22nd
The MCAT is G-Loaded; Prep Company Tests Not Representative
Yesterday I took the MCAT, and, while I’m cautiously optimistic about how it went, I have to say, I was a little surprised by the test’s format and style of questioning.
For the past few months I have taken a Kaplan MCAT prep course. The course comes with practice full-length tests meant to approximate the authentic MCAT experience.
These practice full-lengths were not like the actual MCAT. Nor were practice tests from Princeton Review, which I also sampled.
Rather, the tests most like the actual MCAT were the set of practice tests put out by the AAMC, which creates and administers the MCAT.
Prep company practice test really require you to have set to memory a great deal of equations and discrete knowledge about science. If you don’t have the equation for estimating torsional strain set to memory, you will lose points. In addition, ask anyone studying for the MCAT and they will wax on about how much discrete detail they are memorizing.
While it helps to know the equations and in-depth biology details cold for the MCAT, it is by no means required. The MCAT was primarily a reasoning test—an IQ test, in a word—that required an (IMO) relatively superficial understanding of the concepts—and the most basic equations like v=lamda*f—but asked you to use your reasoning abilities to apply said understanding to novel problems. Similarly, you didn’t need to know biology at the level of detail required by Kaplan practice tests. You didn’t need to have all the intermediates of the Kreb’s cycle memorized—but you should know that glycolysis takes place in the cytoplasm, the Kreb’s cycle in the lumen of the mitochondria, and the electron transport chain across the inner fold of the mitochondria.
They actually asked me a question about the location of the electron transport chain, although it was “cloaked” such that it took some reasoning ability and a synthesis of various concepts to understand that that was the question being asked. This style of questioning is typical of AAMC practice tests but not Kaplan ones.
Unlike Kaplan tests, equations and relationships were explained in detail in the passages, which contained many of the answers necessary for answering the questions. And there were often two different places in the passage where one could find the answer to a question, unlike prep company tests.
Unlike Kaplan, reasoning allowed you to eliminate many wrong answer choices. On questions that I knew little about (I’m not trying to say *no* knowledge is required), I was usually able to whittle down the answers to two and sometimes one.
The physical sciences section for me was very chem heavy, with little physics. This was the mathiest section by far but far less mathy then Kaplan tests. I was not asked to call upon my knowledge of equations with logarithms in them, which is good, because I can’t say I have those equations down cold at all! (I’m referring to those equations like ln RT eq something or other.) The math performed was not at all intensive.
I found the verbal section to be different than SAT verbal. The passages were fairly easy to understand. Yet the questions often did not have a clear right answer—I was often between two choices. Verbal is typically my strength and I did not have this problem with the SAT. I would typically read the passage with no problems, then hit the questions and realize I understood far less than the questions required. The passages, note, were quite long. Others have mentioned that the major way Kaplan tests are unlike the actual MCAT is the verbal section, and I found this true, though I think this critique applies to the other sections as well IMO. The one thing I would say here is that the MCAT purposefully does not put obvious right answers to their inference-based questions. They seemingly provide a 90% right option, 70% right option, and two wrong answers.
For bio, I had one o-chem passage and a few discretes. I had two genetics-based passages and a few discretes there. This is in line with a trend I had heard about at StudentDoctor of o-chem being replaced progressively by genetics. The o-chem passage was pretty basic, too, I might add, as were the o-chem discretes.
Maybe I paid less attention then, but when I took practice SATs from prep companies, they sure seemed to be like the actual SAT.
Note that I’m not saying practice tests from prep companies aren’t useful in furthering the knowledge you need for rocking the MCAT. Just saying they aren’t very representative IMO. My advice to you is to take AAMC tests 3-10—with special attention to the last 5 or so, which are the most representative—multiple times to get a feel for what the test will be like. Use test prep company practice tests to cement your knowledge but not to give you any indication of what the actual test is like or how you will do.
