Sample · 00-Introduction
Introduction
How to Use This Detailed HTML Book
This version is designed to be followed directly in the browser. Do not only read the paragraphs. For each chapter, look at the diagram first, then read the topic explanations, then return to the diagram and explain it aloud as if teaching another student.
The IMAT Biology section often uses short questions, but students miss them because they confuse location, direction, sequence or vocabulary. This book therefore repeats those distinctions visually: cytoplasm versus matrix, codon versus anticodon, mitosis versus meiosis, insulin versus glucagon, energy flow versus nutrient cycling.
About image sources and copyright safety
This edition uses newly drawn original educational diagrams embedded directly in the HTML. General Google Image search results are not automatically safe to reuse in a commercial or educational book. To avoid licensing problems, the visuals here are custom-made schematic diagrams for VerityPrep/Veritas IMAT teaching.
1.1 Water, polarity and hydrogen bonding
Water, polarity and hydrogen bonding
Water is polar because oxygen is more electronegative than hydrogen, producing partial charges within the molecule. This polarity allows water molecules to form hydrogen bonds with one another and with other polar substances.
Hydrogen bonding explains many biological properties: high specific heat helps organisms resist rapid temperature change; cohesion allows water columns to move in xylem; adhesion helps water interact with surfaces; and solvent ability allows ions and polar molecules to dissolve in cytoplasm and blood plasma.
In IMAT, the trap is usually the distinction between covalent bonds inside a water molecule and hydrogen bonds between water molecules. The O-H bonds inside water are covalent; the attraction between different water molecules is hydrogen bonding.
- Explain why water can dissolve NaCl but oil does not dissolve well in water.
- Predict what happens to body temperature stability if water had very low specific heat.
- Classify hydrogen bonding as intra- or intermolecular in liquid water.
1.2 Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are built from monosaccharides. Glucose is a hexose sugar and a central fuel molecule in cellular respiration. Disaccharides form by condensation reactions, and polysaccharides form when many monosaccharides join.
Starch is a plant storage polysaccharide, glycogen is an animal storage polysaccharide, and cellulose is a plant structural polysaccharide. These molecules may all be made from glucose units, but their bond patterns and branching make their functions different.
Medical students must understand carbohydrates because blood glucose regulation, diabetes, glycogen storage and energy metabolism are all built on this chemistry.
Continue reading — 18 chapters, worked examples and practice.
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