MCAT content, taught step by step, trap by trap.
MCAT Basics is a MedSchoolCoach podcast that goes through named MCAT topics step by step, from the four quantum numbers to the enzymes of glycolysis. Sam Smith hosts, Alex Starks guest hosts lessons including 'Biosignaling' and 'The Krebs Cycle', and exam traps get pointed out as the content goes.
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MCAT Basics is a MedSchoolCoach podcast that teaches MCAT content through topic-by-topic lessons. The topic list is drawn from official AAMC practice materials and third-party resources, and one lesson ties its material directly to section 3A of the AAMC content outline. A run of titles shows the spread: 'Atomic Chemistry', 'Kinetics and Solubility', 'Biosignaling', 'Glycolysis', 'The Krebs Cycle', 'Psychological Disorders'. That run covers general chemistry, biochemistry and psychology, not just biology. Sam Smith hosts. Alex Starks appears as guest host on 'Biosignaling', 'Glycolysis' and 'The Krebs Cycle'. The teaching is detailed, and it moves in order. In 'Atomic Chemistry', the four quantum numbers arrive one at a time: principal, azimuthal, magnetic and spin. The principal number is tied to the integer in labels like 1s and 2s. 'Glycolysis' goes molecule by molecule and marks the phosphofructokinase 1 reaction as the point where glucose is committed to the pathway. 'The Krebs Cycle' follows carbons as they leave as CO2 and tracks how the energy from cleaving succinyl-CoA ends up as ATP. 'Biosignaling' traces receptor tyrosine kinases from the ligand-binding region to the intracellular domain, notes that these signaling pathways are often implicated in cancer, and promises a short quiz at the end. Test strategy is part of the explanations. In 'Kinetics and Solubility', Sam Smith warns bluntly against reading a rate law off stoichiometric coefficients unless a reaction is stated to be elementary, and points students to the experimental data instead. The same lesson covers the solubility constant Ksp, the common ion effect, selective precipitation, the Arrhenius equation and the way pressure raises a gas's solubility. The register is conversational. Fun facts get dropped in, abbreviations are flagged so a listener can keep up, and at one point the Krebs cycle lesson admits that losing a second carbon will have to serve as the fun fact for a step. 'Psychological Disorders' shows a more reflective side. Sam Smith starts from the question of what counts as a disorder at all, admitting that the line between a disorder and everyday anxiety, doubt or sadness has not always been clear to him. He then lays out categories from anxiety disorders to personality disorders, along with the biological bases of schizophrenia, depression, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Sponsorship from MedSchoolCoach, which offers MCAT tutoring and medical school admissions advising, frames the lessons, and one lesson closes on advice to seek out mentors. What a listener gets is spoken review of specific exam content, organised closely enough to line up with whatever chapter is open on the desk.
Made for: Suits a student preparing for the MCAT who wants specific content areas, from atomic chemistry to metabolism to psychological disorders, explained aloud step by step, with exam traps pointed out along the way.
What sets it apart: It stays on the exam's actual science and psychology content, going through pathways and definitions in order and tying lessons to AAMC materials, with specific test-day mistakes flagged inside the explanations.
Join us as we detail MCAT exam topics. Each podcast covers several MCAT sections with lessons based on review material put out by the AAMC, such as practice tests and question banks. Sam also interviews MCAT tutors and experts who share tips on how premed students can raise their score to get into medical school.
Sam Smith has words for your rate-law shortcut, and he's brought experimental data.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A focused MCAT refresher on quantum numbers and how orbital rules fit together.
Atomic chemistry gets a clean, exam-minded walkthrough here, moving from hybridization and molecular geometry into quantum numbers, electron configuration, periodic trends, and the surrounding atomic-chemistry basics.
A practical MCAT chemistry review where experimental data keeps rate laws honest.
Kinetics and solubility takes its shape from MCAT general chemistry that asks students to use what is given rather than reach for shortcuts. Sam Smith moves through solubility, Ksp, the common ion effect, selective precipitation, rate laws, calculations, and the Chem-Phys…
A focused MCAT signaling review that turns receptors and hormone chemistry into stimulus, processing, and response.
Biosignaling gives the MCAT's stimulus-processing-response frame a practical backbone, moving from fight-or-flight and blood glucose homeostasis into receptor tyrosine kinases, GPCRs, and the hormone chemistry that shapes where ligands can act.
A chemistry-first glycolysis review that makes electron flow, ATP use, and carbon positions feel more workable for MCAT study.
Glycolysis lands here as a study problem with a useful chemical angle: metabolism is easier to sort when electron flow, not just pathway labels, sets the frame.
A practical metabolism review that turns the Krebs cycle's vocabulary into connected chemical handoffs.
Guest host Alex Starks gives the Krebs cycle a practical shape, following glycolysis's three-carbon pyruvate into carbon loss, electron capture, and the cycle's mitochondrial setting.
Blunt LSAT advice, fewer expensive mistakes.
ASWB strategy, one scenario at a time.
Admissions consultants on school fit, essays and staying the course.
Close reading for GCSE English, one quotation at a time.
GCSE Physics definitions and equations, read out and recapped.
Sam Smith's MCAT Basics episode "Atomic Chemistry" spends its time on orbitals, electron filling, periodic trends, and radioactive decay.
Sam Smith says kinetics and solubility are high-yield for the MCAT Chem-Phys section and rates them around 7/10 for yield.
MCAT Basics: Biosignaling with guest host Alex Starks centers on AAMC content outline 3A and the stimulus-to-response pattern behind nervous and endocrine signaling.
MCAT Basics' "Glycolysis" episode from MedSchoolCoach treats metabolism as electron transfer, ATP production, and MCAT test strategy.
The closing tally is 3 NADH, 1 FADH2, and 1 GTP, which Alex Starks translates to about 10 ATP per pyruvate and about 20 ATP per glucose.
Sam Smith explains psychological disorders for MCAT prep, covering definitions, classifications, and major types including anxiety, OCD, trauma, somatic, bipolar, depression, schizophrenia, dissociative, and personality disorders, plus biological bases of schizophrenia, depression, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's.
This episode covers high-yield MCAT topics on viruses, including structure, life cycles of bacteriophages and retroviruses, classification, mutation, and subviral particles.
This episode covers fat and protein metabolism for the MCAT, including catabolism and anabolism of fats and proteins.
This episode covers the physics of sound waves, including pitch, ultrasound, and the decibel system, followed by the physiology of hearing.
Sam Smith covers the reproductive system and development for the MCAT, including organs, spermatogenesis, oogenesis, the menstrual cycle, and fertilization.