How to Study Anatomy and Physiology (and Actually Pass)

Anatomy and physiology, A&P for short, is a gatekeeper class for nursing, pre-med, PA, physical therapy and most health majors. It has a lot of vocabulary, a lot of processes, and usually a lab practical where you have to identify structures on a model or a specimen with a clock running.

It's very passable. But it rewards a specific way of studying, and the habits that got you through intro bio often aren't enough. Here's what works.

Understand what makes A&P hard

A&P combines two different kinds of learning:

• Anatomy is mostly memorization: names, locations, structures. Hundreds of them, many of which sound alike.
• Physiology is understanding processes: how a nerve signal travels, how the kidney filters blood, how the body keeps blood pressure stable. You can't memorize your way through it; you have to be able to explain it.

Most students struggle because they use one strategy for both. Flashcards are great for anatomy terms and not enough for physiology. Reading and highlighting don't really work for either (Dunlosky et al., 2013).

Learn word roots in the first week

Medical terms are built from pieces. Once you know the pieces, you can decode words you've never seen.

Make a deck of 50 to 100 roots and review it every day for the first few weeks. It's the highest-return hour you'll spend in the course.

Pair structure with function

The organizing idea of A&P is that structure determines function. Use it. Every time you learn a structure, ask what it does and why its shape fits that job:

• Alveoli are tiny and thin-walled, so gas can diffuse quickly across a huge surface area.
• The left ventricle has a thicker wall than the right, because it pumps blood to the whole body, not just the lungs.
• Microvilli in the small intestine increase surface area for absorption.

When structure and function are linked, you remember both better, and you can reason through exam questions you didn't specifically study.

Turn physiology into cause-and-effect chains

Physiology questions usually ask what happens when something changes. Practice writing processes as chains:

Blood pressure drops, baroreceptors in the carotid arteries and aorta fire less, the cardiovascular center increases sympathetic output, heart rate and contractility go up, blood vessels constrict, blood pressure rises back toward normal.

That's a negative feedback loop, which is the pattern behind most of physiology. For every system, find its key feedback loops and be able to write them from memory: what's sensed, where it's processed, what responds, and what changes.

Then flip it: what happens if one step breaks? These "what if" questions are what separates a B from an A.

Draw it from memory

Looking at a labeled diagram feels like studying, but recognizing labels is much easier than producing them. Instead:

1. Look at the diagram (the heart, a nephron, a neuron) for a few minutes.
2. Close the book and draw it from memory, with labels.
3. Compare and fix what you missed in a different color.
4. Repeat a day later.

This is the blurting method applied to pictures, and it's a form of retrieval practice, which beats rereading for long-term memory (Roediger and Karpicke, 2006). Your drawings don't need to be pretty. A box with arrows is enough for blood flow through the heart.

Use flashcards for the anatomy, the right way

Flashcards are ideal for the memorization side of A&P: bones, muscles, nerves, terms. A few rules make them much more effective:

• One structure per card. "Name all the bones of the skull" is a bad card. "Which bone forms the forehead?" is a good one.
• Use images. Put an image with one structure marked on the front and the name on the back. That's how you'll see it on the practical.
• Add function to the back when it matters: "Biceps brachii: flexes the elbow and supinates the forearm."
• Review every day with spaced repetition. A&P builds on itself, and what you learn in week 2 shows up on the final.

(More on writing good cards in how to make flashcards.)

To get started faster, try our free anatomy and physiology flashcards, or upload your own lecture slides to the Revizly flashcard maker and get cards built from exactly what your professor covered.

How to prepare for the lab practical

Lab practicals trip up students who studied only from notes. On a practical, you see a model, a slide or a specimen with a pin in it, and you have about a minute to name it.

• Study from the actual models or photos of them. Many labs let you take pictures during open lab hours. Use those, not textbook diagrams, because models look different.
• Practice with labels covered. Cover the labels on your photos and quiz yourself, or have a lab partner point at structures.
• Go to open lab more than once. Short, repeated sessions beat one long one.
• Time yourself. Practice naming a structure in under a minute, because that's what the practical will demand.
• Know the commonly confused pairs. Make a list of structures you mix up and quiz yourself on those first.

A weekly study routine

If building a study guide after every lecture takes too long, the Revizly study guide maker turns your slides or a chapter PDF into an organized guide with key terms, tables and memory hooks in about a minute. Use it as a first draft and add what your professor emphasized.

The kinds of questions you'll see, and how to practice each

A&P exams usually mix a few question types. Each one needs a slightly different kind of practice:

• Identification ("Name the structure labeled C"): image flashcards and lab photos with the labels covered.
• Function ("What is the role of the loop of Henle?"): flashcards with the function on the back, and short written answers from memory.
• Process ("Describe what happens during ventricular systole"): write the sequence out from memory, then check every step.
• Application ("A patient loses a lot of blood. How does the body respond?"): cause-and-effect chains and "what if" questions. Practice explaining them out loud.
• Clinical connection ("Why might damage to the phrenic nerve affect breathing?"): link each structure to what happens when it fails.

If your textbook has end-of-chapter questions, do them without looking back at the chapter first. Getting them wrong while you still have time to fix it is the whole point.

Common mistakes in A&P

• Waiting until the week before the exam. The volume of terms makes cramming especially painful in A&P.
• Memorizing physiology word for word. If you can't explain a process in your own words, you don't know it yet.
• Only studying from labeled diagrams. Draw from memory and quiz yourself on unlabeled images.
• Ignoring the lab. The practical is often a big chunk of the grade and needs its own prep.
• Studying alone in silence for hours. Short daily sessions work better, and explaining processes to a classmate is one of the best ways to find gaps.

The bottom line

Learn the word roots early, connect every structure to its function, turn physiology into cause-and-effect chains, draw from memory and review flashcards a little every day. A&P is a lot of material, but it's logical material. Once the system clicks, the second semester is much easier than the first.

Sources

The study techniques recommended here, retrieval practice and avoiding passive rereading, are among the best supported in learning research:

• Roediger, H. L., and Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249 to 255. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x
• Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., and Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4 to 58. doi:10.1177/1529100612453266