What Biochemistry covers
- Biomolecules and enzymes
- Carbohydrate metabolism
- Lipid metabolism
- Amino acid metabolism
- Nucleotide metabolism
- Vitamins and minerals
- Molecular biology and genetics
- Clinical biochemistry
A study map from the standard curriculum. Check the official bulletin for the authoritative topic list.
How to study it
- 1
Build one table of enzyme deficiency, disease, inheritance and key finding, then revise it by spaced recall.
- 2
Know the regulated, rate-limiting step in each pathway and what activates or inhibits it.
- 3
Revise vitamins as a clinical set: the deficiency picture, the lab marker, the cofactor role.
Where students slip
- Learning pathways as diagrams with no sense of which step is controlled.
- Mixing up similar-sounding inborn errors.
Where the Biochemistry practice questions concentrate
Our 921 worked Biochemistry questions fall into these areas, largest first. This shows what our practice set emphasises. It is not a prediction of the exam's weightage.
- Amino acid metabolism 86
- Clinical biochemistry 81
- Carbohydrate metabolism 68
- Lipid metabolism 62
- Vitamins 49
- Nucleotide metabolism 41
- Molecular biology and genetics 37
- Vitamins and minerals 36
- Biomolecules and enzymes 24
- Enzymes 17
- Molecular biology 15
- Lipoproteins 13
Four quick-revision cards
Rate-limiting enzyme of glycolysis?
Phosphofructokinase-1.
Enzyme deficient in Lesch–Nyhan syndrome, and its inheritance?
HGPRT; X-linked recessive. Self-mutilation, dystonia, high uric acid.
How do you tell B12 from folate deficiency biochemically?
Methylmalonic acid is raised in B12 deficiency only; homocysteine is raised in both.
Rate-limiting enzyme of cholesterol synthesis and its drug?
HMG-CoA reductase; inhibited by statins.
Try a Biochemistry question
A sample item with the reasoning behind every option. Nothing here is recorded.
Biochemistry · Nucleotide metabolism
Sample itemA 4-year-old boy has intellectual disability, dystonia, self-mutilation and hyperuricaemia. Which enzyme is deficient?
Common questions
What is the fastest way to revise biochemistry?
Tables of enzyme deficiencies and vitamin syndromes, revised with flashcards.
Do I need to memorise full pathways?
Know the key intermediates, the rate-limiting enzyme and the disease that results when a step fails.