affinity for O2
• H2O + CO2 ←→ H2CO3 ←→ H+ + HCO3-
• As H+ increase, the equilibrium shifts to H2CO3
• This causes H2CO3 to increase which causes the equilibrium to shift H2O and CO2 increasing PCO2

Biomolecules

• To remember which blotting technique matches with which molecule

• SNOW
• DROP
• Southern - DNA
• Northern - RNA
• Western - Protein

• Monosaccharides

• Use your right hand to make these shapes, with your palm facing upward
• The OH goes at the tips of your finger
• D-Glucose

• All fingers down but your middle finger

• D-galactose

• All fingers down except for middle and ring finger

• D-mannose

• Make fingers guns with your pointer and middle finger

• Stop codons

• U Are Annoying (UAA)
• U Go Away (UGA)
• U Aren’t Good (UAG)

Enzymes

• Lower Km = higher affinity

• Km is the [substrate] needed for the enzyme to right half of the maximal velocity
• The lower that concentration needs to be, the higher the enzyme’s affinity for the substrate

Kreb’s cycle

• Mnemonic for the molecules
• Can I sell sandwiches for money, officer?

• Citrate, isocitrate, a-ketogluterate, succinyl-CoA, succinctly, fumerate, oxaloacetate

• Any enzyme with the name dehydrogenase produces NADH or FADH2
• SYNTHETASE produces GTP

Meoisis

• 
• Halpoid vs diploid

• Haploid

• One set of chromosomes (n=23 in humans)
• Gametes only have one set of chromsomones

• Diploid

• Two sets of chromosomes (2n=46)
• Body sets are diploid

• Chromosome vs chromatid

• Chromosome

• The genetic material in the nucleus made of DNA molecule and proteins

• Chromatid

• A duplicated half of a chromosome

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY

TIPS

• I used Khan Academy and used MCAT bros notes and followed along with the videos

• Link to mcat bro notes
• https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10Z12cQ2TuMjmfKiThlKFMyllAPB4CUP2

• I believe that doing well in psyc and soc is really a matter of keeping yourself focussed.

• Save your best snack for your last break so that you are ready to kill this section.
• During practiced tests, I would rush to finish and I would do poorly. I did not rush on this and I literally got in the 100th percentile on my actual test.

CONTENT/MEMORY TOOLS

• Operant conditioning

• Reinforcement: increases a behaviour
• Punishment: decreases a behaviour
• Positive: something is added (can be something good or bad)
• Negative: something is taken away (can be something good or bad)
• Positive reinforcement: something good is added

• You add something because it is positive and it is something good because you want the behaviour to continue
• Giving a mouse a food pellet when they push a button

• You give them something good so they will push the button more

• Negative reinforcement: something bad is taken away

• You take something away because it is negative. Taking something bad away in response to a behaviour will make the behaviour increase
• Removing electric shock from a mouse when they push a button

• You take away something bad (electric shock) and it will cause the mouse to increase the frequency of pushing the button

• Positive punishment: something bad is added

• You add something because it is positive, but it is something undesirable because you want the behaviour to decrease
• Making a child do a chore in response to misbehaving

• The chore is adding something and it is undesirable for the child

• Negative punishment: something good is taken away

• It is negative because something is taken away. The thing taken away is something desirable
• Taking away a tablet from a child when they are misbehaving.

General

• Start AAMC practice material early

• Practice tests and the individual practice questions

• don’ t be discouraged if your third party practice test score is not as high as you want. I routinely got 10 points lower than my actual test score
• If you are doing an AAMC practice question and you do not know how to answer, copy and paste the question into google, someone probably answered it ith explanation on reddit or yahoo answers.
• Spend a lot of time after your practice test to go over the whole thing. Make sure you look at both the questions you got right and the ones you got wrong.         

• For the questions you got wrong or guessed, make notes and flashcards on that whole topic

• I.e. if you get a question wrong on enthalpy, make notes on enthalpy, entropy, gibbs free energy etc. (anything related).

• I made a table that looked like this

• Do independent stand alone questions before passage questions

• As you scroll through you can rank how hard each passage is and decide which order to do them in

• I did them is this order

• Easy without data and figures
• Easy with data and figures
• Medium without
• Medium with
• Hard without
• Hard with

• Mimic test day during your practice tests

• Only eat and drink during your breaks
• Time your breaks and sections
• Where headphones and ear buds if you plan on it during tests day
• Take practice tests at the same time as your test

• Mine was at 6 am, so that is when I would take mine

• Go to the testing centre the day before if possible

• Take care of yourself while you study

• You don't want to burn out
• Exercise, eat well, see friends, take breaks

• FLASHCARDS FLASHCARDS FLASHCARDS

• Handwrite
• ANKI

• Online flashcards that changes the frequency of the cards depending on if you get them right or not
• You can download premade MCAT sets, I did not do this because I believe that making the cards is part of the study process, but it is up to you.

• Passage with figures

• Define the variables and write out the trend
• Simply write: Example

• X: time
• Y: height
• And write something like: T increase, H increase

• Finding Logs

• Log (ax10^b) =~b+0.a
• Log (9x10^7) = ~7.9
• This is helpful for finding the pH
• pH=-log[H+]

• pH=~b-0.a
• If [H+]=1.14x10-9
• pH= ~9-0.114
• =8.9

• JUST AN ESTIMATE
• Or pH = 14+log[OH-]

• To practice for science passages

• Look at science journal websites
• Look at the results and try to interpreting them
• Look at the figures and practice determining variables and trends

• Multiplying and dividing in standard form

• Standard form: 4.0x107 
• Multiple and divide the front numbers first and right all the exponents at the end
• ex/ (4.0x107)(5.0x109)/(2.0x108)
• Write it as: (4x5/2) x (107)(109)/(108)
• = 10 x108 = 1.0x109

• Convert numbers to easier number

• If given 200/2.5x106
• 200/25 is easier to calculate
• Calculation 200/(25x105)
• 8x10-5

• Courses I took that were helpful to prepare for the MCAT

• General Chemistry
• General Biology
• Molecular Biology
• Psychology 100
• Physics
• Statistics
• Physiology

• Set realistic goals and a realistic study schedule.