<p>Would this be considered one of the hardest requirements for pre-med?</p>
<p>If not, what is?</p>
<p>How prevalent is Organic Chem on the MCAT?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>OChem is usually the most difficult, mainly because there are so many reactions and it's the first time that most people have to start breaking down trends and remembering those, rather than the actual reactions. There are also a lot of ways to alter the appearence of reactions to blow your mind on the test (my ochem prof's favorite line "So that reaction is simple enough, but how will I blow your minds on the exam!?! I'll put it upside down!!).</p>
<p>Biochem can be tough too.</p>
<p>Like most college courses it depends on the professor more than anything else.</p>
<p>Organic makes up 25% of the Biological Sciences Section of the MCAT. Will probably be 2 or 3 passages and 4-5 discreets.</p>
<p>How do you write essays on the MCAT? I understand the topics presented on the SAT but will the essays on the MCAT relate to science?</p>
<p>The two essays on the MCAT will have some sort of generic statement as a prompt; something like, "technology aids communication" (except it'll be worded better:)</p>
<p>You'll have to write an essay using an example that supports the statement, an example that contradicts the statement, and a paragraph that synthesizes the two (ie when is the statement true and when is it false).</p>
<p>Oh..for some reason that seems easier than the essays on the SAT..is that true?</p>
<p>I don't know about the writing section on the new SAT since I took the old one but they won't grade as tough on grammar as they did on the old SAT II Writing essays. That said, it is very easy to contradict yourself and work yourself into a corner w/ your two examples. If you can't write a good synthesis (something that shows you have the ability to think rationally and critically), you won't get a very good score no matter how good your examples are.</p>
<p>Oh..I never thought about contradicting yourself....Out of EVERYTHING in undergrad, what would be the hardest thing or things you did to get ready for med school?</p>
<p>For me, it's finding the time to do the EC's. I have a good GPA and a good MCAT score but I had to sacrifice a lot of time to achieve them. My EC's aren't horrible but they aren't spectacular either. I really wish I had more time out of class.</p>
<p>I know volunteering is almost an essential EC to have if applying to med-school but can you substitute that for research instead? I volunteered at my local hospital and boy was it the most boring thing in the world. They make kids do petty errands and nothing actually in the field. If it happens with college students, I don't want to waste another summer like I did in HS =/</p>
<p>I always thought med schools liked for their applicants to be exposed to the medical field and the hospital environment, so naturally my inclination would be volunteering, but I'm not so sure about the research.</p>
<p>Also how would you match up the pre-med routine with the high school equivalents? Would it be 1 or 2 AP/IB classes per semester?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>tangents, try to get a shadowing position. </p>
<p>The "pre-med routine" is definitely not equal to 1 or two AP/IB classes per semester. That is high school. I did more than that in high school and still am challenged by the "pre-med" routine at college.</p>
<p>How many do you think it will be then? Considering you took more than that, can't you estimate how many IB/AP courses it will take to reach the equivalent of the pre-med?</p>
<p>AP classes are a joke compared with college classes. I took 4 AP classes and 1 honors class at the same time my senior year while battling senioritis and still did around 1/3 as much work as I do now.</p>
<p>yea AP classes are stupid...which is why you should take advantage of em and get credit lol</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You will find that at each step up the medical training ladder, your efficiency has dramatically improved from the previous step and the your previous workload and throughput seem trivial. For instance, if you started your intern year as an R2 with R2 efficiency, you would be the best R1 ever seen; if you could start medical school as an R1, you would have a great deal of free time.</p>
<p>Hours worked, efficiency, and work done (both intellectual and physical) might be estimated as:</p>
<p>*High school
1 unit time, 1 unit efficiency, 1 unit work</p>
<p>College
2 units time, 4 units efficiency, 8 units work</p>
<p>Medical school
3 units time, 8 units efficiency, 24 units work</p>
<p>Internship
6 units time, 12 units efficiency, 72 units work</p>
<p>R2-R4
4 units time, 20 units efficiency, 80 units work*</p>
<p>For most specialties this trend continues through the second to fifth year of practice.</p>
<p>Good luck in your studies.</p>
<p>how is the "units of efficiency" measured? In other words, what do you mean?</p>
<p>
[quote]
How prevalent is Organic Chem on the MCAT?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>the most recent mcat only had two out of 11 passages in the bio section that dealt with orgo.</p>
<p>I dont really understand the units of effiency either.</p>
<p>My construct of efficiency is arbitrary as are the actual numbers chosen: in this model, efficiency relates the amount of work performed in a certain amount of time. For the best assessment of efficiency we would compare different individuals performing exactly the same task under the same conditions.</p>
<p>In medicine, such a situation exists with a typical internal medicine team comprised of a supervising R2, two interns, and two medical students functioning as sub-interns. In this team mode, the R2, interns and sub-I's all admit patients; admitting a patient with a straight-forward community acquired pneumonia might take a medical student 90 minutes, an intern 60 minutes and an R2 36 minutes -- which yield relative efficiencies in a ratio of 2:3:5 or 8:12:20. (Choosing these numbers allows a high school student to have an efficiency of 1).</p>
<p>My model also equates one time unit with 3 hours per day of personally controllable work time. In high school most of your time is controlled by class scheduling, with typically 3 hours actually dedicated to work; In college, less time is controlled by classes and more daily time could be dedicated to work, perhaps 6 hours; medical school, 9 hours daily work; internship, up to 18 hours daily work; residency, 12 hours work.</p>
<p>This model is arbitrary and is only intended to give a pseudoquantitative idea of the amount of work you will do and the amount of time it will take (and, by implication, how much your efficiency will increase).</p>
<p>Norcalguy observes that in college he now does three times the work compared to 4 AP classes and 1 honors class in high school; if this work is completed in about the same amount of time, his efficiency has increased by a factor of three.</p>
<p>Very interesting .02!</p>