I talked to a guy today who has now taken the MCAT twice. He said there was no biochem at all on either of his two MCAT attempts. He told me I shouldnt bother taking it until after I took the MCAT. What do you think about this ?

I talked to a guy today who has now taken the MCAT twice. He said there was no biochem at all on either of his two MCAT attempts. He told me I shouldnt bother taking it until after I took the MCAT. What do you think about this ?

I disagree. In biochem at UC Berkeley, the three components of the class deal with proteins, metabolism, and DNA. All of these are useful things to know, to various degrees, for the MCAT. I can't say a whole lot about metabolism and DNA, but having had the protein stuff under my belt was EXTREMELY helpful. By proteins I mean all of the enzyme kinetics stuff...it saved me a lot of studying time knowing all of it already. And I'm sure metabolism and DNA are good to know as well. =) In my experience, the two MOST useful classes to have taken for the MCAT are biochem and physio.

I talked to a guy today who has now taken the MCAT twice. He said there was no biochem at all on either of his two MCAT attempts. He told me I shouldnt bother taking it until after I took the MCAT. What do you think about this ?

It depends entirely on which test form you have. As a biochem major, I was surprised and a little disappointed when my biological science section was organic and developmental/microbio- heavy. A semester of biochem definitely helps fill in gaps where other science classes have left off but I wouldn't recommend taking it just to do well on the MCAT... instead, try examcrackers or another commercial prep book. Assuming you understand the concepts introduced, you'll be fine. The MCAT is notorious for presenting things conceptually in novel ways, forcing you to think.

Anyway, good luck!

i heard that medschools like to see you get an A in a biochem course. so even if it's not very useful for mcat, it shows you're a serious student.

You can't really predict what will be on the MCAT. I just took it today and the forms differed a lot. Mine had a lot of biochem/cell bio questions, so I was very very thankful that I took biochem. Others hardly had any. If you can fit it in, biochem will help you out on the MCAT, in my opinion.

My form in April had tons of biochem and orgo and no physiology and not much molecular bio. It totally depends on what form you get. You just have to learn as much as you can and cover all your bases.

I actually just took the mcat today. I had two questions in bio that i wouldnt have gotten right if i had not had biochem and a lot of other questions that it helped me with. Biochem is not a hard class and it would be best for you to take it. In addition physiology is an mcat must. there is no way to learn all the information they test you on from a review course. Hope this helps. goodluck.

I talked to a guy today who has now taken the MCAT twice. He said there was no biochem at all on either of his two MCAT attempts. He told me I shouldnt bother taking it until after I took the MCAT. What do you think about this ?false, i felt it did help.

It helped more than Kaplan's biology material.

I actually just took the mcat today. I had two questions in bio that i wouldnt have gotten right if i had not had biochem and a lot of other questions that it helped me with. Biochem is not a hard class and it would be best for you to take it. In addition physiology is an mcat must. there is no way to learn all the information they test you on from a review course. Hope this helps. goodluck.
I found that biochem made up the core of the information that I actually used on the MCAT. I have positively no physiology and didn't feel that having any would have brought my bio score up at all.

I did fine on the MCAT without biochem. I'll be taking it in my last semester of school...this spring. Maybe I would have done better with biochem? Who knows? I don't :D

will be taking biochem in fall and spring and took the August MCAT. don't see how it would have helped me today. If you have room and time in your schedule then go for it. I would not hold off on taking the MCAT for only a biochem class.

I did fine on the MCAT without biochem. I'll be taking it in my last semester of school...this spring. Maybe I would have done better with biochem? Who knows? I don't :D

I talked to a guy today who has now taken the MCAT twice. He said there was no biochem at all on either of his two MCAT attempts. He told me I shouldnt bother taking it until after I took the MCAT. What do you think about this ?

It could probably be helpful if you get the right MCAT form, but it depends on how good your other undergrad science courses were. If your school has prereqs that strongly focus on the MCAT covered info, then you will get all you need from those and won't really need biochem. I would take biochem more because it may make your first year of med school somewhat easier, or because your med school requires or "recommends" it (only a very few require it as a prereq), rather than for the MCAT.
Also, since AMCAS statistics (linked to preallo a few months back) suggest that some of the humanities majors actually score higher than some of the science majors who would have taken biochem, I suspect that a lot of the top scorers on the MCAT wouldn't have taken biochem (but that is speculation on my part).

I found that it definitely helped having already taken biochem, especially with the increasing emphasis on genetic processes. Also, I remember a question about the properties of a specific amino acid that I would never have gotten if it weren't for biochem. Plus it's a good refresher for the more complex topics in bio.

I talked to a guy today who has now taken the MCAT twice. He said there was no biochem at all on either of his two MCAT attempts. He told me I shouldnt bother taking it until after I took the MCAT. What do you think about this ?

First of all, you know biochem is helpful for the MCAT.

Secondly, Phil is gonna lay the smack down if you don't stop making these MCAT related threads in here.

First of all, you know biochem is helpful for the MCAT.

Secondly, Phil is gonna lay the smack down if you don't stop making these MCAT related threads in here.
BWAHAHA!!! :meanie:

This thread was two days ago, before I asked him to stop. I'm letting you off the hook on this one LargeMemberMD, but if another one pops up...

Moving to the MCAT forum

I disagree. In biochem at UC Berkeley, the three components of the class deal with proteins, metabolism, and DNA. All of these are useful things to know, to various degrees, for the MCAT. I can't say a whole lot about metabolism and DNA, but having had the protein stuff under my belt was EXTREMELY helpful. By proteins I mean all of the enzyme kinetics stuff...it saved me a lot of studying time knowing all of it already. And I'm sure metabolism and DNA are good to know as well. =) In my experience, the two MOST useful classes to have taken for the MCAT are biochem and physio.

I now would question the weight of taking a physio class...I would go with genetics/cell bio over physio. I took tons of physio in college from pathophysiology to numerous pharmacology courses and on this test it helped about as much as ochem did for the people that had 1 ochem passage.

I think it really depends on the form. I took the MCAT yesterday and the only courses I have taken so far is Biology, G.Chem, O.Chem, Genetics, and Microbiology. There was a crapload of micro on my form, a good amount of genetics, and other stuff. But there was no biochemistry. Honestly, I wouldn't kill myself just to take biochem before I take the MCAT. Its good to take it of course, but I didn't need it at all for the MCAT.

i took a year of general biology before taking a biochem course and a physiology course. i just took the mcat, before which i had taken several kaplan and aamc practice tests.

biochem is relatively detailed stuff, moreso than what you probably need for the mcat. i'm thinking especially of reaction mechanisms and molecular structures--you could probably get such questions correct anyway from your knowledge of organic, and they don't seem to be the more common types of biochem questions. the biochem i thought i needed for the mcat was really covered in my gen bio course: glycolysis/tca/ox phos, enzyme kinetics, and maybe other stuff i'm forgetting. and really not so much details as general knowledge--e.g., how much ATP is produced in what pathway phase, where in the cell, and under what conditions, what does competitive inhibition look like on a michelis-menton curve, etc. metabolic pathways for non-sugars weren't covered so much in my gen bio course, so that might be one thing that only a biochem course would give you that you should have some knowledge of.

for me, physio was not covered so well in my year of general biology, probably because it was taught by molecular biologists. this is an area where you do need a good bit of general knowledge for the mcat. i was very happy that i took a separate physio class before the mcat.

Biochem is excellent preparation for the MCAT. Although there is no gaurantee it will necessarily help on any given form, one can say that about any non required course.
Besides, it will be helpful in med school.

I talked to a guy today who has now taken the MCAT twice. He said there was no biochem at all on either of his two MCAT attempts. He told me I shouldnt bother taking it until after I took the MCAT. What do you think about this ?

Every bio class can potentially help you on the mcat. The problem with the mcat is that you'll get five passages and three of them might be about genetics & microbiology, the fourth one about the cardiovascular system, and the fifth one about evolution or something like that. So basically, you studied for months about the endocrine, respiratory, and immune systems, bones, muscles, digestion, structure and function of macromolecules, etc. and 90% of your biological science questions will not test you on these topics. You might see a few questions about the following topics in those few non-passage questions.

The best thing to do to prepare for the mcat is to know everything from bio 1 & 2. Human phys, biochem, micro, immunology, genetics, etc. will help you, and you will understand everything from bio 1 & 2 a lot better...but it would probably be better to have a few more hours to study for the mcat than to spend it on upper level classes.

anyone able to recommend a good supplement to Biochemistry 5th Ed. (Stryer-Berg-Tymoczko)? I'm a biochem major so these are my last chances to give the science GPA a little boost. Are the lippincott's biochem review not the way to go for undergrad biochem from the chemistry department? Thanks!

jsut cuz biochem wasnt on this exam doesnt mean there isnt going be biochem later. biochem is fun anyways, i <3 biochem. i wish there was more on the exam

jsut cuz biochem wasnt on this exam doesnt mean there isnt going be biochem later. biochem is fun anyways, i <3 biochem. i wish there was more on the exam


I was told biochem was the best additional class to take for the mcat.

bump
anyone able to recommend a good supplement to Biochemistry 5th Ed. (Stryer-Berg-Tymoczko)? I'm a biochem major so these are my last chances to give the science GPA a little boost. Are the lippincott's biochem review not the way to go for undergrad biochem from the chemistry department? Thanks!

I took graduate level biochemistry, and I found VERY helpful the MCAT. I think that the upper level sciences classes show you the WHY of science, not just the facts. I assume that everyone has an upper level or "really hard" Biochem at thier undergrad..though not essential for the MCAT Id recommend it to anyone who wants to understand a lot of key concepts.