All MCAT Review Notes

Role strain

competing expectations within a single role create tension

ex: student struggles to find time to complete hw & attend student gov meetings

Role conflict

competing expectations for two or more roles create tension

ex: student who is employed part-time struggles to find enough time to complete hw & work late hours

Phosphatase, kinase, phophorylase

• removal of phosphate

• addition of phosphate

• addition of phosphate but transfer from inorganic source

Aldosterone

sodium reabsorption in distal tubule

Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

scan movement of glucose through the body

FLATPEG in anterior pituitary

FSH, LH, ACTH, TSH, Prostaglandins, Endorphins, Growth hormones

Hans Eysenck

noted for first empirical study he published on genetics of personality, looking at neuroticism (overall negative feelings) in mono & dizygotic twins

Abraham Maslow

humanistic personality perspective, heirarchy of needs, physiological & psychological

B.F. Skinner

behaviorist personality perspective, studied ability of operant conditioning to modify personality

Gordon Allport

trait perspective, 3 key types: cardinal, central, secondary

Deductive reasoning

top-down process, applying broad principles to specific situation

Inductive reasoning

bottom-up processing, specific situations to identify broad principles

Schachter-singer theory of emotion

stimulus, physiological arousal, & cognitive interpretation, then experience emotion

Yerkes-Dodson law

people tend to perform their best when they’re moderately emotionally stimulated

Implicit memory

long-term memory about knowing how to do something (able to ride bike)

Explicit memory

long-term memory referring to specific pieces of info like factual knowledge & specific events

Prejudice vs discrimination

one is an attitude and one is acting on that feeling

Hindsight bias

tendency to believe past events were highly predictable even though they weren’t

Hawthorne effect

behavioral changes that occur during a research study b/c participants know they are being observed

Approach-avoidance conflict

one single option w/ pros & cons

Asch’s study of conformity

conformity due to social pressure

• had actors say wrong answer to see what person did without discussion

L & D sugar, L & D amino acid, R & S

-OH on left is L, on right is D
-amine group on left is L, on right is D

-clockwise is R, counterclockwise is S

Cellulose is made of

B-1,4 glucose chains that are indigestible by humans

pH =

1. -log[H+]

2. pka + log [A-]/[HA]

A good indicator is a

weak acid or base, must no react with substrate, and change color close to equivalence point

In SN1 the slow step is the

formation of the carbocation

doppler effect formula

f = ((c+-v) f₀)/c

subject approaching sensor: f>f₀

subject moving away: f<f₀

Alpha decay

A-4, Z-2

A is the mass # and Z is the atomic #

What matters most in SN1 and SN2 rxns?

in SN1 we want carbocation stability to tertiary better than primary

in SN2 we want less steric hinderance so primary better than tertiary

SN1 & SN2 what kind of solvent

one likes polar protic solvents (water, alcohols)

one likes polar aprotic solvents (they lack acidic hydrogen atoms like CH3CN, CH3COCH3, DMSO, CH3SOCH3)

no non-polar either

Stereochemistry of product(s) for SN1 & SN2

one has racemic mixture

one has only inversion

Calculating value of unknown charge using Coloumb’s law

F_E = k (|q1| * |q2|)/r²

electric force, distance between charges

Hooke’s law

force required to stretch or compress

F = -kx

Power (P) =

W/t

J/s = W

Energy is always

conserved

so total energy E = PE + KE

Pentose phosphate pathway generates

ribose-5-phosphate and NADPH. NAPDH generated by reduction of NADP+. R5P is precursor for sugars.

Subjective contours

describes how our mind fills in gaps when looking at image.