BIO tips

To study effectively for biology

• Best thing to do is to personalize your study habits – what worked for me was focusing on one subject at a time and try to fully grasp the content and understand the topics

• Some topics such as embryogenesis and Neurulation were completely new for me, so it was really hard to memorize it the first time around; I made a cheat sheet to help me memorize and understand it better. At the end it allowed me to review the content easier, reviewing the content once is essential and twice if you have time. The key is to manage your time so you will have time to really study the content and later review to make sure you are memorized.

• I know all the available sources for DAT suggest their own calendar which provides you with a schedule of doing 1 chapter from each section each day. They suggest studying Biology and chemistry everyday but this did not work for me, since I am not a fast learner with biology and if I don’t understand the topic I will forget it really fast so I focused on my Bio for like a whole week and then went on Chem for 1 week to make sure I am on top of both. Then, I alternated between the 2 subjects, dedicated 2 or 3 days to each subject only. To be honest I spent more time on Bio for memorization as there was more topics to cover for bio. This works better and you learn easier since on the DAT you are provided with separate biology and chemistry sections so you don’t need to know both science sections as one. Hence, there is no need to study them together. It is easier to focus on each section separately.

• I started with genetics as it is somewhat trickier to understand. Then I moved on to embryology, physiology, and then plants, biodiversity, ecology and lastly cells and molecular biology ( cells and MB is studied extensively in university and high school so I was familiar with most of the topics, but the microfilaments/microtubules/intermediate filaments needed more attention as I will get to it).

• I know that with DAT resources available they provide a biology textbook basically for topics on the DAT à they are useful (somewhat) but not entirely, so you have to try and accumulate multiple resources not just one. I had many resources from videos, websites DAT crusher and DAT Bootcamp to textbooks from my physiology courses (PSL 300 and 301) at UofT, Kaplan, and Princeton.

• I went on the cDAT website on what is covered on the bio section and navigated my way through the topics from there.

• Starting from:

• origin of life; cell metabolism (including photosynthesis); enzymology; cellular processes; thermodynamics; organelle structure and function; mitosis/meiosis;

• biological organization and relationship of major taxa (using the five-kingdom system): monera, planti; animalia; protista; fungi.

• Vertebrate Anatomy and Physiology - structure and function of vertebrate systems (integumentary, skeletal, muscular, circulatory, immunological, digestive, respiratory, urinary, nervous/senses, endocrine, and reproductive);

• Developmental Biology - fertilization, descriptive embryology, and developmental mechanisms;

• Genetics: molecular genetics; human genetics; classical genetics; Chromosomal genetics;

• Evolution, Ecology, and Behaviour: natural selection; population genetics/speciation; cladistics; population and community ecology; ecosystems; animal behaviour (including social).

• If you look at the topics, they are not hard topics, it does not go in to detail of difficult biology sections like neuroscience or biochemistry. Mostly, it is an overview of broad topics that you have to know after 4 years of studying sciences at an accredited university.

• What I DID...

• I watched Khan academy MCAT videos on the topics that I did not get simply by reading up on it, the ones that really helped me out to understand the topic better are Khan Academy videos on mitosis and meiosis (this one was very helpful), Neurulation, and developmental biology.

• (what I did) Make yourself a cheat sheet à useful for reviewing on the last few days for the test

• Cheat sheet handwritten preferably, writing your own cheat sheet is better— it makes you know it by heart and navigate through it easily

Make notes about what are microfilaments and microtubules and examples of each, it's a big topic on the DAT for sure.

1. In what cell types and parts of the cells microfilaments are only present?

2. In which part of the cell are Microtubules present, most important function in the cell?

3. Make a chart that contains microfilaments/ microtubules/ intermediate filaments, their common features, similarities, differences, locations, main functions.

https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/cells/cytoskeleton/v/introduction-to-cytoskeleton

• Make notes of plant structures female and male reproductive system, plant physiology names of the parts, come up with a pneumonic for memorization, e.g PISTIL – Female anatomy opposite of penis

• Photosynthesis, expect 1-2 questions from this section, best way to memorize and understand this process is to watch Khan academy and familiarize yourself with the topics and potential questions about the process. Light dependent photosynthesis and light independent photosynthesis, variation in photosynthesis process for CAM plants, C4 plants, and C3 plants

• https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/photosynthesis-in-plants

• Fertilization and embryogenesis; many hard questions from this topic.

• https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/cells/embryology/v/early-embryogenesis-cleavage-blastulation-gastrulation-and-neurulation

• MEMORIZATION is key here. You must understand the concept first, then memorize all the steps of embryogenesis by repetition, cue card practice to make sure that one key word in a sentence will make you remember the whole process, e.g/primitive streak, what stage of embryogenesis, what gives rise to the primitive streak, what cells does it give rise to?

• Neurulation most important topic on the cDAT, always 2-3 questions from this part. There are 4 stages and highly recommend memorizing each step, as there will be questions on the DAT asking for small details of this process.