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<p>No. That course is designed for pre-meds and life science majors. You do not have to know physics well to be a good doctor.</p>
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<p>Not at all.</p>
<p>Although I believe that it does not matter whether a premed student takes trig/algebra based physics or calculus based one, I am always wondering why the physics section of MCAT is still very difficult for the supposedly best students in this country.</p>
<p>Is it because the problems are designed to be extremely tricky? Is it because if you get one problem wrong, your score gets deducted a lot just because every (or most) test takers are so good at the test? Is it quite possible that a student who got an A in her/his college-level trig or cal based physics could still do badly on MCAT physics? Is the difficulty due to the time constraint? As I have no clue here, can anybody enlighten me on this?</p>
<p>–Partly
–Yes, definitely part of it
–No, not really</p>
<p>The big answer is that it’s a combined physics/genchem section. And the genchem is actually pretty difficult.</p>
<p>you’re not set back if you do not take calculus based physics right since the MCAT is only trig based?</p>
<p>The MCAT is do-able with only trig, but some students will prefer to use calculus. It’s a matter of preference.</p>
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<p>My child seems to say something similar, i.e., having more troubles with the general chemistry section of MCAT. He said that if he forgot something in Physics, he often could guess it correctly on the spot. But for chemistry, he had less such luck. He kept saying that he had forgotten a lot of stuff that he used to know, but he is reluctant to go back to review his textbook/problem sets. He has probably completed 50 percent of his Kaplan classes, and he said recently that he seems to be stuck at a balanced 11-11-11 (quite consistently), and asked us whether it is good enough for some in-state MS (thanks god, it is not Calif.) – as if we would know better than him (we did not). We told him that it is likely good enough (just in order to make him feel better), but it is worthwhile to keep working on it to see if he could add one point to one of the sections no matter what section it may be – but we really have no idea whether it is really good enough or not. His GPA so far is fine but EC is weak.</p>
<p>mcat2:</p>
<p>Seems like your son is doing well. I was in a similar position to your son, and I was told by my Kaplan instructor that some students who hit a plateau midway or towards the end could see a jump on test day. Sure enough, on test day I did significantly better. If your son keeps up the hard work, on test day he might very well be able to add one point to each section, not just one point overall.</p>
<p>shades and BDM, Thanks for your input (again, as before). It is especially assuring/comforting to learn this from somebody who have “been there, done that.”</p>
<p>That being said, one should not count on getting more points. Usually, your Kaplan average should be within a point or two (up or down) from what you get on the MCAT. Obviously, not the case for everyone. However, it is better to be scoring 36s and get a 35 than be scoring 29 and be expecting a 35. It happens, but not often. Never be satisfied with what you are scoring until test day itself. Always push yourself.</p>
<p>If your student starts leveling off in points, that is a good time to break out the flash cards and Quicksheets. Positive self-reinforcement is also useful.</p>
<p>Going back to my original question, do you think upper div physics would help for the MCAT enough to make it worth taking? I’m not sure if it would be detrimental to my GPA because I’d be taking it with physics majors, but I’ll be going to UCSD, which is not very competitive in my opinion.</p>
<p>Not a chance. Retake the algebra physics by audit (or just show up and sit in the back) if anything, but I think that is excessive. Only a fraction of the class is covered by the MCAT. It is an inefficient way to prepare.</p>
<p>Agree with what mmmcdowe wrote. Just thought of one thing along the same line: I speculate that maybe one reason why my child has more problems with the general chemistry section of MCAT is that he took somewhat wrong kind of general chemistry. According to what the students posted after they had taken the class, that class is likely a “mini p-chem”, concentrating on the concepts and derivation of equations on kinetics, thermodynamics and quantum aspects of chemistry. Some students even said that it is really more like a physics class, but it happens that it covers its application to chemistry and you needs more physics background than the chemistry background in order to do comfortably well in that particular general chemistry class. Some students posted that if you want to take MCAT in the near future, it is better to take the more traditional, mire “AP-chemistry rehashing” version of general chemistry.I wonder whether there is any truth in the opinions of these students. (Most students, including my child, really like that kind of chemistry though.)</p>
<p>Just a speculation here: The purpose of that fun course is for the chemistry department to recruit more students to their department. They most likely succeeded in it. But then the orgo, the next class, drives most aspiring students away :-))</p>
<p>We were toying with the idea of sending our child his class notes he took for his AP chemistry (if we could still locate it). Unfortunately, his AP teacher taught what would be tested in the AP test only. (He used to “own” that kind of test and thought he should be a chemistry major. This was back in high school.)</p>
<p>^ Correction: I should not have said that the students had better take the “AP-chemistry rehashing” version of general chemistry in the above, as the college-level general chemistry covers much more than AP chemistry (both in width and depth) taught in high school. Saying so would come out as being arrogant, especially when I have never taken and been successful in that class. Yes, that traditional general chemistry class is in fact a lower track one, but the difficulty in it may likely depend more on the caliber of the students in it. The professor can throw a curve ball in his test just to separate the excellent students from the not-so-good students, in any kind of class, thermo/quantum chemistry oriented or not. The professor may also throw at you many test questions that require a lot of complicated calculations and you may not be able to complete most of them in the allocated test period.</p>
<p>Back to the physics related: My child’s physics professor himself is not good at calculation. So his test does not require a lot of calculation. It seems it is very different (in its style, not substance) than the physics class that I took when I was in college. In my days, if your calculation technique is not extremely good, you are basically screwed at almost all science/engineering tests. (Calculators were not invented then.)</p>
<p>Er, just to clarify, it’s the calculus physics I’m exempt from…basically physics for engineering majors. If I retake it I’d be getting a letter grade which medical schools will see, but if I get an A (or any other grade), it won’t impact my GPA. Seems like a lose-lose situation, although I think I will do better than if I took an upper div class. Do you guys still think I should retake the class for no credit (but for a grade)?</p>
<p>Yes, you should.</p>