MCAT Mnemonics

MCAT Mnemonics: Electromagnetic Spectrum

Ken Tao is the MedSchoolCoach expert on MCAT, and will discuss the electromagnetic spectrum, and show you how knowing that raging martians invaded Venus using x-ray guns will help you remember radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible, ultraviolet, x-ray, and gamma ray.


Full Transcription

Hey, welcome back to another MCAT Mnemonic Monday. I’m Ken and I’m an MCAT expert with MedSchoolCoach. Today, we have a general chemistry mnemonic for you and it’s on the electromagnetic spectrum.

For the MCAT you need to have the order of the electromagnetic spectrum memorized, so if they give you any of these radiations you should be able to rank them by frequency or by wavelength.

Now the order that we have here is from lowest frequency on the top, and highest frequency on the bottom. That means wavelength is the opposite. So we have the longest wavelength on the top and the shortest wavelength on the bottom. All right.

So from lowest to highest frequency we have radio waves, microwaves, infrared light, visible light, ultraviolet light, x-rays, and gamma rays.

Are mneumonic is: Raging Martians Invaded Venus Using X-ray Guns.

So you can use that to help you memorize the order of the electromagnetic spectrum.

And today we actually have a bonus mnemonic for you, and that is for the exam, you need to know a little bit more about visible light. So visible light has a number of colors and from lowest to highest frequency, we have Roy G Biv.

So we used this fictional name, Roy G Biv, to be able to memorize the order of visible light from lowest to highest frequency.

So we have Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. And this order should make sense because a violet is a right by ultraviolet, and red is right by infrared.

Ken Tao

Ken is nationally recognized as a premier MCAT mind. He has worked with thousands of undergraduate students as a graduate teaching assistant and MCAT instructor/tutor for the Princeton Review. At Princeton Review, Ken was the only tutor certified in all subjects, was one of the highest rated MCAT tutors ever and was a teacher trainer. Additionally, Ken worked to found Magoosh's MCAT division. He has written content for dozen's of MCAT books and guides. He is now the Director of MCAT at MedSchoolCoach

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