Which physics do pre-meds usually take?

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>I'm taking either "Introduction to Physics I" (algebra based) or General Physics I (Calc based). The teacher for Intro to Physics isn't that great, and the general physics one might be better, but not by too much.</p>

2

<p>UCLA wants all bio majors to take Calc-based Physics, not sure about your college.</p>

3

<p>yeah i want to no this too. are premeds required to calc based physics or would calc based be more useful in mcat preparation</p>

4

<p>I believe MCAT is algebra based physics. Most of my pre-med friends just took algebra based and did fine/well on the MCAT.</p>

5

<p>I think it`s calc-based physics.</p>

6

<p>By the way, Calc-based physics is easy if you’ve taken Calculus, the math is a lot more simple.</p>

7

<p>Eh, I just checked with two friends who have taken the MCAT. They both insisted that the physics portion is all algebra.</p>

8

<p>well if you take calc-based physics,
algebra-based physics will be easy by comparison
when you’re studying for the mcat you’ll have a zillion other things to worry about, why not get a good physics background now
besides the concepts are the same in each,
it’s just if you take algebra-based physics some people get away with just memorizing the formulas,
and the mcat questions are designed to deliberately not let you do this
(basically the science is not hard but they require you to think about the question and know which parts to use for calculation, a lot of it is figuring out which numbers are really important and what kind of problem it is)</p>

9

<p>

Yeah, I’ve taken calc. Has anyone here taken Physics I with Calc? How was it?</p>

10

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;