Bio, becoming "Verbal like"

[Hershi]

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With people constantly stating that the bio section is becoming verbal like, would it be safe to say then that the best way to prepare would be to constantly do verbal practice and improve comprehension? Ive read people state that even TBR isnt going to be much help since TBR likes details.

 

[macsta]

With people constantly stating that the bio section is becoming verbal like, would it be safe to say then that the best way to prepare would be to constantly do verbal practice and improve comprehension? Ive read people state that even TBR isnt going to be much help since TBR likes details.

This seems to be the trend in the last FEW exams. But...Bio is Bio. This section might be easier if you improve your comprehension, but nothing can substitue knowledge in Orgo and Biology.

Good luck.

 

[salim271]

Do not ignore content review just because some people think that BS is becoming another a VR section. They're running into one or maybe two questions that require inference and understanding of the passage in each passage of the BS section on their MCAT and mention how frustrating that is on SDN. It doesnt mean that you dont need to actually know bio and organic to do well in the biological section. Organic chem has always been pure knowledge from what I've seen. Damn near every single question of my MCAT's BS section required outside knowledge from content review or related classes.

 

[Hershi]

I just completed my masters in Biomedical Sciences so I personally feel like I know my bio well and have been reviewing orgo also. With that being said, I think a combination of verbal and normal bio would benefit me hopefully! Its usually the strategy/test taking itself that gets to me!

 

[macsta]

I just completed my masters in Biomedical Sciences so I personally feel like I know my bio well and have been reviewing orgo also. With that being said, I think a combination of verbal and normal bio would benefit me hopefully! Its usually the strategy/test taking itself that gets to me!

Take as many tests as you can get your hands on...that is the only way to force your mind to "think MCAT".

 

[BHaus9]

As hinted previously, I think a few alarmist individuals were thrown off kilter by one or two unconventional questions and immediately sounded off on SDN about an impending paradigm shift. Having taken the exam recently, I feel obligated to remark that there were no noticeable discrepancies between the real thing and the last several years' worth of practice FL's.

 

[plzNOCarribbean]

I disagree. I took the test in january and I remember that after taking the test, and still today, that an overwhelming majority of the problems came from information specific to that passage/situation. Sure, that doesn't mean don't study bio at all, it just means don't spend your time studying every single minutia about each bio topic. Personally, I think your time should be spent practicing passages in bio, and focus more heavily on verbal and PS where you can pick up points.

If you have the official guide by AAMC, look at some of the passage information and question within that guide. It is a very good indicator of the material on the exam. When you answer the questions, you'll see that the way to answer the questions is to apply what is in the passage, not rely on background info that you memorized.

 

[thomasfx10]

I think people are forgetting the 13 Discreet questions. Also the section contains 2 to 3 OChem passages. I found on OChem, it does require outside knowledge. I got burned on the last REAL MCAT that I took in June on OChem reactions. I am taking it again learning ALL required reactions

 

[sha15]

This is an insult to verbal. Yea of course some of the questions require the passage. That's why they give it that way, but the background knowledge will help you with almost all the questions.

 

[BHaus9]

I disagree. I took the test in january and I remember that after taking the test, and still today, that an overwhelming majority of the problems came from information specific to that passage/situation. Sure, that doesn't mean don't study bio at all, it just means don't spend your time studying every single minutia about each bio topic. Personally, I think your time should be spent practicing passages in bio, and focus more heavily on verbal and PS where you can pick up points.

If you have the official guide by AAMC, look at some of the passage information and question within that guide. It is a very good indicator of the material on the exam. When you answer the questions, you'll see that the way to answer the questions is to apply what is in the passage, not rely on background info that you memorized.

I think it's a given that the questions will be pertinent to the passage... I still maintain, however, that a very healthy amount of outside knowledge needs be applied.

Furthermore, I disagree that verbal is more a section in which "you can pick up points" than is BS. BS is more content-based than VR, and studying leads to a more substantive improvement in the hard sciences imo.

 

[Tots]

I disagree. I took the test in january and I remember that after taking the test, and still today, that an overwhelming majority of the problems came from information specific to that passage/situation. Sure, that doesn't mean don't study bio at all, it just means don't spend your time studying every single minutia about each bio topic. Personally, I think your time should be spent practicing passages in bio, and focus more heavily on verbal and PS where you can pick up points.

I haven't taken all the practice FLs yet but from my experience almost all the bio sections rely heavily on the passage. I feel like you could reasonably answer usually 60-80% of the passage questions with little to no background info. The bio knowledge is helpful though to put the passage into context and so that you aren't blown away by a 100 foreign terms you don't know.

 

[CopToEM]

FWIW, today's BS was very verbal heavy. Content review is very necessary, however.

 

[Blaughable]

Yeah, passages are there for a reason. Otherwise it would just be a test of discretes which would be lame. It seems that the MCAT is moving from "what do you know" to "what do you know, what can you learn in the given amount of time, and how can you synthesize the two." This is probably a more efficient method to measurement readiness for medical school.

 

[CopToEM]

Yeah, passages are there for a reason. Otherwise it would just be a test of discretes which would be lame. It seems that the MCAT is moving from "what do you know" to "what do you know, what can you learn in the given amount of time, and how can you synthesize the two." This is probably a more efficient method to measurement readiness for medical school.

I agree and if this is a legitimate change (the pattern is starting to appear) it's a good one.

 

[MD Odyssey]

Yeah, passages are there for a reason. Otherwise it would just be a test of discretes which would be lame. It seems that the MCAT is moving from "what do you know" to "what do you know, what can you learn in the given amount of time, and how can you synthesize the two." This is probably a more efficient method to measurement readiness for medical school.

Interestingly enough, this is what college is actually supposed to do. If a student isn't stretched in their undergraduate years in order to learn to synthesize information and reason based upon it, then it shouldn't be much of a surprise to find out that an exam designed to test that very skill is going to be difficult.

 

[coyotelime]

Looking back I have no idea how I could've better prepared for the freakishly difficult BS we had today(2PM). Some of the passages were just WTF, like worse than the Ebola from AAMC 11(not trying to scare people)... I did all the TBR passages. Guess I should've taken biochem and genetics?

 

[Hershi]

Looking back I have no idea how I could've better prepared for the freakishly difficult BS we had today(2PM). Some of the passages were just WTF, like worse than the Ebola from AAMC 11(not trying to scare people)... I did all the TBR passages. Guess I should've taken biochem and genetics?

What were you averaging for TBR? I take mine next week ..Trying to stay calm

 

[salim271]

Looking back I have no idea how I could've better prepared for the freakishly difficult BS we had today(2PM). Some of the passages were just WTF, like worse than the Ebola from AAMC 11(not trying to scare people)... I did all the TBR passages. Guess I should've taken biochem and genetics?

Lol I actually only got one wrong on the ebola passage... I got three wrong on the GnRH/LH/FSH passage at the beginning though. Pretty sick now that I look at it again... knocked me down from a 15 to a 13 in bio that test. One passage can really kill you...

Anyways, if you got passages that were harder than AAMC, chances are at least some of them will be experimental. Idk why everyone freaks out openly about MCAT when every time people get scores back and they sit right about where their AAMC practical average was. Rest a few days and get your mind off MCAT.

 

[paul411]

Anyways, if you got passages that were harder than AAMC, chances are at least some of them will be experimental.

Not necessarily true. Experimental questions are of all difficulty levels. The AAMC needs data for every question, not just for ridiculously hard ones.

 

[GyroGyro]

Looking back I have no idea how I could've better prepared for the freakishly difficult BS we had today(2PM). Some of the passages were just WTF, like worse than the Ebola from AAMC 11(not trying to scare people)... I did all the TBR passages. Guess I should've taken biochem and genetics?

Taking classes like that probably wouldn't help (I know I certainly never took a genetics class or any strong biochem class. i was an engineering major).

though i can't comment on the mcat that you took, the ebola passage is a great one to use for practicing. It puts a lot of information into a passage in which not a lot of background information is not needed. However, I saw the same thing you saw on your MCAT (took 7/6) - passages were tougher than the ebola passage, but were similar in terms of the type and how the questions were asked.

I would say that it is true, don't ignore background info or you will easily miss the 13 free response, and probably any orgo passage (I have never seen an orgo passage that relies heavily on the info in the passage EVER). As for bio passages, however, there seems to be a much stronger emphasis on paying attention to the passage info - you will get a lot more ebola type passages on the MCAT than some of the ones you saw in aamc 3-9. I think you should almost always expect one passage to be gigantic experimental passage with bar graphs / tables similar to the ebola passage except a bit tougher in terms of the amount of information in it and in terms of finding out whats relevant to what you need to know for the questions.

Edit - For me, one of the biggest things was to not stress out over the bio passages on test day. Make sure you take that break after writing as long as you can. I know some people want to rush into bio, but i don't recommend it. Yes, I found very confusing passages on 7/6, but keep your head up and realize you are on the last section.

Also, for proof just look at almost any 7/xx/11 or 8/xx/11 thread on here. You will see that the bio passages on recent tests require you to understand what is going on in the passage

 

[salim271]

Not necessarily true. Experimental questions are of all difficulty levels. The AAMC needs data for every question, not just for ridiculously hard ones.

This warms my heart. Here's hoping my exam, although not superbly difficult, gets curvy in all the right places. ^_^

 

[coyotelime]

What were you averaging for TBR? I take mine next week ..Trying to stay calm

TBR averages were usually okay, I would get 75-80% of the questions right. 60-70% for metabolic pathways and 85-90% for physiology(my BS was very lopsided, there was 1 physiology passage).

Without going into the passage content, I did understand them. But the questions that were asked required you to extrapolate information. It's like verbal in the way that you have to read it, understand it, then apply it using passage information and background knowledge.

I missed 3 on the Ebola passage on AAMC 11 but did great on the other verbal-like bio ones(Endo/Melanophil ones). I also was 1 question off 13 in BS.

You may be a difficult PS and fair VR/BS. It's all in the luck of the draw I think. Don't worry about it and definitely stop reading SDN. Good luck!

 

[kexy]

I took the July 29th test, and IMO it was unlike any of the AAMC's except 11. That's not to say it was much harder, but I was disappointed with how little outside knowledge it seemed to cover. From what I remember, my discrete questions were on nit picky detail concepts, ESPECIALLY the organic questions. The big themes emphasized in my TPR class and EK books definitely didn't show up as much as you'd expect.

That's not to say that content review isn't important, though. The answer might be suggested by the passage, but you have no hope of picking it out if you don't know what you're reading about. I think what's bothering people is that content review is becoming less and less helpful. Especially on my exam, when I walked out of it I felt like I had studied so hard for nothing. I.e., I felt like I could have studied bio 1/4th as hard and gotten the same score.

 

[inquiry101]

I took the July 29th test, and IMO it was unlike any of the AAMC's except 11. That's not to say it was much harder, but I was disappointed with how little outside knowledge it seemed to cover. From what I remember, my discrete questions were on nit picky detail concepts, ESPECIALLY the organic questions. The big themes emphasized in my TPR class and EK books definitely didn't show up as much as you'd expect.

That's not to say that content review isn't important, though. The answer might be suggested by the passage, but you have no hope of picking it out if you don't know what you're reading about. I think what's bothering people is that content review is becoming less and less helpful. Especially on my exam, when I walked out of it I felt like I had studied so hard for nothing. I.e., I felt like I could have studied bio 1/4th as hard and gotten the same score.

I know wat you mean, i took the 7/28 test and it felt that knowledge only helped so much on the bio section. I noticed that even with the discretes that knowledge took you only so far. In my experience, AAMC style of thinking is requires being more abstract and creative using the simple concepts. You got to be able to visually see the processes and understand how everything works.

 

[quadomatic]

I think the most important thing about Bio being "verbal like" is that there will be many questions that require you to draw inferences based on passage data.

However, a lot of these inferences will require basic Bio knowledge. You don't need to be pulling out flash cards with amino acids and hormones on them. You really just need your bearings.

That being said, getting your bearings may still consist of reading 400+ pages of Bio review (I read the whole TPR Bio content review book, except the appendix...I definitely don't remember every single detail, or many details for that matter, but it was enough). Remembering more details might just make you more comfortable with making certain inferences.

At the end of the day, the most important thing is practice passages (TBR Bio is my savior).

 

[md2be89]

I think the most important thing about Bio being "verbal like" is that there will be many questions that require you to draw inferences based on passage data.

However, a lot of these inferences will require basic Bio knowledge. You don't need to be pulling out flash cards with amino acids and hormones on them. You really just need your bearings.

That being said, getting your bearings may still consist of reading 400+ pages of Bio review (I read the whole TPR Bio content review book, except the appendix...I definitely don't remember every single detail, or many details for that matter, but it was enough). Remembering more details might just make you more comfortable with making certain inferences.

At the end of the day, the most important thing is practice passages (TBR Bio is my savior).

Ok wait a second... I literally have my TPR book next to me with the hormones table open and a flashcard just itching to get hormones written on it because I just got killed by this endocrine passage in the TPR science workbook. Really we don't need to memorize hormones?? Can someone please verify this? I would love it if that were the case!! 😍

 

[Claudin]

Hi md2be89,

I think it's good to memorize that chart. In fact, the MCAT that I took last year had an entire passage about hormones. The questions are easy points if you know your endocrine really well, but if you don't.... then you won't be able to answer them, because they tested on details that were not given in the passage. (Note: I also had a VR-like BS section last year). I'm not if that kind of question will appear on the MCAT again this year, but why take the chance right?

I think it's very misleading when someone tells you "you don't need to memorize X". If the BS section is actually becoming VR-like, then you need to know the material even better than those people who have taken the MCAT with a non-VR-like BS section. Obviously, there are certain things that you don't have to memorize, like the structures of amino acids. But in order to do well (12+), then you MUST memorize the endocrine pathways, basic physiology, the mechanisms of reaction (for orgo), and etc.