Quote: I do not agree that one year of General Biology will prepare one for the Biological Sciences section of the MCAT. In fact, one year of freshman-level biology prepares you for almost NONE of the Biological Sciences section of the MCAT.
It sounds as though you took the wrong course. An introductory biology course that incorporates cellular biology, genetics, and human A&P should be appropriate preparation. Harvard Extension’s biology course teaches to the MCAT and even incorporates MCAT-like problems into its exams, which makes it damned hard to make an “A” but prepares one very well for the biological sciences section. I would advise people to make sure their courses are geared toward premedical students and avoid anything that incorporates irrelevant topics like botany (fun and interesting though they may be).
Quote: I do not agree that one year of General Biology will prepare one for the Biological Sciences section of the MCAT. In fact, one year of freshman-level biology prepares you for almost NONE of the Biological Sciences section of the MCAT.
I have to agree with this as well. Upper level classes are a definite help. But I don’t the issue is so much will general bio I and II be enough for the MCAT.The question is how smart is it to take the test with only these 2 classes. I’d say probably not very smart. What I’d like to see are people who scored well in the BS section (>9) that ONLY had general biology I and II.
I think that most Bio texts have the info that covers MCAT topics, but our professor gave us essay exams, of which we only had to pick one topic out of 6 for each of 4 exams. 1 topic was considered a chapter. Therefore, we only really studied and knew 4 of the potential 24 we covered in Bio II well. If we had regular T/F, FIB, and M/C exams then I’m sure I would have retained a lot more info. The first semester of BIO was set up that way and I remember a lot more. Therefore, I am taking A&P to help cover organ systems and such, because I really don’t remember much from Bio 2. I could study on my own, but I’m more motivated if I have a scheduled class with exams, labs, etc. That’s all I have to say about that for now.
It really depends on what the Bio sequence at your school consists of. At GMU I was very fortunate to have a one-semester Cell Bio course as a prerequisite to everything else - including the “usual” Bio I&II, plant & animal biology. In another school, the Cell Bio course might be part of a Genetics course. The other course I took that I found very, very helpful was Microbiology. And it was a ton of fun besides - the labs in that class were very cool. Mary
I scored a 10 on the biological sciences portion of the MCAT with only Bio I and II. At my particular school, the topics needed were pretty much all covered. We spent a lot of time on genetics and some basic cell bio in my Biology courses, something that doesn’t appear to be done everywhere. The one area I felt I was lacking in was physiology, but this wouldn’t be covered in most bio courses.
Quote: I scored a 10 on the biological sciences portion of the MCAT with only Bio I and II. At my particular school, the topics needed were pretty much all covered. We spent a lot of time on genetics and some basic cell bio in my Biology courses, something that doesn’t appear to be done everywhere. The one area I felt I was lacking in was physiology, but this wouldn’t be covered in most bio courses.
So far, 1 OPM member who was able to score >9 w/out additional courses. I hope you like solitutde because I serioulsy doubt you’ll have much company! But I can’t help but speculate. What might that score have been WITH additional courses. Oh well, you’re in so I guess that’s all that matters now!
Quote: I got an 11 with only Bio I and II. Genetics would have helped some, but I’m not unhappy.
You know, I don’t know WHY I’m in this discussion. When I took Bio I and II, molecular biology didn’t really exist! That makes 2 out of… I wonder what the result would be on SDN. Out of curiosity, did you guys makes all “A’s” in Bio I and II? Once thing is for sure. If you learn the preqs throughtly the 1st time, it makes studying for the MCAT much easier!
Quote: Out of curiosity, did you guys makes all “A’s” in Bio I and II? Once thing is for sure. If you learn the preqs throughtly the 1st time, it makes studying for the MCAT much easier!
I did get A’s in both Bio I and II. But, I do agree that it is worth making sure that most of the MCAT topics are covered in your biology courses. If not, then definitely consider a cell bio or genetics class prior to taking it.
Quote: I scored a 10 on the biological sciences portion of the MCAT with only Bio I and II. At my particular school, the topics needed were pretty much all covered. We spent a lot of time on genetics and some basic cell bio in my Biology courses, something that doesn’t appear to be done everywhere. The one area I felt I was lacking in was physiology, but this wouldn’t be covered in most bio courses.
So far, 1 OPM member who was able to score >9 w/out additional courses. I hope you like solitutde because I serioulsy doubt you’ll have much company!
But I can’t help but speculate. What might that score have been WITH additional courses. Oh well, you’re in so I guess that’s all that matters now!
I scored a 10 w/ only Bio 1 & 2. Of course, I must mitigate that claim by being transparent w/ a nearly 10 year career as an Resp Terrorist in my pocket as well. That & my ‘instinct’ for physics allowed me to score an 11 in the PS section before I took either physics course - had only had Gen Chem.
But, to be perfectly frank, I think that the reason I & others were able to score well after having only had the ‘minimum’ or less of pre-requisites stems from the fact that the MCAT is a reading comprehension test much much more than it is a factual recall exam. And, most folks who are shocked by the exam or stymied by why the underperform on the MCAT, in my persional experience working with quite a large group of pre-meds, is that they prepare for the MCAt as though it were a facutal recall exam instead of focusing on prepping for a reading comprehension exam. I think one of the most valuable messages conveyed in the TPR & Kaplan prep courses is the point I just made.
Furthermore, from my current perspective - PGY-3 resident in anesthesiology - I no longer see the MCAT as a massive exercise in frustration or an in depth exam over stuff I rarely use. Grant you, a significant portion of the content is not something I use on a daily basis; however, the ‘science’ behind the content definitely serves as the foundation of my medical education. But, even more importantly, how you must think to solve problems & answer questions on the MCAT is very similar to being a diagnostician. Essentially, with every patient, I take the information they provide through my history, physical & lab data (metaphorically parallel to the text component of an MCAT passage) & filter it through the “rules” I slaved to learn throughout medical school & through virtual daily reading or textbooks & journal articles (keeping with the metaphor, this info parallels the factual knowledge you should be able to recall from those pre-requisite courses) to come to some sort of ‘clinically enlightened’ decisions as to how best to procede wiht my patient’s care, how to intervene for expected & unexpected results & as a method in which to frame options (if there are any) from which my patient may/must make informed choices.
Believe me, I was prob one of the more vocal critics of the MCAT until one day it hit me - being a Doc entails doing MCAT-styled compilations of sometimes desparate data sets (the ‘rules’ vs what you see/assess from the pt) & making inferences - clinically guided choices.
Quote: But, to be perfectly frank, I think that the reason I & others were able to score well after having only had the ‘minimum’ or less of pre-requisites stems from the fact that the MCAT is a reading comprehension test much much more than it is a factual recall exam…is that they prepare for the MCAt as though it were a facutal recall exam instead of focusing on prepping for a reading comprehension exam.
I’ve taken the MCAT 3 times in the past few years, Apr 2004, Apr 2005, and Aug 2005 and it wasn’t until AFTER the last MCAT that I realized that my approach to the PS and BS section was pretty much WRONG. I mentioned in my dairy on another website last Fall, that in order to do very well in the BS and PS section, I realized I needed to approach the questions as if they were verbal passages. Interestingly, I’d NEVER heard anyone say that the science questions should be approached analytically as much as scientifically because when I managed to do pretty well years before on the MCAT, it was a VERY different type of test. So far, I’m very pleased with my practice tests even though I haven’t studied nearly as much I did before. So I think there’s a LOT to be said about knowing HOW to approach the questions as much as knowing basic scientific facts. Thanks for sharing!!
Quote: Believe me, I was prob one of the more vocal critics of the MCAT until one day it hit me - being a Doc entails doing MCAT-styled compilations of sometimes desparate data sets (the ‘rules’ vs what you see/assess from the pt) & making inferences - clinically guided choices.
I think I’ll ALWAYS be a critic of the MCAT because 1) I know too many fine doctors who didn’t do great but managed to do well on their boards/in med school and 2) I question the methods used to determine scores. The scoring is VERY shady IMHO.
Great post, Old Man Dave. And I agree with you. It is very difficult for me to convince some of my students that the top MCAT scorers aren’t the people who know the most science; they’re the people who are the best critical thinkers. In fact, bio majors on the whole score the LOWEST on the MCAT compared to physical science majors, social science majors, and humanities majors. (This is true in my own personal experience, and also reflects national trends that are published by the AAMC. Here is the link to the 2005 examinee data if any of you would like to see for yourselves: http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/examineedata/sum2005.pdf ) Humanities majors are often actually among the top scorers. I’ve said to people many times before that if they know any philosophy majors, they understand EXACTLY why this would be the case. Those guys can argue with anyone about anything. path, I don’t remember any more whether I took genetics before or after the MCAT the first time I took it, but again, I think my being a Spanish major had a lot more to do with my success (I scored 12 on the BS section when I was in college) than one genetics class did. I say this because my scores were all pretty even (11 each in PS and VR). So all of that “extra” biology ostensibly only raised me one point, which IMO is really not enough of an increase to make it worth taking the class if that’s the only reason that you’d be doing it.
Quote: So all of that “extra” biology ostensibly only raised me one point, which IMO is really not enough of an increase to make it worth taking the class if that’s the only reason that you’d be doing it.
I agree that the extra courses for MCAT purposes only isn’t necessarily the best idea. But taking those extra classes not only helped docs/med students I know to varying degrees on the MCAT but seem to me to be critical in helping them to adjust to the materials presented in the first 2 years of med school. And while there will always be exceptions to any rule, I personally haven’t met a person that regret having taken courses like anatomy, physiology, immunology, or biochem BEFORE med school. But I’ve met plenty that regret NOT taking a few upper level BS courses especially biochem.
In the end, it’s all about one’s personal comfort level. I’m far more comfortable with being obscenely “overprepared” than “underprepared”, however slight it may be.
And about that 1 point on the MCAT, when a person is scoring as high as you did, then yes 1 point doesn’t mean much. You’re already in the upper 90% of all MCAT test takers. But for me, 1 point was the difference to being assured an interview at a certain North Carolina school with my August 2005 score (MD only), and being told to retake because of my April 2005 score.
I scored a 14 on BS with 2 bio classes: freshman-level cell bio (including some VERY basic respiratory, cardio, and renal physiology), and freshman-level genetics. Both were very well taught. I taught myself all the hormone stuff and other basic anatomy/phys for the MCAT.
Before that, I had not had ANY bio since high school (1980), and one micro course in 1982. I did not remember the difference between a prokaryote and a eukaryote. All I knew about DNA was that it existed.
For me, success on BS was mostly about being able to read and interpret experimental passages, which was easy because I had been a research scientist. It was much more about scientific reasoning than pure memorization or content knowledge.
However, that lack of a good foundation in bio has made life a bit difficult in med school. It would have been good for me to have had a better background in molecular bio, which is very heavy in med school and will show up on boards too, and there’s not much time to learn it right now.
