<p>As with all standardized tests, they all see everything.</p>
<p>How they use it is probably unpredictable, and probably varies from committee member to committee member, much less school to school.</p>
<p>shraf is on crack lol...there are plenty of kids who stress out about this stuff and become great doc's...not all future docs have to be high flyers sailin through undergrad</p>
<p>I don't mean to speak for Shraf (and nor do I constantly mean to be disagreeing with umardarr), but I stand by Shraf's argument as originally stated:</p>
<p>
[quote]
If you plan on studying for FOUR YEARS and getting only a 30 I would reconsider med school.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Most premeds spend somewhere between two and four months studying for the MCAT, and most of the premeds who get accepted to medical school average around a 30.</p>
<p>Think about it: are you really cut out for medical school if you spend dozens of times as much time studying, only to AIM for the average?</p>
<hr>
<p>With that said, I think the poster in question is probably overestimating the difficulty of the MCAT. Try a diagnostic sometime during your sophomore year of college, assume your studying will boost you by around 8-10 points, and see where that puts you.</p>
<p>im an eight grader and ive already started studying your way behind calccobra i mean geez what are you waiting for get crackin'</p>
<p>oh wow haha... i'm really behind then :P</p>
<p>high school junior and i don't even know what the MCAT is on
oh jeez, clearly I'm failing it.</p>
<p>2 months over the summer or a full semester during the school year is more than enough time to study for the MCAT.</p>
<p>
[quote]
shraf is on crack lol...there are plenty of kids who stress out about this stuff and become great doc's...not all future docs have to be high flyers sailin through undergrad
[/quote]
</p>
<p>ummm, lets see if you have to study four years to do average on the standardized test how do u expect to do in premed classes....you cant really start studying for each class a year or four in advance can you now. If you are going completely above and beyond for this one minor thing then you will eventually hit a brick wall since you will be in over your head. Don't bother arguing with this....your just wrong. I've seen people work their ASS off in HS and end up in a college where they are clearly not competitive and get SCREWED because there just arent enough hours in the day to work as hard as you did in HS since college is alot harder. Theres a difference between "stressing out" about the MCATs and going completely overboard.</p>
<p>I would agree with Shraf.</p>
<p>If you have to start studying for the MCAT in high school, what are you going to do when it comes time for your USMLE Step 1 board exams?</p>
<p>Request a 10 year hiatus to prep for it?</p>
<p>The MCAT is a difficult exam but it isn't something that requires studying years in advance for. (And if you have to, perhaps it is time to consider a less academically taxing career)</p>
<p>thats not what i mean fool, wow, forget it...ive given up on everyone in this post....everything ive said has pretty much been interpreted the WRONG way</p>
<p>Maybe if you were a little more articulate and less insulting. It's nice to see you give up so easily. I'm sure you won't have trouble w/ premed and/or med school at all...</p>
<p>
[quote]
thats not what i mean fool, wow, forget it...ive given up on everyone in this post....everything ive said has pretty much been interpreted the WRONG way
[/quote]
</p>
<p>yes, clearly the five of us who interpreted ur comments in a certain way are all dumb and ur the genious here.....arrogance is a terrible thing</p>
<p>Five? Shraf, are you excluding me? I feel hurt!</p>
<p>"Maybe if you were a little more articulate and less insulting. It's nice to see you give up so easily. I'm sure you won't have trouble w/ premed and/or med school at all..."</p>
<p>I think I've figured it out....sarcasm doesn't go so well in this thread...usually when I put an "lol" after a seemily insulting comment, it means I'M JOKING. You're right I just don't articulate myself well over a computer. </p>
<p>and yes sharaf im a genius and ur all dumb...even though i agreed with you on some of ur statements. kinda interesting.</p>
<p>its funny how you note that sarcasm doesnt go well here and then you end your post with more sarcasm... :) either way I think you should tone it down and offer less arguement and more advice.</p>
<p>I just don't get why everyone takes our comments so seriously...and it was toned down until it became obvious that everyone criticizes like everything I say, hahaha</p>
<p>how about the writing on MCAT? what's the average writing score (O, P, Q, R, S, etc) of those who were admitted to medical school?</p>
<p>what are some good prep books for MCAT verbal section review? do I need to study vocabularies that much for MCAT? how should I prepare for the brutal reading section?</p>
<p>I'm often told the writing section is somewhat less important, and in fact you will see that when most people tell you an "average", they omit this score entirely - much to my disadvantage!</p>
<p>The national median for students who are admitted to medical school is a P.</p>
<hr>
<p>First, unless you are a college sophomore you should not be worrying about the MCAT at all. This is a problem we've been getting on these boards.</p>
<p>Second, there is no vocabulary per se on the MCAT - it is 100% reading comprehension. The "preparation" that you can do will be largely guided by a prep class, or perhaps a book. My guess is that most of the books (Princeton review, Kaplan, ExamKrackers) are all very good.</p>
<p>If you are thinking long term, then practice reading everything you can get your hands on. Newspaper columns, magazine articles - those sorts of things.</p>
<p>thanks so much! are the reading questions in chronological order?</p>
<p>Well, the reading questions aren't actually FROM newspaper articles! They tend to be from low-level academic papers. So no, chronological order has no meaning.</p>
<p>I just mean that in tone, they are often quite similar to analysis that you might find in newspapers.</p>
<p>wow i cant believe some folks are worried about MCAT and are only in high school.</p>
<p>Uh just FYI, if you work that hard on MCATs for such a long period of time (years), then you may get a good score and get in a good med school.</p>
<p>BUT what are you going to do IN med school, esp if competitive?
When everyone else that studied only a summer or 4 months for MCAT (with your same score) are there ? I think you'd fall behind and others would be able to handle it better.</p>