GAMSAT Preparation – Significance of Charts and Tables
GAMSAT 2010 is right at your door step and you are getting the chills. You want every help that you can get so that you can succeed in the GAMSAT exam. You have practised mock GAMSAT question papers, you read science books, newspapers, other readings materials to understand everything and anything that is even remotely related to GAMSAT study. But still you don’t remember much and your anxiety metre is increasing every second as the calender moves closer to the G-Day. That is what is called “information overload” my friend. What you really need now is to relax your mind, tell yourself you have done more than enough to ace GAMSAT and you have to now tabulate all information that you had overloaded your brain with. Tabulating helps you remember the general structure of all that you have studied for the last many GAMSAT preparing months.
So, what is tabulating the information? It is simply simplifying the difficult and rigourous concepts and theories that you have already studied for GAMSAT humanities and science. This can be in the form of charts, flowcharts, tables and even flashcards. These are small stuff that helps you recall and revise all subjects that you crammed during your extensive GAMSAT preparation days. The best thing about tabulation is that a 4000 page book can be shortened to a 40 page note that will help you remember almost everything. But beware, the 40 page note will only help you if you have already read through and understood the 4000 page book.
Let me give you an example of how tabulation looks like. For example, you need to learn the fate of erythrocytes after its 120 days of life in the circulatory system. If you pick up a biochemistry book to read this part it might take up around 2 to 4 hours of your time, depending upon your reading and comprehending skills to understand the concept etc. You can shorten this time to only 10 to 15 mins and still understand as much. Here is how you do it.
Since you don’t have much time to go through the book, google (or use any search-engine) for your requirement. These are the 2 results I would like to share with you which will give you an idea of an easy and an advanced flowchart for the fate of the red blood cells.
Here’s the easy one -
(a) Erythrocytes die after about 120 day and are the removed in the liver
(b) The Kupffer cells( phagocytic cells) found within the lumen of the sinusoid engulf the erythrocytes and release the haemoglobin to the hepatocytes.
(c) Haemoglobin is broken down in the Kupffer cell to form haem and globin groups.
(d) The protein globin group is hydrolysed by peptidases in the kupffer cell to amino acids which are either used in protein synthesis or they are metabolised.
(e) The haem group is broken down to remove the inorganic group, Iron which is then stored in the liver.
Bilirubin the other by-product of haem breakdown has no functional role and is modified by the hepatocytes before being secreted as part of Bile.
(f) Bilirubin is stored in the gall bladder. After secretion into the duodenum it is modified by bacteria to form Sterobilin that colours faeces.
(g)Iron is sent to the major bones for the process of haemopoiesis (blood cell formation).
The above figure and notes will help you remember the basic fate of the breakdown of the RBC into haem and globin part. You need to, although, study a little more than this.
Here’s the advanced one -
This figure shows you both the intravascular and extravascular haemolysis. It also gives you the detailed procedure of breakdown of haemoglobin and yet in less than half a page.
In the similar way you can find compressed information in the table form and you can search for every topic that you have studied. You will find everything that you need. All you need now is to have belief in yourself.
Enjoy the wonders of study in the last few days. Cheers!
References:
http://click4biology.info/c4b/H/H4.htm
http://atlas.arabslab.com/
