experimental sections on the MCAT

MCAT Discussion
1

Are there “experimental” sections on the MCAT? I’ve heard conflicting reports that perhaps they experiment on sections which later will not be scored…
Is that true

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I too have heard this - from someone I have no reason to disbelieve who says he heard it from AAMC.

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Hi folks,
Word coming down from the MCAT is that questions will be added from molecular biology and that questions from organic chemistry will be pared down. When this happens, you were probably given some test questions that were not graded. On USMLE exams, ungraded test questions are placed for evaluation purposes and do not figure into your grade. The problem is figuring out which questions are the expermental questions. This is practically impossible to do while you are taking the test. :(
I have always thought that Organic Chemistry was a waste of time for medical school (I was a carbon-unfriendly chemistry major) and that biochemistry is more applicable. Believe me, as a biochemist, organic chemistry, while carbon-based, has little to do with biochemistry. :)
For folks preparing for MCAT, you might want to listen a little more carefully in General Biology during the molecular biology sections.

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Thanks for the tip about General Bio/Molecular Bio! And as a biochemistry major, I can appreciate your “unfriendliness” ;) towards the multiple uses of the carbon bonds in O-Chem. I will be one of the few, the proud, the O-Chem soldiers this fall and believe it or not, I’m looking to it with delightful anticipation…oh well, I guess I’m a glutton for punishment!!! :p

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Quote (kellykellykellysmith @ April 22 2002,22:37)
Are there "experimental" sections on the MCAT? I've heard conflicting reports that perhaps they experiment on sections which later will not be scored...
Is that true

Hi Kelly,
According to the AAMC web site there are sections of the MCAT that are unscored every sitting of it - these are "new sections" that have not yet been standardized and the purpose of setting them is to begin the standardisation process by comparing the scores obtained in these to the other sections, which are then compared to other versions of the MCAT. It also mentions they do this to iron out 'problems' with new quesiton wordings. I am sure they do the same every time they think about changing the MCAT too, so what you mention wouldn't surprise me. At the end of the say I don't think there is much you can do about it, so just go into the MCAT thinking positive thoughts, do your best no matter how out of left field the passages and questions seem, and just hope that if you really think you screwed up one section that it was an 'experimental' one!
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So, Kelly, you decided to take the exam, then? Please let us know if you hit the magic number and therefore becoming a MS-I in the fall. I'm sure that you did!