Metabolism as it is taught in most MCAT review books and videos is made to seem like nothing more than a slog through rote memorization. A series of reactions catalyzed by specific enzymes with no underlying logic other than this step is catalyzed by this reaction and produces this product. And to be fair when I first started learning about metabolism I saw it this way and would spend 20-30 minutes per day writing out the pathways until I finally had them down. Within two weeks I had forgotten over half of the pathways I had previously known.
Metabolism was abstract and it seemed as though there was no rhyme or reason to the steps and products, but when I took step back I realized that most of metabolism makes a lot of sense. Enzymes all tend to conform to a specific consistent naming scheme and certain classes of enzymes consistently do the same thing. By focusing on these trends rather than the specific steps of all of the different pathways you can save yourself a lot of time when you finally sit down to learn glycolysis or the pentose phosphate pathway.
In this video, we will discuss what different enzyme names tell you and what you can expect to see with each different type. We will then apply this information to a couple of MCAT style questions that way when you learn the various metabolism pathways you will have a framework for keeping everything organized.