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BMAT Physics - Electricity + Formulae · BMAT Crash Course Online

2018-10-04 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 9:52 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Medicine and his doctor years · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Aimed at students, His own products discussed

In an excerpt from his online BMAT crash course, Ali teaches the basics of electricity for BMAT physics (charge, current, voltage, resistance and power with their symbols and units) and six formulae to memorise, from V = E/Q to E = ITV.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Ali introduces SixMed and the online BMAT crash course this video is taken from

  • ★★ Ali, a junior doctor in Cambridge, is co-founder of SixMed, which has run BMAT, UKCAT and interview courses for hundreds of medical school applicants every year since 2013. — 00:00:00 · Cambridge, 6med, BMAT, UKCAT
  • ★★ Ali's online BMAT crash course is a series of more than 75 videos covering the technique and theory needed for the BMAT, to be put into practice with practice papers. — 00:00:00 · BMAT, 6med
  • ★ Ali's online BMAT crash course has exactly 20 videos on physics, including this one on electricity. — 00:00:29 · 6med
  • ★★★ Ali says quite a lot of BMAT physics is just memorising the formulae: a candidate who can memorise them and apply them in the questions gets most of the marks. — 00:00:29 · BMAT
  • ★ Access to all videos of Ali's online BMAT crash course costs money, but it has many bursaries for low-income students, and about half of buyers get a discount or bursary. — 00:00:58 · 6med
  • ★★ Ali calls electricity probably the most important topic in BMAT physics, as the BMAT has tended to ask about two questions on it every year over the last few years. (hedged) — 00:01:27 · BMAT

00:01:30 — Why electricity matters in BMAT physics; charge, current and voltage defined

  • ★★ Beyond memorising the formulae, Ali advises understanding electricity well enough to visualise it, which makes BMAT physics easier and leaves fewer things to memorise. — 00:02:22 · BMAT
  • ★★ Charge is given the symbol Q, and Q is what denotes charge in a formula, never C. — 00:02:51
  • ★ Ali says that when SixMed teaches the BMAT in person there are always students who write C for charge, and he asks candidates to write Q for charge in every formula. — 00:03:50 · 6med
  • ★★ Current, symbol I, is the rate of flow of charge, which Ali thinks of as the speed of electrons: how fast they travel in a circuit. — 00:03:50
  • ★★ Voltage, symbol V and unit volts, is also called potential difference; Ali thinks of it as a measure of energy, the pushing power electrons have as they go through a circuit. — 00:04:24

00:04:49 — The six electricity formulae, resistance and power, symbols and units to memorise

  • ★★ The first BMAT electricity formula to memorise is V = E/Q: voltage equals energy divided by charge. — 00:04:49 · BMAT
  • ★★ The second electricity formula is I = Q/t: current equals charge over time, with time in seconds. — 00:05:18
  • ★★ When a BMAT question gives time in minutes, Ali says to convert it into seconds, as the question is trying to catch candidates out. — 00:05:18 · BMAT
  • ★★ The third formula is Ohm's law, V = IR (voltage equals current times resistance), probably the most famous formula in electricity; resistance has the symbol R and is measured in ohms. (hedged) — 00:06:13
  • ★★ Power is the rate of transfer of energy, which Ali thinks of as how much energy is used per second; the fourth formula is P = E/t. — 00:06:42
  • ★★ Ali calls the fifth formula, P = IV (power equals current times voltage), a really important one to memorise, as it often comes up in the BMAT for plugging in numbers. — 00:07:17 · BMAT
  • ★★ The sixth formula, E = ITV (energy in joules equals current times time times voltage), combines the fourth and fifth; Ali remembers it because ITV is a UK TV channel. — 00:07:51
  • ★★★ Ali urges BMAT candidates to memorise the six basic electricity formulae with their symbols and units, with time always in seconds and power in watts, not kilowatts or megawatts. — 00:07:51 · BMAT

00:09:13 — Links to the online course, the classroom crash course and BMAT Ninja

  • ★ BMAT Ninja is an online BMAT question bank that Ali and a few friends made a few years ago. — 00:09:16

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Mentioned

Central: BMAT · BMAT Crash Course Online

Also: 6med · BMAT Ninja (website, bmat.ninja) · Cambridge · ITV · Ohm's law · UKCAT

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