Welcome

Welcome to the MCAT test prep series!

The Medical College Admission Test® (MCAT®) evaluates your understanding of key natural and social science principles, as well as your critical thinking and scientific problem–solving abilities essential for commencing medical studies.

This course is designed to guide you through every aspect of the MCAT. Each chapter is dedicated to an exam section, with the content you will need to master for the exam, along with applicable strategies. You’ll also find a wealth of practice questions that test your comprehension and recall of exam content and provide application practice like that needed for the actual test. By working through these sections, you’ll get hands-on experience with the types of questions you’ll face and learn tips for approaching each one strategically.

Eligibility

You are eligible to take the MCAT exam if you are planning to apply to a health professions school, which includes:

• M.D.-granting programs.
• D.O.-granting programs.
• Podiatric (D.P.M).
• Veterinary medicine (D.V.M).
• Any other health-related program that will accept MCAT exam results to satisfy a test score admissions requirement.

When you register, you will be required to agree to a statement verifying your intention to apply to a health professions school.

Exam format

The exam consists of 4 sections, all multiple-choice questions. All sections are scored equally. Only the CARS section is completely passage-based, with no external knowledge needed, and includes 53 questions. All other sections (Psychology and Sociology, Chemistry and Physics, and Biology and Biochemistry) include 15 independent questions and 44 passage-based questions which require integrating external knowledge in the subject area.

The exam duration is 7.5 hours.

There is not a set passing score but rather a target school based on the admissions criteria of the schools you tend to apply to.

Content outline

• CARS - The Critical Analysis and Reasoning Section is drawn from various areas of humanities and social sciences. All questions are answerable using only information presented in the passages and accompanying questions, so there is no content to learn. The key is being able to comprehend from the text both literally and abstractly, and being able to think beyond the text to apply externally-provided information to the text at hand.

• Psych/Soc - The Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior Section includes passages that provide some of the information needed to answer questions, combined with your own external knowledge from the following subject areas:

  • Introductory psychology, 65%: the detection and perception of sensory information; cognition, emotion and stress, the individual psychological factors that affect behavior
  • Introductory sociology, 30%: social factors like groups and social norms, learning, attitude theories, the notion of self and identity formation; attitudes, beliefs, actions and processes that affect social interaction; social structures and human interactions, demographic characteristics and processes that define a society; social class, including theories of stratification, social mobility, and poverty.
  • Introductory biology, 5%: the individual biological factors that affect behavior

• Chem/Phys - The Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems Section includes passages and occasional discrete questions based on these topics:

  • First-semester biochemistry, 25%: Amino acids, peptides, proteins; metabolism, carbohydrates, bio membranes
  • Introductory biology, 5%
  • General chemistry, 30%: Electrochemistry, Atoms, nuclear decay, electronic structure, and atomic chemical behavior; nature of water and its solutions
  • Organic chemistry, 15%: Nature of molecules and intermolecular interactions, Separation and purification methods
  • Introductory physics, 25%: Translational motion, forces, work, energy, and equilibrium; fluids for the circulation of blood, gas movement, and gas exchange; electrical circuits, light and sound, Principles of chemical thermodynamics and kinetics; structure, function, and reactivity of molecules

• Bio/Biochem - The Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems Section includes passages and occasional discrete questions based on these topics:

  • First-semester biochemistry, 25%: proteins and their amino acids, Transmission of genetic information and heredity, bioenergetics and metabolism
  • Introductory biology, 65%: molecules, cells, and groups of cells; prokaryotes and viruses, cell division, differentiation, and specialization; nervous and endocrine systems, main organ systems
  • General chemistry, 5%
  • Organic chemistry, 5%

This course lays out the text menu to align with the AAMC’s Content Category numbering system, such as 4A: Translational motion, forces, work, energy, and equilibrium

Final thoughts

The textbook’s wrapping-up portion contains more details about taking the MCAT exam, including how to register, exam cost, and test-taking options.

Feel free to explore this course at your own pace and work on the exam sections in order of personal priority. Make use of the quiz items built into each chapter to build your recall and application skills. We’re here to help you succeed, and we’re excited to see all that you’ll achieve. Welcome again to the Achievable MCAT Online Course!