bio vs ap

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Which courses where the most difficult courses youve taken bio chem or a&p i would like to know your opinion on difficulty.

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Specializes in None ! :[.

Personally, I think Chemistry is the hardest.

:[ Mostly because I'm not good at all the...things associated w/ chemistry.

Biology is challenging, but it was mostly memorization to me.

I'm taking A&P now, & it's a lotttt of information as well--right now I wouldn't call it hard, but I've only had the class for maybe 5 weeks now. :p

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Do you think i shouldve taken bio before aP

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Specializes in LTC, Med-surg.

I am currently taking biology. It is consuming my life. I just read and studied one chapter for 4 hours. Its not memorization so much as knowing all the "processes" and how the concepts relate to make up that process.

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Specializes in School Nursing.

I took Bio and while some of the concepts we covered in Bio is in my current A&P class... A&P is definitely going into way more detail and using more of the medical terminology that we didn't really cover in general bio. If Bio is not required for your major, and you want to speed up the process... I'd say skip Bio and go straight to A&P.

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Good because i already did do you have ways of retaining information because after i finish about 3 pages i can remember the main idea of the information but i cannot go into details. Any ideas?

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Specializes in None ! :[.

:) I use flash cards to help remember parts.

I also find it extremely helpful to go to the lab...& actually look at the physical models there, point to the structures & recite its name out loud.

Especially helpful for the bones.

If anyone else has any tips about memorizing & such, I'm open to hearing them as well.

EDIT; Dohhh--I think you're actually talking about the processes & how the parts work together, yes?

Which makes my reply kind of...not useful, since it's mostly dealing w/ the main parts.

:0 In that case, I wait for other responses--because I'd like to know that as well.

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Specializes in School Nursing.

If you look at the sticky on top of this forum there is a thread called, "A&P- From my brain to yours"... she has some wonder notes that break things down really, really well! Go print those out. Between your teachers lectures, her notes and your own text you should have all the information you need. Go over all three. Eventually it has to sink in, right? Also, a study technique my Stats teacher insists on is doing the work three times. Apparently working problems three times is a key number to having it sink in. It's working so far for me in my stats class. I bet the same can be applied to studying this. Good luck! I need it too! :)

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When I don't remember what I've read, it is usually because I didn't really understand it as I went. So, I look up definitions of words as I go or before hand sometimes. I go back to similar words or similar definitions and make sure I can see the differences/similarities between them. I sometimes don't read the book in order, I'll look up all the references to the topic (or word) in the index and read about a concept in its different contexts before coming back to the reading assignment.

At the same time, I'm a strongly global learner so I need to see the big picture before I can get the details to stick, so I'll read the headlines and conclusions before trying to get the details to stick. Other people are strongly brick-by-brick learners and won't understand the big picture until they add up all the details. It doesn't matter which you are, other than affecting the way you learn fastest/best/easiest.

Teaching it to someone is often a good way to learn it. If I don't have someone to teach, I'll make the lessons anyway and "teach" the dog (a chair works too). I've found I can't stop at doing the lesson, I have to give them otherwise I sometimes think I understand it when I don't.

Take notes. This is for two purposes, it results in sorting out what is important and/or how things are related to each other. And the act of writing helps me remember. Sometimes, I write and rewrite a particular thing if I'm stuck on it.

Don't try to learn too much at one time. My goal is to come back to it just before or as I forget it, at first that might be every 30 seconds for really novel concepts or complicated or confusing terminology.

Another way to learn a little at a time is to use a layers strategy. For example, I'm learning cat muscles right now for a dissection class, and the prof is strict on spelling. I have to get the spelling, but at first that was distracting from sorting out which muscle was which. I was happy with knowing the flappy one on the upper forelimb was the "epi-something" one for the first week or two (having six weeks to learn them all). The next week, I was happy with knowing "the epi-something" one was "epi - Kuh - Luh- something". By the third/fourth week, I was fine tuning all the arm muscles - getting past "flappy one on the arm" and into "orgin is the lateral edge of the latissmus dorsi (or was it xiphihumeralis) and inserts near the elbow, is NOT the latissmus dorsi that is also a flappy one near the arm". Along with that comes noticing the name is "epi - that elbow/pulley word - muscle ending" which is epitrochularis.

Layering works with concepts too, not just labling.

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You guys are always helping me out thank you guys! I love you all!!

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a&p by far was the hardest class I took. It wasn't actually hard to pass but hard to get an A in. A&P 2 was not as hard but it was still harder than micro and bio. I considered buying a full size skeleton so I didnt have to go to lab but they are like $900 so I ditched that plan lol. Just go to lab a lot and play with the models its the only way to learn. Especially the muscles, memorizing the muscles from the book its different on a model so you have to do both. and the calf heart was particuarly difficult, you have to actually thread the valves to know which one they are and what end is up on that thing. We had cadavers in A&P 2 but they were really easy. I remember we had a 'mystery bone' on our final where we had to stick our hand in a bag and ID the bone and what side it as on, lol that was hard and only a few people got it right.

my school bio is a pre req for a&P. I took bio>micro>A&p1>A&p2

my chemistry was chem1 a pass/fail class and it was really easy.

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I love you guys

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