Medical College Admission Test (MCAT)

The Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) is a mandatory requirement for all medical schools in the United States and Canada and some North American states. It is conducted by the AAMC, twice a year and the exam tests candidates’ knowledge in subjects like physical and biological sciences, organic and inorganic sciences. The students’ intellectual ability is tested in sections like verbal reasoning and writing analysis as well.

MCAT is a standardized, multiple-choice test that puts to test the candidates’ abilities to solve simple as well as complicated problems, critical thinking and writing flawlessly. One has to need all these and adequate knowledge in science subjects like physics, chemistry and biology as well. Hence, candidates have to be prepared with the basics of the three subjects and must be ready to answer any questions related to them. The skills and concepts of the students that is tested by the MCAT examination are exactly the ones that are considered to be a necessary criteria for admission by medical educators. The various sections and their importance in the MCAT are meticulously described below:

MCAT Verbal Reasoning Section: 

The Verbal Reasoning section is designed to appraise one’s potency to comprehend, analyse and use the information in texts to answer questions. There will be numerous reading passages in the section, each around 500 words of general topics, mostly related to society, sciences, arts or literature. Each passage is followed by 5-10 questions based on the matter in the text. The candidate need not have knowledge in specific regions, but only the capability to understand and answer wisely. A little practice on answering these types of questions and time management go a long way in trying to obtain a good score in this section.

MCAT Writing Section:

This section consists of two writing tasks, each one presented with a topic. Candidates are to present a first-draft essay composed of their ideas and arguments incorporated perfectly. For completing both the tasks properly, students must have a good vocabulary, strong grammar and effective time management.

The Science Section: These sections comprise multiple-choice questions, some of which follow brief passages while some are separate ones. Questions are tested in the subjects of physics, biology and chemistry; both organic and inorganic. Students must have sufficient knowledge of the subjects as well as know the application of basic concepts into solving slightly challenging problems. 

In this section, there are two sub sections, the Physical Sciences section and the Biological Sciences section, of which the physical science section covers questions related to physics and general chemistry in equal number. The biological section has questions associated with life sciences and organic chemistry. Some basic concepts of both sections that are tested time and again and are popular with the students are, thermodynamics, acids and bases, bonding, quantum numbers, cell division, human anatomy, nomenclature, spectroscopy etc. Some fundamentals in mathematics are also tested, like algebra, exponents, trigonometry and logarithms. Complicated topics like matrices or calculus do not find place in the MCAT papers.