HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

GRE The Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) is a standardized test that is an admissions requirement for many graduate schools in the United States and Canada and a few other countries. The GRE is owned and administered by Educational Testing Servi ...
Subject Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology was a standardized
exam An examination (exam or evaluation) or test is an educational assessment intended to measure a test-taker's knowledge, skill, aptitude, physical fitness, or classification in many other topics (e.g., beliefs). A test may be administered verba ...
provided by ETS (
Educational Testing Service Educational Testing Service (ETS), founded in 1947, is the world's largest private nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization. It is headquartered in Lawrence Township, Mercer County, New Jersey, Lawrence Township, New Jersey, b ...
) that was discontinued in December 2016. It is a
paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...
-based exam and there are no computer-based versions of it. ETS places this exam three times per year: once in April, once in October and once in November. Some graduate programs in the United States recommend taking this exam, while others require this exam score as a part of the application to their
graduate programs Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree. The organization and stru ...
. ETS sends a bulletin with a sample practice test to each candidate after registration for the exam. There are 180 questions within the biochemistry subject test. Scores are scaled and then reported as a number between 200 and 990; however, in recent versions of the test, the maximum and minimum reported scores have been 760 (corresponding to the 99 percentile) and 320 (1 percentile) respectively. The mean score for all test takers from July, 2009, to July, 2012, was 526 with a standard deviation of 95.https://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_guide_table2.pdf After learning that test content from editions of the GRE® Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology (BCM) Test has been compromised in Israel, ETS made the decision not to administer this test worldwide in 2016–17.


Content specification

Since many students who apply to graduate programs in biochemistry do so during the first half of their fourth year, the scope of most questions is largely that of the first three years of a standard American undergraduate biochemistry curriculum. A sampling of test item content is given below:


Biochemistry (36%)

A Chemical and Physical Foundations Thermodynamics and kinetics Redox states Water, pH, acid-base reactions and buffers Solutions and equilibria Solute-solvent interactions Chemical interactions and bonding Chemical reaction mechanisms B Structural Biology: Structure, Assembly, Organization and Dynamics Small molecules Macromolecules (e.g., nucleic acids, polysaccharides, proteins and complex lipids) Supramolecular complexes (e.g., membranes, ribosomes and multienzyme complexes) C Catalysis and Binding Enzyme reaction mechanisms and kinetics Ligand-protein interaction (e.g., hormone receptors, substrates and effectors, transport proteins and antigen-antibody interactions) D Major Metabolic Pathways Carbon, nitrogen and sulfur assimilation Anabolism Catabolism Synthesis and degradation of macromolecules E Bioenergetics (including respiration and photosynthesis) Energy transformations at the substrate level Electron transport Proton and chemical gradients Energy coupling (e.g., phosphorylation and transport) F Regulation and Integration of Metabolism Covalent modification of enzymes Allosteric regulation Compartmentalization Hormones G Methods Biophysical approaches (e.g., spectroscopy, x-ray, crystallography, mass spectroscopy) Isotopes Separation techniques (e.g., centrifugation, chromatography and electrophoresis) Immunotechniques


Cell biology (28%)

Methods of importance to cellular biology, such as fluorescence probes (e.g., FRAP, FRET and GFP) and imaging, will be covered as appropriate within the context of the content below. A. Cellular Compartments of Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes: Organization, Dynamics and Functions Cellular membrane systems (e.g., structure and transport across membrane) Nucleus (e.g., envelope and matrix) Mitochondria and chloroplasts (e.g., biogenesis and evolution) B. Cell Surface and Communication Extracellular matrix (including cell walls) Cell adhesion and junctions Signal transduction Receptor function Excitable membrane systems C. Cytoskeleton, Motility and Shape Regulation of assembly and disassembly of filament systems Motor function, regulation and diversity D. Protein, Processing, Targeting and Turnover Translocation across membranes Posttranslational modification Intracellular trafficking Secretion and endocytosis Protein turnover (e.g., proteosomes, lysosomes, damaged protein response) E. Cell Division, Differentiation and Development Cell cycle, mitosis and cytokinesis Meiosis and gametogenesis Fertilization and early embryonic development (including positional information, homeotic genes, tissue-specific expression, nuclear and cytoplasmic interactions, growth factors and induction, environment, stem cells and polarity)


Molecular biology (36%)

A. Genetic Foundations Mendelian and non-Mendelian inheritance Transformation, transduction and conjugation Recombination and complementation Mutational analysis Genetic mapping and linkage analysis B. Chromatin and Chromosomes Karyotypes Translocations, inversions, deletions and duplications Aneuploidy and polyploidy Structure Epigenetics C. Genomics Genome structure Physical mapping Repeated DNA and gene families Gene identification Transposable elements Bioinformatics Proteomics Molecular evolution D. Genome Maintenance DNA replication DNA damage and repair DNA modification DNA recombination and gene conversion E. Gene Expression/Recombinant DNA Technology The genetic code Transcription/transcriptional profiling RNA processing Translation F. Gene Regulation Positive and negative control of the operon Promoter recognition by RNA polymerases Attenuation and antitermination Cis-acting regulatory elements Trans-acting regulatory factors Gene rearrangements and amplifications Small non-coding RNA (e.g., siRNA, microRNA) G. Viruses Genome replication and regulation Virus assembly Virus-host interactions H. Methods Restriction maps and PCR Nucleic acid blotting and hybridization DNA cloning in prokaryotes and eukaryotes Sequencing and analysis Protein-nucleic acid interaction Transgenic organisms Microarrays


See also

*
Graduate Record Examination The Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) is a standardized test that is an admissions requirement for many graduate schools in the United States and Canada and a few other countries. The GRE is owned and administered by Educational Testing Serv ...
*
GRE Biology Test The GRE subject test in biology was a standardized test in the United States created by the Educational Testing Service, and is designed to assess a candidate's potential for graduate or post-graduate study in the field of biology. The test is co ...
*
GRE Chemistry Test The GRE subject test in chemistry is a standardized test in the United States created by the Educational Testing Service, and is designed to assess a candidate's potential for graduate or post-graduate study in the field of chemistry. It conta ...
*
GRE Literature in English Test The GRE Literature in English Test was a standardized test administered by the Educational Testing Service. It was intended to evaluate applicants seeking admission to a graduate program in English Studies. The test surveyed a wide range of topics ...
*
GRE Mathematics Test The GRE subject test in mathematics is a standardized test in the United States created by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), and is designed to assess a candidate's potential for graduate or post-graduate study in the field of mathematics. ...
*
GRE Physics Test The GRE physics test is an examination administered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS). The test attempts to determine the extent of the examinees' understanding of fundamental principles of physics and their ability to apply them to problem ...
*
GRE Psychology Test The GRE Psychology subject test is a standardized test used in admission decisions by some graduate programs in psychology in several English-speaking countries, especially in the United States. Structure There are three major components to this ...
*
Graduate Management Admission Test The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT ( ())) is a computer adaptive test (CAT) intended to assess certain analytical, writing, quantitative, verbal, and reading skills in written English for use in admission to a graduate management ...
(GMAT) *
Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering The Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) is an examination conducted in India that primarily tests the comprehensive understanding of various undergraduate subjects in engineering and science for admission into the Masters Program and ...
(GATE)


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gre Biochemistry Test GRE standardized tests