What formulas does the MCAT provide?

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I've only been studying using the EK book package, and it's good, but one thing they don't address is what does the MCAT provide you?

I would really like a definitive answer. Do they give you nothing? I'm mainly concerned with the physics formulas. I never needed to commit them all to memory, and I'm not certain if I should now!

Thanks in advance.

Originally Posted by dedicate

I've only been studying using the EK book package, and it's good, but one thing they don't address is what does the MCAT provide you?

I would really like a definitive answer. Do they give you nothing? I'm mainly concerned with the physics formulas. I never needed to commit them all to memory, and I'm not certain if I should now!

Thanks in advance.

Who or what told you that the MCAT gives you formulas? They dont.

AAMC has a free practice test on their site. Check that out.

The only thing they will provide is a constant (for example, at the end of a physics question on ideal gases, it might tell you that R= 8.134)

yea, they dont give you any formulas in the sense that theres not a sheet at the beginning with a list of physics or chemistr formulas. However, they do often times have formulas in the passages (usually really intimidating and convoluted) that you are supposed to use for the problems.

The good news is that they dont ask very many questions that require direct knowlede of a memorized formula.

Oh, and in case you didnt know, you arent allowed to have a calculator either.

Thanks for the responses folks.

And when you say no calculator, do you mean exactly that or do they provide you with a non-scientific calculator?

Originally Posted by dedicate

Thanks for the responses folks.

And when you say no calculator, do you mean exactly that or do they provide you with a non-scientific calculator?

they dont provide you with anything but a pencil and scratch paper and you can not bring ANYTHING in to teh testing ceter. No hat, no keys, no phone, no calculator (non-scientific or scientific). You put everything in a little locker. And if you do bring a calculator they'll just take it away from you b/c they aren't allowed. All calculations must be done by hand. Its dumb i know, but you just gotta suck it up adn start practicing your long division and multiplication and scientific notation and logarithms, etc.......

Whenever you have calculations remember to round off your numbers. NEVER deal with the actual values. For instance, if a number is 67, use 70 or in some cases 50 may work as well. You usually need a very rough estimate.

They give you NOOOOOOTHING.

But asking such a question implies that you're getting a little too deep for the material they seek from you.

A good question example would be this:

A train is coming at you. When you first notice, you hear a whistle. A few moments later, it blows its whistle again. The second time you hear it, is this whistle:

1. Higher in frequency than when you first heard it?
2. The same frequency as when you first heard it?
3. Lower in frequency than when you first heard it?

Another example is, on my MCAT, I had some bizarre question about a pulsar in a distant star cluster. When I read it a couple times it became obvious that this was actually a question about the properties of redshift and blueshift. That is, is this redshift, blueshift, or niether? Much easier to answer when you understand the basic concepts - and no calculator is required.

In fact, I can confidently state that specific equations are unimportant when compared to the simple knowledge of whether something is directly or indirectly proportional to a given variable.

This may sound a little simplistic. It is in a way, as this simple method doesn't account for your psychological response to the ridiculous, yet intelligent-sounding, answers they list in the question. The response to this is to ignore unimportant answers and have confidence in your knowledge of the basics. Bull**** may sound convincing, but go with what you know, not with what you don't.