How to study for anatomy and physiology: A&P 1, A&P 2 and the lab practical

What A&P 1 and A&P 2 cover

Anatomy and physiology is taught as a two-semester sequence, A&P 1 and A&P 2. At the colleges we checked, each is a 4-credit course with a lecture and a lab, and some require a C or better in A&P 1 before you can take A&P 2.

The Human Anatomy & Physiology Society (HAPS) publishes the learning outcomes most courses are built on. It says the majority of first-semester courses cover its modules A to J, with the second semester taking the rest:

Watch out: One thing moves around. Some colleges teach the endocrine system at the start of A&P 2 instead of the end of A&P 1; the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, for example, lists it in A&P 2. Check your syllabus before you plan the semester.

Anatomy and physiology are two different jobs

Anatomy is the study of the body’s structures: what a thing is called and where it sits.

Physiology is the study of how those structures work, and most of it runs on feedback loops, where a sensor notices a change, a control center decides, and an effector pushes the body back toward its set point.

That difference changes how you study:

• Anatomy questions ask you to identify: name the bone, the muscle, the nerve.
• Physiology questions ask you to explain or predict: what happens to blood pressure if this changes, and why.

One kind of flashcard can’t do both.

How to make flashcards for anatomy

Practicals show you a structure, not a word, so learn from pictures.

• Picture first: an image or model with one structure marked on the front, its name on the back.
• Reverse: the name on the front; where it is and what it sits next to on the back.
• Two-step: the structure on the front; its action, attachment or function on the back. Some practicals ask exactly this second step.
• Learn the Latin and Greek roots as you go. Muscle names describe shape, size, location or action, so a root you know is a name you can work out.

How to make flashcards for physiology

Don’t memorize a process as a list of steps. Write cards that ask what happens next, and why.

• What happens if: “Blood glucose rises after a meal. What detects it, what gets released, and what ends the response?” The answer names the sensor, the hormone and the negative feedback that switches it off.
• Why: “Why is the left ventricle’s wall thicker than the right’s?”
• Compare: two hormones, two pressures, two kinds of feedback.
• Trace: a path in order, like blood through the heart. The deck at the end of this page is built that way, because “which valve comes next” is exactly how exams test it.

The memorization load

These are the topics HAPS names explicitly, and the ones students lose the most time to:

The cranial nerves have a page of their own, with the mnemonics and a full deck.

How to study for an anatomy lab practical

A lab practical is a hands-on exam at stations: you identify tagged or pinned structures on models, specimens, slides or photos, sometimes with a second question about function, action or attachment. Formats vary, so these are examples, not rules:

• Tallahassee State College’s A&P 1 lab gives 2 minutes per station, and you can’t go back to a station.
• Michigan State University’s gross anatomy lab uses 32 questions at one minute per station.
• NC State’s veterinary anatomy course asks two-step questions about a pinned muscle, such as its action or an attachment, where writing the muscle’s name instead counts as wrong.

So practice exactly that:

1. Look at a picture with one structure marked.
2. Name it in under a minute, then answer the second step.
3. Never read the label first.

Tip: If your phone camera is allowed in lab, photograph the models you’ll be tested on and make picture cards from them.

How many hours a week to study

U.S. federal rules define a college credit hour as one hour of instruction plus at least two hours of work outside class each week. For a 4-credit A&P course, that’s roughly 6 to 8 hours a week outside class.

It’s a minimum the rules set for colleges, not a study plan, but it’s a fair budget.

How you spend it matters more than how much. In a review of ten study techniques, practice testing and spaced practice were the only two rated high utility; rereading and highlighting were rated low (Dunlosky et al., 2013).

That holds in A&P specifically: in a real university A&P course, students who tested themselves remembered more a week later than students who reread the material three times or took notes (Dobson and Linderholm, 2015).

Short daily sessions also beat long ones. A meta-analysis of hundreds of experiments found that the best gap between study sessions grows with how long you need to remember (Cepeda et al., 2006), which matters in a course where the final covers everything.

A week in A&P

The daily review is the habit that holds the rest together, and it’s also the one your phone eats first. prettysmart keeps the apps you pick locked until your due cards are done, so the 15 minutes actually happen; for other options, see the best app blockers for studying.