What are /r/Mcat's favorite Products & Services?

It's a repeated exposure/spaced repetition learning flashcard software. Kind of like Quizlet, except you rank your confidence with material once you do a flashcard and based on your confidence, that impacts the next time you'll see that card. I'd recommend that you try it out by downloading Anki to your computer (https://apps.ankiweb.net/) or phone as an App (it's definitely free for Android users) and download someone's Anki deck from r/mcat (see sidebar for premed95 Anki Deck). See how you like it. If you do, then there are lots of tutorials online that show you how to use it.

Personally, I used Anki at the start of my studies but found I liked Quizlet better because I wasn't using flashcards as my primary mode of study and Quizlet offered quick flashcards I could do on my walks to class or work, as well as the games on there for the flashcards you make.

https://apps.ankiweb.net/ heres the link for the program

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjdUxCnAXJw and heres the goat whos videos taught me everything on anki

Its a lot like quizlet in the sense that users are responsible for creating cards and the platform is a tool to do it. You make your own flashcards, but there are also some crazy decks for the MCAT that other people created and uploaded to reddit that will save you CRAZY amounts of time. I edited the hell out of the premade decks I used and added tons my own cards, but the premade deck is the backbone. I used it like an editable textbook pretty much.

This is anki, download it from here for your desktop/laptop An app also exists for your phone. When making the flashcards use the "Cloze" feature for all of them!!! That feature is the most helpful one. For example, you'll copy+paste the picture of an amino acid and you'll use the "cloze" feature to hide it's name, pKa values, etc. Then when you're reviewing you'll be presented with the picture, and you'll have to recall the information that has been occluded.

Look to the sidebar to download Premed95's Psychology and Sociology anki, then add your own flashcards for amino acids and every other section you think of. If you need help making them just let me know

I found a highlighting work around...... it still SUCKS but its better! it only works on google chrome too- add the weava extension to ur chrome browser (https://www.weavatools.com/). it also remembers what u highlighted when u go to the next question & its a new webpage- but for some reason I have to highlight something on the page and then click somewhere in the text once for the passage highlights to show up. Not perfect but its free and its an improvement

You need to get the anki app here: https://apps.ankiweb.net/ The phone version costs 20 bucks. I got it as well so I didn't waste time on instagram when I went to the bathroom. It takes an insane amount of time to get through all of them. The psych social deck is deceptively small. One card can be the equivalent of like a dozen normal sized notecards. I felt EXTREMELY confident on the real thing though.. there were only a few questions where I feel like I had no idea (like... 3? On the entire test?).

I'm not entirely certain about the FL's if you buy the two books. I would recommend the 528 just because it goes through some decent techniques to try for the passages/CARS section, and it has a tonne of practice passages that it goes through in detail. Plus if you aren't buying the full kaplan set then you get a FL. I believe (don't quote me) that you might get a FL if you buy one of their books individually. What you have planned sounds good about buying their biochem book, b/c a lot of other companies haven't put as much focus into that area. For psych/soc. I'd go for the TPR book, plus then you get the 3 TPR FL's for just buying the one 30 dollar book! Based just on what you listed previously then, I might go for this prep material:

Kaplan Biochem Kaplan 528 EK 9th ed full set TPR psych/soc. review Next step FL's AAMC material

You may have already found this too, but here is an AMAZING link to free older MCAT books, which I am putting to use (especially the old EK 1001 Q's books):

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/dfskktxcsk6ix/MCAT_All_in_One#dfskktxcsk6ix

I will post this in a new thread but here's an empty OneNote doc. Maybe this will get big, who knows. https://onedrive.live.com/redir?page=view&resid=55825311599db83c!91587&authkey=!ABeEhGknnNrpkxE&ithint=onenote%2c

https://apps.ankiweb.net/docs/manual.html

Here's the Anki manual, should cover everything, even if its not very user friendly.

In terms of the new cards per day, the "new" in Anki refers to cards you have made but not studied before. This means that if you have a setting of 20 new/day, and you make 100 cards today, you can only review 20 of them today. Tomorrow you will "review" the 20 from today and also have 20 "new" cards from today, with 60 from today not available to you till the next day.

IMHO 20 new cards/day is not enough considering how many cards you'll probably have from each chapter, but again it's a personal preference and depends on how you make your cards.

One thing I definitely suggest is to NOT make separate decks for each book. Instead, use TAGS to sort the cards by the book chapters. If you use decks, youre wasting memory and you wont be able to study all the subjects together. Tags are easier to mix and match and by having one deck for everything you will be forced to recall from every subject in one sitting, which is harder and better for retention than knowing going in that you'll only get Biochem or Psych cards, for example.

Strong Anki advocate (used it every year of undergrad) so feel free to ask more questions.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mcat/comments/39rnqz/free_fls_and_prep_books/. Also you will need a torrent client. I recommend Deluge client: http://deluge-torrent.org/. Download and find the link for the torrent, save the link and open in your client. This will download from other seeders uploading packets of information through their client. Hope that's helpful.

Hey mods, how has this account not been banned? It's clearly a shill for udemy.com which violates rule 6. Can we just delete the rules then since there's been zero enforcement of them lately?

Anki should become your best friend. It's a flashcard program that schedules your cards so that you review them at the ideal intervals for remembering them. The intervals get longer the better you know the material.

You have to have some way to take advantage of spaced repetition if you want to remember anything for a decent amount of time. You could come up with a schedule for reviewing things every so often, but Anki is great because it does that for you.

I sound like an ad for Anki. But it's great. And free.

Sorry to not directly answer your question (I know it's kind of annoying when people do that), but have you ever tried making flashcards using Anki + the Image Occlusion plug-in for o chem reactions? It's seriously an amazing way to memorize reactions. I recommend using it even alongside whatever practice problems you do.

(Also, protip: don't get too into any crazy o-chem problems. The MCAT o-chem isn't too bad)

It appears you are using the lower end of the raw score in your percents. That's why the % correct still looked off. IMHO it is nice to know the overall lower and upper bound and get an average for a better idea, but that's just me.

Anyways it looks fixed now, though, I only just put in CBT 11 for the scaled score of 10 and checked that. Anyways here's the link to what I was using should be valid for 24 hrs.

http://www.cometdocs.com/download/3153133-a4714.xls

Guys take all of this with a grain of salt obviously. It is helpful though.

Taking a good philosophy course is probably your best bet.

Milton Friedman is probably your best bet for reading gymnastics because he's making definite (albeit extremely complicated) points. "Monetary History" is arguably the high-water mark in social science.

Montaigne writes about a far wider subject matter at a similar level of abstraction, but Montaigne is often nebulous.

Sartre is a great option.

Selections from Marx are also suggested. Although unpopular, Marx is a thinker of considerable rigor.

John Stuart Mill is an exceptional, if inaccessible, writer.

Lao Tzu doesn't offer writing of the type that will directly help you, but will aid general cognitive limberness.

Will Durant's "The Story of Philosophy" is one of the great books of the 20th century and offers 10-20 page summaries of major philosophers.

Strauss on the structure of philosophy is another great reading.

Harold Bloom is another good writer who outlines perspectives at a similar level of abstraction. Bloom's conception of "misprison" may also help you back out of getting bogged down in detail.

>should I aim to have complete review of the material by the end of class, and just practice for 5 weeks? Or is leaving content to review during that time acceptable?

In my experience, I have found that doing practice questions is a much better use of time than content review. I would say spend maybe 20%-30% of your time doing content review, and the rest doing practice questions. Try to get as much content review by May 15th, and if you're not done by then, take 1 more week to do content review. Then spend 4 weeks doing practice. That's what I would do.

>How have people compared studying solo (books alone) versus taking the classes? I don't have time to take the classes but I don't want to miss out on high yield material. Do you think what I've planned on doing is sufficient?

I actually think that classes are a waste of time if you know how to self-study. In my opinion, they're only for people that lack the motivation to self-study, and need a formalized class to learn - which is perfectly OK. I am currently self studying, and these are the books I'm planning on using (I'm taking the MCAT on June 19th).

Kaplan 7 book set = Content review book
Kaplan 528 (for the extra FL)
All the strategy/practice books from Next Step
This Princeton Review book that has 4 FL exams
5 Next Step FLs
All the AAMC stuff

>I've taken the mcat before and I know that the amount of regurgitation from memory is not as true as it is hyped to be, but the review is daunting. Any suggestions for a studying plan?

Here are a few study plans.

Good Luck!

I'm no Anki expert, but for the basic purposes of flashcards that I use it for, AnkiDroid is free and good if you're an Android user.

less

see image for best representation:

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=4WdQbeLA&id=C8978A0C7206828F0B36F1FB72475125723B46CB&q=native+sds+page&simid=607998612584990999&selectedIndex=0&ajaxhist=0

no because the 5' end is the phosphodiester , the 3' is the OH

image: https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=WhnqpATd&id=75FDFE2D85946F8690F376F9D539CE14F02E01BA&q=5%27+end+of+DNA&simid=607992337648520925&selectedIndex=7&ajaxhist=0

http://tinypic.com/r/eah4ko/8

http://tinypic.com/r/212isnn/8

Here is the passage. To my knowledge it doesn't give any extra information about resistivity. From what we've learned, resistance=resistivity(length/area). I am not sure how they could just say that resistivity=resistance/length without taking into consideration the area.

Is this the mock notepad? https://www.amazon.ca/Erasable-noteboard-Staedtler-Experience-Simulation/dp/B084MJ9D9C/ref=sr_1_8?crid=3AQ4HWXER40V1&keywords=mcat&qid=1659742439&sprefix=mcat%2Caps%2C214&sr=8-8

You do need to mentally keep track of electrons and know that R-OH for example would have two lone pairs due to the octet rule and bonding. Hybridization is a direct consequence of geometry, it is really a model meant to "explain" the geometries observed empirically. So whenever you answer these questions, think what would be the geometry be? Once you know geometry, you can select the corresponding hybridization. Alcohols (R-OH) have sp3 geometry because their bond angles are closest to 109.5 degrees. Why is that? Look up the bond angles for H2O, which has a bond angle of 104.5. What do you think happens when you replace a hydrogen bond with a O-P bond? Electron density is larger and repels the hydrogen bond further, increasing the bond angle from 104.5 to something larger like 109. That's closest to 109.5 or sp3. For the phosphorus, again, imagine the geometry. It has 4 bonding groups, it'll probably form a tetrahedral, sp3 structure. Same for carbon 3. And for carbon 4, you should know carbonyls are sp2, but if you don't, imagine the geometry. 3 bonding groups and no free lone pairs, trigonal planar, that's gonna be sp2. I would suggest looking up and studying VSEPR theory and looking up a chart of the hybridizations with the geometries and bond angles. And for the water example I first mentioned, here's a pic to help:

Credit to Sirod Judin who made this slide at: https://www.slideshare.net/sirodjudin908/alcohol-45047010

https://www.audible.com/ep/2book?source_code=GO1GB12706261890IT&device=m&gclsrc=aw.ds&ds_rl=1262685&ds_rl=1257028&ds_rl=1260658&cvosrc=ppc.google.free%20audible&cvo_campaign=226474689&cvo_crid=318635025084&Match...

https://www.desmos.com/calculator

I would invite you to go plug in y=x^3 and see how it looks—and I’d recommend trying out x^4, x^5, and x^6.

What you’ll see is

Prop to (x) = line

x^2 = parabola

x^3 = sort of parabolic

x^4 = huh parabolic again

So really if it’s x it’s a line, x^even = parabola, x^odd what x^3 looks like.

I would find it unlikely they’d ask you to differentiate very specifically, it’s most likely to be like this question. If you did ever have to differentiate between two higher orders of x, the “steepness” of the graph could help you out.

I advise using anki! Anki is a flashcard deck you can access on your laptop for free and on your phone (phone version costs money) It provides spaced repetition so concepts you add to notecards you don't feel comfortable with you can decide how long it will be until you want to review them again!

Here is the link to download anki if you would like: https://apps.ankiweb.net/

So it looks like you downloaded it from the app store, however if you're using a laptop you should just be able to download it for free from their website.

https://apps.ankiweb.net/

If you scroll down you should see a tab for Mac, try downloading the alternate as it supports 10.10, and if I remember correctly, El Capitan is 10.11.

Uearth is showing a ranking of polarity and it had molecules with -COOH group more polar than molecules with -OH group

but to my great surprise, ethanol is shown with a higher dielectric constant than acetic acid which means ethanol is MORE polar than acetic acid

What gives???

I am very confused. I totally get boiling points with acetic acid having higher BP than ethanol but I absolutely do not get the polarity part. Acetic acid can do more hydrogen bonds than ethanol and hence has higher boiling point not polarity.

Uearth chart is this: https://snipboard.io/nqG4uM.jpg

Also, some electrophoresis experiments run standards in different wells which allow you to estimate your protein-of-interest size. That being said, there might be cases were another well will have a band in the same location as yours.

https://apps.ankiweb.net

It isn't like a normal flash card system. It uses a unique algorithm to actively test you. People have created detailed videos about it on youtube as well that you can check out.

Free PC download here, I can't remember where/how to make an account but that's how you sync your decks between your phone app/computer. In the /mcat sidebar on the right (web version, phone app version is different) under the subtitle "High Yield MCAT Links" there's a link to download the premed95 Anki decks. Highly recommend those in addition to whatever ones you may make for yourself. Once downloaded, you need only open it and it should automatically be added to your list of decks. If not, you can open the Anki application and manually click "Add" from the menu bar then click on the premed95 download from your file explorer. I think that covers most everything...

here's the notion page where i reviewed my FL 1 CARS (so don't read it if you haven't taken that FL yet lol)

i just mentally ask myself those questions and type it out. for FL 3 review i actually added any extra column and tried to summarize the main point of the passage w/ 1-2 sentences. it's important to remember that if an idea is presented in the beginning, the author may at the end be like "but i disagree" so the main point is actually that first idea BUT the author doesn't really agree with this BECAUSE ______. if that makes sense?

and yeah, i checked the curve for FL 1, 3, and 4, and it's basically 49/59 is ~128-129 so hopefully i can just gun for that 129-130 by test day lol. hopefully the curve is not the same as FL 2 or i'm fucked. guess i'm grinding anki for the next 5 days lol

bruh i literally got an A in physics in undergrad and i'm still so lost on the physics passages lololol. and okay i will work on units this week hardcore... i'll need to review FL 2 to really understand where i'm going wrong in c/p. i really really want a 128 or something in c/p but i guess i'd be chill w/ 127 lol. but 126 makes me sad after seeing my CARS jump.

POE is literally my best friend in every section hahahhaha

okay thank you so much! you've given me a second wind of hopefulness for this week. good luck with CARS!

http://chadsvideos.com/

Testimony: http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=1417112

You mentioned electrochemistry and Chad came to mind. He simplifies the bullshit for seemingly complicated concepts. Maybe he’ll help clarify some content gaps you are experiencing.

also, the app may not be very user-friendly but they have very good instructions on their website! Just read through a few threads and you should be good.

https://apps.ankiweb.net/docs/manual.html

All credit for the Ortho528 deck goes to /u/AnkiForTheMCAT! I like having Anki both on my phone and computer. Computer was great for making new cards, and phone was nice for reviewing them on the go (especially for P/S because it's easy to knock out a bunch of cards in a few spare minutes). The way I got my decks onto my phone was using this link's guide and scrolling down to where it says "iTunes Import/Export".

That's awesome! I am a career changer too :) I am always so excited to meet others who decided to take on this challenging but rewarding road! That sounds great :) You can download Anki for free if you'd like to use it: https://apps.ankiweb.net/

Otherwise, that sounds like a great plan. You will do great! DM anytime.

I feel like taking a higher number of practice questions or practice problems will help the most in your case. I think 4 practice tests would not have been enough to help me master CARS.

In terms of resources, try going on https://libgen.is and literally type in the search box "mcat" and sort by year. Anything from the past two years is probably going to be fine to study with and there are even some third party practice exams there.

Don't be discouraged You are simply in need of a mindshift to to be found here

https://sellfy.com/p/9XOl/

Top test performers use this method all the time. You simply have to spend 20minutes (3x a day) or (every 2 hours if pressed for time in the zone)

Make it a Mantra and yield your best test scores - it's how we aced ours ... Start here

I love taking and ACING the (practice+actual)MCATs Everytime. I know all the answers. It's easy for me.

Do this plus the https://sellfy.com/p/9XOl/

And tell us about your score in a week

By the Nernst Equation, the overall cell potential should change, but the standard cell potential will not. Q (mass action expresion) appears in the Nernst equation, not Keq, which is a constant.

http://calistry.org/New/sites/all/libraries/ckeditor//plugins/ckeditor_wiris/integration/showimage.php?formula=16daa6ed7b794b0e6407c919183a5ea7.png

hey thanks for the long and detailed response; this helps me a lot!

As for feedback regulation, I found this link ( https://socratic.org/questions/what-is-feedback-inhibition ) which talks about how end product inhibition (feedback regulation) is a type of non-competitive inhibition as the product will indeed bind to the allosteric site of the enzyme. Is this right? I don't think I've come across this in any of my biochemistry coures/MCAT prep material, but maybe I just glossed over this/misunderstood this

>fructose is a diastereomer of glucose

"D-fructose and D-glucose have the same molecular formula, C6H12O6, but D-fructose has a primary alcohol at C-1 and a ketone at C-2 and D-glucose has an aldehyde at C-1 and a secondary alcohol at C-2.

This makes them constitutional isomers, because they have the same formula but a different order of bonding."

Source: https://socratic.org/questions/what-is-the-relationship-between-d-glucose-and-d-fructose

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_anyone_tell_me_what_kind_of_interaction_there_is_between_SDS_and_proteins_in_SDS-PAGE

"To my knowledge, the hydrophobic hydrocarbonated portion of SDS interacts with hydrophobic regions on denaturated proteins"

This is correct?

Hyperbolas and parabolas are fundamentally different. Parabolas are second-order one-to-one functions. It is second order because your x term is squared (power of 2). It is one-to-one because each value for x corresponds to only one y-value: you plug in a number into y = ax^(2) + bx + c and get out only one y value.

Hyperbolas are are defined around asymptotes, lines that the curves approach but do not cross. Hyperbolas are not one-to-one: for many x-values on the linked graph, there can be multiple y-values (usually two).

You are very unlikely to see hyperbolas appear on the MCAT. They have little relevance to the science concepts on the MCAT, at least for the level of understanding required.

Another visually similar function is the inverse function. The most basic form of this is y = 1 / x. It also involves asymptotes: for y = 1 / x, y and x can never be 0 because you cannot divide by 0 and you cannot get 0 from dividing 1 by a number.

Both parabolic and inverse functions are useful to recognize on the MCAT.

hey lol, thanks for the reply! I am not worried about your deck tho, but about downloading the actual anki app on my laptop haha!

Is this the link for anki: https://apps.ankiweb.net/ ?

I wasn't able to view it on my mac. This was the first time I ever used Anki. Than I realized you actually have to download Anki first...lol. Right here: https://apps.ankiweb.net After you download anki, in the main Anki screen, click on import file and than you can import the file you downloaded and theres the deck! Took me a while to figure out...

It's working (And it was working yesterday too when I checked). If it is still down for you, try troubleshooting steps suggested in these links: http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/kaplan.com.html http://downornotrightnow.com/kaplan.com

Check this out : https://tinychat.com/room/gottastudy (password : getstudying)

It's an amazing community with people all over the world and from different fields (medical, biology, computer science, law ...) the users either share their desktop screen or put camera on to avoid slacking while study periods. and eventually they can chat and help each other during breaks :)

Check this out : https://tinychat.com/room/gottastudy (password : getstudying)

It's an amazing community with people all over the world and from different fields (medical, biology, computer science, law ...) the users either share their desktop screen or put camera on to avoid slacking while study periods. and eventually they can chat and help each other during breaks :)
Maybe some nice company while studying will help u out :) it does help me so much

heck this out : https://tinychat.com/room/gottastudy (password : getstudying)

It's an amazing community with people all over the world and from different fields (medical, biology, computer science, law ...) the users either share their desktop screen or put camera on to avoid slacking while study periods. and eventually they can chat and help each other during breaks :)

Check this out : https://tinychat.com/room/gottastudy (password : getstudying)

It's an amazing community with people all over the world and from different fields (medical, biology, computer science, law ...) the users either share their desktop screen or put camera on to avoid slacking while study periods. and eventually they can chat and help each other during breaks :)

Check this out : https://tinychat.com/room/gottastudy (password : getstudying)

It's an amazing community with people all over the world and from different fields (medical, biology, computer science, law ...) the users either share their desktop screen or put camera on to avoid slacking while study periods. and eventually they can chat and help each other during breaks :)

Check this out : https://tinychat.com/room/gottastudy (password : getstudying)

It's an amazing community with people all over the world and from different fields (medical, biology, computer science, law ...) the users either share their desktop screen or put camera on to avoid slacking while study periods. and eventually they can chat and help each other during breaks :)