Objective 56: Differences in Metabolic and respiratory acidosis and alkalosis

How I learned was thinking of the words hypo and hyper.  I associated hypo with acidosis because first off an acid on the pH scale is low and secondly during respiratory acidosis your breathing slows and gets shallow.  I equated hyper with alkalosis because on the pH scale alkaline is high and during respiratory alkalosis your breathing  speeds up and causes hyperventilation.

This chart in my textbook on page 886 helped me a lot on this objective. It was great because not only does it tells you what each acid-base imbalance is. It also tells you the cause and the ramifactions of each.