I am only 15 pages into the Kaplan MCAT Chemistry review book, and already I am experiencing pre-med PTSD. By far the most foul course I took at Hopkins, Intro to Chemistry was the bane of my freshman existence. To make the experience even less aesthetically pleasing, the professor only wore two outfits, both of which involved vests. Much time was spent debating whether he owned only two outfits, or rather multiple versions of the same outfit a la in a cartoon closet.
you know the type
Every day the professor would arrive exactly at 9AM and spend 30 minutes of class mumbling into the chalkboard before stepping away to reveal something that looked like this:
math, the international language
. . .which would inevitably be a eighteen step derivation that used a very high level of calculus and was only peripherally related to the topic at hand. Also the professor had chalk on the crotch of his pants. Always.
The information I gleaned from the class was minimal, though reading about quantum numbers this evening was enough to trigger widespread panic through my body. Soon enough, however, the panic turned to boredom so complete and absolute I began to wonder if my Kaplan book had been secretly doused in chloroform (which, if you were wondering, has a molar mass of 119.38 g mol). While I ended up adoring organic chemistry, physics, and biology in different ways, I never quite found a love for general chemistry.
except for this. THIS I can get behind
Perhaps this is why I was so delighted to find numerous poetic devices used in just the first chapter of the Kaplan Chemistry book. "You dum-dums," the book says. "Let me make this easy for you. Pretend the molecule is an angry parent/dragon/piece of toast. Now imagine the molecule punishing its children/abducting a damsel/being spread with jam. Now doesn't azimuthal quantum numbers make SO MUCH MORE SENSE?!" And because I am conditioned to believe that metaphor is the most superior way to understand anything (thanks, poetry), I suddenly feel a flash of light behind my head and I become convinced that I truly. . .
just pretend the broom is a Kaplan book
Take, for example, the book's treatment of electrons. Besides the fact that it's small and negatively charged, do I really know what an electron is? Of course not. But then I read something like this:
If you think of the nucleus as a game of checkers, the electrons would be children who express varying degrees of interest in playing or watching the game. . .The children sitting closer to the game are more interested in it than the children who are sitting on the periphery.
Suddenly, I understand electrons. I really feel for them. I am an electron! And I am watching the cool kids play checkers and I am sitting as close as possible because I have already called playing winner and I am so pumped to get a turn because my father refuses to play checkers with me at home because it "involves no skill."
My understanding of electrons was deepened further when they were compared to poets. Actually, I extrapolated. The book didn't say that. It really said,
Electrons are somewhat curmudgeonly and misanthropic in that they don't like the company of other electrons.
But I read between the lines. And I saw myself. And that's when I knew: I am an electron. I have insider knowledge. And so despite my poorly fleshed-out education, there's no reason whatsoever I won't do well on the Chemistry section of the MCAT exam. After all, I'm among friends.
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