MCAT 101

Location: On the Internet.

Prerequisites: The motivation to learn.

Required Text: None.

Objective: Score high on the MCAT.

As soon as you seriously start considering medical school, it’s time to begin thinking about the MCAT. The MCAT is a standardized test, similar to the SAT or GRE, required before applying to allopathic and osteopathic medical schools and to podiatry schools. Medical schools consider your MCAT scores as one of the most important elements of your application. The MCAT allows medical schools to judge applicants from a variety of backgrounds and colleges on a level playing field.

The MCAT supposedly predicts how well a student will perform in medical school. It tests your knowledge of the basic concepts in physical and biological sciences, as well as your verbal reasoning and reading skills. The idea isn’t to test how well you’ve memorized scientific data. Rather, it examines your ability to read, process, and analyze scientific information. Before taking the MCAT, you should have completed college-level courses in general biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, symposium, and social sciences and humanities. The social sciences and humanities courses will help your critical-thinking and problem-solving abilities—skills you might not get in some of the more structured science classes. These skills are essential for the MCAT, since you will need to analyze and synthesize information quickly to perform well on the test.

The best way to prepare for the MCAT is to integrate your test prep into the pre-med science courses you need for the exam. Once you’re fairly certain you want to go to med school, you should buy the MCAT Student Manual to familiarize yourself with the kinds of questions on the test. The manual also provides you with subject study outlines you can use to coordinate with your coursework. This way, as you take each class, you can prepare your notes not only so you can study for the course final exam, but also for the MCAT. Use the study manual as a guide, and rewrite your class notes so they match the subject outlines in the manual. If you do this, you’ll have a subject study guide already prepared when it’s time to study for the MCAT. It’s important that you elaborate on important concepts in your notes. You need to make sure you understand each concept, rather than just memorize information by rote.

It’s also important to prepare a study schedule. You should realistically plan to spend ten to 12 weeks studying about ten to 12 hours each week. Think about your strengths and weaknesses when designing your study schedule. Consider how well you manage your time; how motivated and disciplined you are; how well you generally perform on standardized tests; how well you already know the information and how recently you learned it; how good your reading comprehension and writing skills are; how well you can analyze and integrate information; and what kinds of outside time constraints and commitments you need to take into account.

Ultimately, you need to design a study schedule that best fits your individual needs. The most important thing is to study consistently over time, rather than thinking you can get away with a couple of weeks of late-night cram sessions.