What's the best way to study for organic chemistry and/or anatomy?

When I took o-chem my tried and true method for memorizing all the reaction mechanisms was as follows. I would first write them all down in a vertical line on a piece of paper. I would then learn the first one (and be able to reconstruct the whole mechanism to myself in my head). Then I would learn the second one, but then go back and do the first one followed by the second one. Then the 3rd, but then repeat 1st and 2nd, etc. Basically it forced me to keep *everything* I had learned in active memory while learning new material as well, so I was constantly reinforcing even the very first mechanism. If I was, say, at mechanism 20, and going through 1,2,3, etc to work my way up to 20 and I messed up at, say, mech 16, I would force myself to relearn mech 16 and start all over at the beginning until I could get all the way to 20 without failure. Then I would go on to learn mech 21. Take my word for it, I was definitely one for cramming the night before, and this method (I've tried the whole flashcard thing and the whole write-everything-down-3-million-times thing) was by far the most effective. Interestingly enough, I was taught to do this by a Russian studies major (it as what he used to memorize new words/definitions).

Frankly, the best way to learn orgo is to do as many practice problems as you can. Memorizing the rxns is one thing. And not very effective at all--you remember everything you need to know for one test but come the next exam, you'll find yourself trying to cram everything in again. A more sustainable strategy is to apply that knowledge and putting it to use by doing exercises at the end of every chapter in your text or use an exercise book (eg. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471272353/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ written by my Orgo I instructor at Johns Hopkins Univ., David Klein). I can not emphasize this enough. Practicing problem solving is probably the highest yield study strategy you can use to rock the exam. This advice is based in experience. As for anatomy, there is no substitute for plain old memorization, unfortunately.

Can't help you with o-chem. Just finished the first anatomy and physiology course here, though. What kind of anatomy are you taking? Is it regional, systematic? Are you doing cadaver stuff as part of it? I don't know if my tips will necessarily be relevant to you - my study skills recommendations here are based on a combined a&p sequence that uses a systematic approach. our first term was skeletal system, intro to histology, gross muscle anatomy, muscle cell physiology, and intro to the peripheral nervous system and neurophysiology. we get a fair amount of pathophysiology in there too. For the skeletal system: we worked with real skeletal remains for the bone section, and were allowed to take really excellent plastic models home with us. That, more than anything, was incredibly important for me - to see, touch, hold, to feel femur and run my finger along the linea aspera. or to hold up the atlas and the axis vertebrae and really see how they work together as a joint. Also, we have lots of old xrays in the lab, so I worked at being able to identify bones and features on x-ray. For histology: unfortunately, practice. stare in that microscope until you see spots, until it's just really, really familiar to you. stupid visual associations are good, like "hmm elastic cartilage makes me think of fried eggs". For gross muscle anatomy: I like mechanics. Thinking about it in terms of leverage was really the key - thinking about what action the muscle performs, where it originates and inserts, and most importantly what joints and bones it crosses, that was really was cinched my knowledge. To think about it as a mechanical system of leverage and movable/immovable points ... learning gross muscle anatomy will be much easier after doing the skeletal system, because the bone features are generally places where muscles originate or insert! microanatomy of nervous system and muscles ... it's hard to separate the physiology and the anatomy, but I drew lots of silly, silly pictures of oligodendrocytes and schwann cells and myosin and troponin .. again, mechanics helped me quite a bit (your muscle fibers are racheting mechanisms! so cool!). Your chemistry background will help. Study groups were great - talking it out with other people out loud was great. This is a good way to make friends in your cohort of students, also, as you share the agony of memorizing massive amounts of material. Our instructor encouraged us to do silly review games (jeopardy, pictionary, have someone make you a crossword with terms) with each other. In a pinch, near exam time, I make flash cards, punch a hole in them, put them on a ring and just take them EVERYWHERE with me. Those flash cards you can purchase are awesome, but I find that making and organizing my own flashcards to be immensely helpful. Being able to organize and classify the information in lots of different ways is, I think, crucial, and my instructor does a fantastic job of showing us how to think about these structures and systems in different ways. admittedly, I'm loving anatomy and physiology, so being really excited about it helps a lot :).

Dr. E, scalespace, and Kid C have it right. The continuum of memory vs. thought is anatomy-orgo-physics. By the time you get to physics, one index card could probably fit every theorem you need for the final. For organic chemistry, if you're into reading extra books, try Organic Chemistry by Clayden, Wothers, and Greeves; Stereoelectronic Effects by Kirby; and The Art of Writing Reasonable Organic Chemistry Mechanisms by Grossman.

For anatomy: Get yourself a copy of http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Dictionary-of-Word-Roots-and-Combining-Forms/Borror-Donald-J-Borror-Donald-J/e/9780874840537 and look up everything you have to memorize. That may seem like extra work, but it will cut your study time dramatically. It is somehow much easier to remember the roots than the whole terms, and they pop up over and over. And if you know roots you can at least guess. For example, "brachial plexus"? brachi the arm + al pertaining to + plexus interwoven, a network. "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steatopygia"? steato fat, suet, tallow + pyg the rump + ia condition. For O-chem: As has been said, do lots of mechanisms. What you particularly want is synthesis problems: do as many of these as you can. For physics: Laugh to yourself that this is your easy class. Unless it's electricity and magnetism -- that shit is bananas. I don't know how people learn that.

Organic is easiest if you learn where the electrons want to be and figure out what will put them there. It's the difference between trying to memorize exactly where the shores of Lake Superior are and remembering that water flows down hill.

Organic! It wasn't fun, but I made it through, and so will you. My working strategy was: 1) LOTS of practice problems. I pretty much did every problem in the book (about 80% of them were assigned anyway, so at that point it wasn't a big stretch to do those few extra problems that hadn't been assigned.) You really, really, really will not learn organic unless you are working the practice problems. I say this as someone who, in other classes, tended to skip practice problems unless they were going to be graded. For organic: do the problems. 2) I am a very visual learner, so I drew lots of color-coded diagrams for various reactions and patterns. I am a big fan of color coding. I also made a lot of lists (along the lines of "All of these reactions are similar and here is why"). This is because I learn by organizing and categorizing things. This may not be the best way, but it worked for me. On preview, I think kthxbi's method would work well if you are the kind of person who already tends to study via some kind of list-making method. 3) In addition to the textbook for the course, I made good use of Organic Chemistry as a Second Language (already mentioned above). That book made a heck of a lot more sense to me than the textbook did, so it was a good way to get a groundwork in a new topic before going to the textbook for more detail.

Dr. Enormous is completely 100% correct. I took orgo with all my best friends and they are all *very* smart people. The person I would argue was the smartest out of our group did terribly in orgo because he was studying wrong - memorizing things when he needed to be getting into the *roots* of the problems. One time I was thrilled to pieces that I got an 83 on a test. I look over and he had a 7. Orgo freaks people out because it is different than what they are used to. If you're memorizing things constantly, you're doing it wrong. Like others here said, do the practice problems. ALL THE PRACTICE PROBLEMS. I believe this is what made the difference between my friends and me. They memorized and I worked problems. If you finish and you've gotten a lot wrong, go back and do them over. Besides, professors love to pull test questions from problems at the back of chapters, particularly the ones they *haven't* told you to do. Good luck - it's going to be a rough semester.

Thanks everyone.