<p>First off, please do not pounce me for saying what I am about to say. I'm just a high school student. </p>
<p>Okay,</p>
<p>Is the MCAT really THAT hard? I mean...I have an MCAT general chem prep app on my phone and I generally score between 80-90% on the test. I'm in AP Chemistry now and the class is very intense...so that might account for it, but I've taken practice test from that app and from another test prep website covering general chemistry topics and it's not that hard at all. Same with biological sciences. It covers all of the easy topics (I'm weird, I loved the biochemistry and molecular biology but not the macroscopical biology) that I covered in AP biology. I don't know. :/ Same with organic chemistry. Again, my AP chemistry class is intense. By June we will have covered half a semester of organic chemistry. And so far I enjoy it very much. My teacher loved organic chemistry in college (she originally took it her senior year in high school in Venezuela...yeah, says something about our high schools)...and she always has this big smile on her face when she's teaching the material. It's easy. To me it's a step down from general chemistry...I don't know why but it is to me. </p>
<p>Im also a really big science person. Anything with science is easy to me. Any other subject is hard. :( including math....which is why I hate AP Chem because we can't use calculators. </p>
<p>Also physics is easy. Probably the easiest of all to me, but I don't like it. I hate thinking. </p>
<p>My question is: Is the MCAT really that hard? Am I just lucky to find this information easy is this MCAT much harder?</p>
<p>Oh. And don’t qoute my “I hate thinking” quote saying that “being a doctor requires thinking”. I know that. But physics thinking is annoying because it solves nothing. Medical thinking saves lives.</p>
<p>^^^ I think the op was wondering why so many kids fail to break 30 on the test. I think it because kids don’t put in enough time and prep for it. To me it seems that an average abilities with 10-12 weeks of prep should be able to break at least a 30, if they put in like 6 hours a day.</p>
<p>Because it is. You’ll understand when you start preparing for it, and you’ll definitely celebrate (even though you’ll be totally exhausted) when you’re done with it.</p>
<p>And thanks guys! It was sort of making me horrified reading all of these post about how “horrible the MCAT was.” That makes me much less stressed out. :)</p>
<p>My point is, if you are relying on the excitement of “saving lives” to get you through medicine, you’re not going to last very long. Shockingly little of medicine involves life or death, and besides which even trauma surgeons will eventually settle into things. The vast majority of medicine involves managing chronic illnesses – making your patients’ lives a little bit better.</p>
<p>Not sure that I’d go along with the “average abilities” statement …I think that history has shown that plenty of “average ability” kids find out the med school really isn’t their intended destination after taking the MCAT.</p>
<p>Let’s see if you still feel that way after you take it. ;)</p>
<p>^^^ I guess I may have been saying that just to reassure myself that I will be able to get a 30 after 10-12 weeks for prep, for 6 hours a day this summer. lol, hopefully it works out.</p>
<p>Yes. The MCAT is stressful and hard. The material itself is something that can be learned in your AP chemistry/biology/physics classes, or during the first two years of college (many medical schools do not accept AP credit, so watch out). The difficult part of the MCAT is the fact that you will have to memorize every equation (there is no equation sheet) from your physics, chemistry, and organic chemistry classes; then you will have to do mental math (no calculator on the MCAT), read passages, and answer questions using background knowledge (that you hopefully remember) all in a limited amount of time (and in my case, with a computer that shut down!). The stress will also come from the fact that this test will determine a large part of your competitiveness as an applicant (27 vs. 37? big difference). AP Chem (which was intense for me as a HS student) was easy compared to college chemistry, and organic chemistry was fun at first (which is probably the part you’ve studied) and a pain in the butt later on. Physics and biology were easy for me, and I barely studied for this portion of the test. Verbal reasoning is a pain, even if you ace the SAT verbal, VR on the MCAT is variable. Plus, the future MCAT may test your compassion and social reasoning (so glad I’m spared that, see the new AAMC release). </p>
<p>So, now that I’ve added some perspective, I’ll say this: as a HS student, you should not worry about the MCAT. When you get to college, learn the material well, and maintain a high GPA. If you are as talented in the sciences as you suggest, you will not need to study for more than 6-10 weeks to get a great score. Many people do not do well because they do not take the MCAT seriously (e.g. I’ve learnt this already, its easy, etc) and do not study. Those with 35+ MCAT scores usually study intensively for 4-12 weeks, and had a good understanding of the material before they started (it helps if you’re a good test taker too).</p>
<p>TL;DR: Yes, the MCAT is hard and stressful, but you can study and do well as a Junior or Senior in college. Too early to worry as a high school student.</p>
<p>It is very very hard according to my D. who got decent score and did not need study one subject since she was Prof. assistant for few years. She spent at least 3 hours every day for a long time. She is graduating with college GPA=3.98. It is waste of time to worry about MCAT while in HS. Enjoy your HS years, spend time with friends, have fun! BTW, GenChem is the easiest of college science classes, college Orgo is much much harder.</p>
<p>Depends. Some people struggle endlessly with the MCAT, but overall I think the whole MCAT = death thing is overblown.</p>
<p>The science concepts tested on the MCAT are incredibly basic. The reason people have trouble with them is because they took the easy way through their prerequisite courses, memorizing things rather than understanding concepts. If you insist on mastering every concept in your prerequisite courses and developing a rigorous understanding of the subjects as you go along, the MCAT will be a lot easier.</p>
<p>Also, taking more advanced science courses can help. I majored in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The Biological Sciences section was made a lot easier by the fact that many of the things discussed in passages were things I had already studied in classes beyond the prerequisite courses. There were a few passages for which I could have answered the questions without reading the passage at all just from previous knowledge (albeit knowledge which is outside the scope of the prereq courses).</p>
<p>Finally, the MCAT is more a test of scientific reasoning skills than knowledge. This is what gets people. Your “I hate thinking” attitude is going to KILL you on the MCAT, and in college level sciences in general.</p>
<p>You’ll hate the MCAT then. Yes, the science background from your BCPM intro classes is all you need on the MCAT. Somehow, it seems like on every practice test I took (as well as the real thing…which wasn’t that long ago) the test makers had ALWAYS found a new way to test the material.</p>
<p>psubmb,
None of it was true for my D. who actually was teaching others how NOT memorize but understand and use math. She also had load of upper level Bio’s. Some people are better at taking standardized tests, no matter what subject or background. D. had to work very hard to prep. for MCAT and did well, but it was because she worked hard, not because it was easy. She also said that taking Physiology and Genetics were very helpful.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP – I don’t see how anything you said regarding your daughter’s experience contradicts what I actually said.</p>
<p>I said that memorization is a poor strategy and overreliance on it hurts many people. This agrees with what you said about your daughter teaching others to understand rather than memorize.</p>
<p>Your daughter also took a lot of upper level bio… which was another specific thing I mentioned is very useful.</p>
<p>I did not say the MCAT is easy… it’s a tough test, and it is scored on an unforgiving curve (when you are scoring very high in a section, one or two questions is enough to cause your final score for that section to change by a point). I merely said that its difficulty is overblown and that it tests fairly basic scientific concepts. It tests these concepts in a manner which is challenging and requires true thought rather than memorization. A lot of people do poorly on the MCAT because they memorize their way through science classes and do not develop the ability to think critically in the context of solving scientific problems. That doesn’t mean that the actual concepts which one needs to know for the exam are tremendously difficult.</p>
<p>When I took the MCAT in 1996 I attained a 31 out of a possible 45 points which works out to 69% but it still put me a full standard deviation above the mean and into medical school. On the Verbal Reasoning section I had a 10/15 or 67% of the maximum possible. I also took the GRE and attained a 730/800 or 91% of the maximum possible score in Critical Reading. I was an Astrophysics major as an undergraduate and there were indeed a few questions relating to Astronomy on the PS section of the MCAT test I took that I found very easy. However there were many more questions related to other areas of Physics and Chemistry that I had a much lower level of expertise in, not to mention the Biology and Organic Chemistry questions on the BS portion of the test that were challenging. If one was an expert on all aspects of the Physical and Biological Sciences and had extraordinary Verbal reasoning ability I suppose the MCAT would not be that hard. But there are few, if any, such individuals out there. Every year 200-300 students nationwide achieve perfect scores of 2400 on the SAT exam. I have never heard of anybody ever getting a perfect 45 on the MCAT.</p>
<p>psu,
i agree with everything you said. But you sounded like it was an easy test for you. what I have seen is that despite all high level Bio’s and other related classes and having straight A’s and knowing Chem very well (SI for Chem. prof for several years), my D’s prep. for MCAT took at least 3 hours every day for many weeks. So, while some are naturally good at taking tests, most others have to work extremely hard to get a decent score. So, I understand perfectly “Why everyone make the MCAT seem like death”.</p>