MCAT Study Guide: Chapter 4

Memory questions on the MCAT are exactly what they sound like: They test your cognition about a specific fact or concept. While memory questions are typically found as costless-continuing questions, they can also exist tucked into a passage and stand for 25% of scientific discipline questions on the MCAT.

MCAT beaker

Merely don't worry! Bated from requiring memorization, these questions exercise non generally cause bug for students because they are similar to the types of questions that would appear on a typical college scientific discipline exam.

What Should I Memorize?

Mastery of the basics and the ability to utilise those concepts to unfamiliar situations is what volition sustain you on the MCAT. Merely if yous're stressing about what MCAT formulas to memorize, here is a short list of rules and equations nerveless by our MCAT test experts. This is by no means a definitive list merely rather a sampling to jump offset your prep.

And remember, it's more than about application of knowledge, than straight up memorization of knowledge.

Chemistry Physics/Math

Organic Chemistry

  • recognizing and naming of organic functional groups using IUPAC nomenclature
  • CIP rules for assigning accented configuration (R/South)
  • separation techniques, notably chromatography
  • principles of spectroscopy techniques, notably IR and 1H-NMR
  • recognizing common organic reaction types (SouthwardNorth1/SDue north2, addition reactions, nucleophilic improver-emptying reactions)
  • structure, classification, and pK as of amino acid side chains
  • construction/reactivity of carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids

General Chemistry

  • Avogadro's number
  • common polyatomic ions
  • Electronegativity order: FONCIBrISCH
  • masses/charges of radioactivity particles
  • Gibbs free energy equation-ideal gas law
  • ideal gas law
  • 1 mol of a gas = 22.4 Fifty at STP
  • phase solubility rules
  • table salt solubility rules
  • mutual strong acids and bases
  • ion-production constant of h2o (Yard w)
  • K a Yard b, pG a/pK b relationships
  • definition of pH and full general logarithm math
  • Henderson-Hasselbalch equation for the pH of a buffer
  • oxidation state rules
  • loss of electrons is oxidation (LEO)
  • gain of electrons is reduction (GER)

Some handy math formulas:

  • prefixes for powers of x
  • sine and cosine values for special angles
  • SOHCAHTOA
  • vector add-on and subtraction
  • log rules
  • approximation techniques for square roots

Read more  MCAT math tips

Some constants include:

  • acceleration of gravity on Earth
  • density of water
  • Coulomb'southward constant
  • elementary charge
  • speed of audio in air
  • speed of light in vacuum

Some equations and the rules for using them:

  • basic kinematic equations
  • Newton's laws
  • work formula
  • conservation of energy
  • Outset Constabulary of Thermodynamics
  • buoyant forcefulness equation
  • continuity equation
  • electric force-field relation
  • electric potential free energy-potential relation
  • Ohm'southward law
  • period-frequency relation
  • wave equation
  • Doppler shift
  • Snell'south law
  • mirror and lens equation
Psychology/Sociology Biology and Biochemistry
  • characteristics of a true experiment
  • differences between independent and dependent variables
  • Weber's Law
  • divergence between peak-down and lesser-upwardly processing
  • Piaget'due south stages of cerebral development
  • Kohlberg's stages of moral development
  • stages of slumber and characteristics of each
  • bones period of retentiveness encoding and retrieval
  • difference betwixt Broca'southward area and Wernicke's area
  • major theories of emotion
  • major functions of each brain region
  • major personality theories
  • major psychological disorders
  • how attitude and behavior impact each other
  • major social psychology theories
  • major types of learning
  • differences between main vs. secondary and positive vs. negative reinforcers and punishers
  • the various reinforcement schedules and beliefs associated with each
  • types of attributions
  • types of negative social interactions (discrimination, bias, etc.)
  • major theoretical approaches to sociology
  • types of social institutions
  • amino acid side chain classifications (polar, non-polar, acidic, basic), their structure, and their accuse at pH seven.4
  • amino acrid three-letter and i-letter of the alphabet abbreviations

  • the significance of △G structures/monomers of the four biological macromolecules
  • how to recognize oxidation and reduction reactions
  • fundamentals of acid/base chemistry
  • four types of enzyme inhibitors V max and M m

  • location/regulation of biochem pathways (and when one pathway might be favored over another)

  • lab techniques (ELISA, electrophoresis, blotting, and PCR)

  • Central Dogma of molecular biology

  • DNA replication rules/enzymes

  • the start codon and the 3 end codons

  • different types/functions of RNA

  • how transcription is regulated

  • free energy required for poly peptide translation

  • viral life cycles and genomes

  • classification of bacteria by construction/living conditions

  • role of the eukaryotic signal sequence

  • plasma membrane structure

  • passive and active transport

  • mechanism of G-protein second messenger pathways

  • eukaryotic cell features (cytoskeleton, jail cell junctions, organelles)

  • 4 phases of mitosis
  • comparison of mitosis vs. meiosis
  • classical and non-classical authority
  • 4 bones unmarried gene crosses
  • 2 rules of probability
  • how to determine linkage and recombination frequency
  • equations and rules for Hardy-Weinberg
  • action potential and voltage-gated channels
  • CNS beefcake
  • sympathetic vs. parasympathetic
  • eye/ear anatomy
  • v classes of sensory receptors
  • hormones
  • heart anatomy
  • cardiac action potential
  • blood pressure, cardiac output, peripheral resistance
  • claret gas send
  • B jail cell and T cell function
  • antibiotic structure and classes
  • nephron structure/part
  • renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system
  • digestive accompaniment organs
  • alimentary canal structure/office
  • sarcomere construction
  • sliding filament theory
  • muscle cobweb types
  • conduction zone vs. respiratory zone
  • regulation of ventilation rate and pH
  • hormones and phases of the menstrual cycle
  • principal germ layers and what they go
  • stalk cells

MCAT Tips and Tricks?

There is no specific "trick" to answering memory questions. Either you lot know the answer or y'all don't. If y'all discover that you are missing a fair number of memory questions on your MCAT practice tests, information technology is a sure sign that you don't know the content well enough. Become dorsum and review.

MCAT Memorization Strategies

Mnemonics

Mnemonic devices are patterns (series of letters, the tune of your favorite vocal) that aid you memorize. For example, some people remember the definitions of the sine, cosine, and tangent of an acute angle in a correct triangle by this mnemonic: SOH CAH TOA. The letters stand for the post-obit: Sine = Opp/Hyp, Cosine = Adj/Hyp, Tangent = Opp/Adj.

Memory Palace

This mnemonic device involves imagining that you are moving through a familiar route or place, such as the rooms of your childhood dwelling house, and at various stops along the way leaving a visual representation of a topic you want to recollect. To recall the info you need, simply imagine walking through your "palace." We've heard of students using this technique for everything from the steps of the Krebs bicycle to the parts of the jail cell.

Outlines

The human action of writing something down goes a long way toward committing information technology to memory. Plus, concise and colorful one-folio outlines are neat study aids.

A Note Almost MCAT Flashcards

Flashcards tin can be beneficial if your basic content knowledge is scarce in some area.  Still, retrieve that the well-nigh challenging aspect of the MCAT is not that it requires you to memorize the fine details of content knowledge, but that information technology requires y'all to use your basic scientific knowledge to unfamiliar situations, and flashcards lone will not help you in that location.  If you choose to apply flashcards, make sure to incorporate plenty of practice passages and total-length practice tests to round out your preparation.

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