Biochem on MCAT?

[Barton]

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Question. I was perusing recent posts, and there are quite a few claiming that there is biochem on the MCAT. Where is this alleged biochem? I took the MCAT last april after studying about every prep book and practice test known to man for about 3 months, and I didn't see any biochem anywhere. I mean, I've taken biochem, so I should recognize it, but I didn't see any. I'm just asking because everybody keeps suggesting that people take biochem as MCAT prep. Don't get me wrong; I think biochem is great prep for med school (it's required a number of places), and it does help give a better understanding of parts of organic, but I just haven't seen any on any MCAT materials i've seen. Anyone have any examples or anything?

 

[kris]

Here's my experience.

My Organic series did not cover sugars, sugar linkages, etc. We covered sugars in depth in biochem, and I had sugar questions on my MCAT.

--kris

 

[Barton]

That makes sense. We had that stuff in organic II, though. We had sugars, amino acids, peptides, and proteins at the end of the second semester. I think my school's organic series is different than most. We have 3 classes, two lecture and one lab. You have to take the first lecture before you can take the lab, and you can take the lab with the second lecture or later. Anyone else like this? I wonder if we covered more material in organic than most schools.

 

[Hopkins2010]

Originally posted by Barton:
•That makes sense. We had that stuff in organic II, though. We had sugars, amino acids, peptides, and proteins at the end of the second semester. I think my school's organic series is different than most. We have 3 classes, two lecture and one lab. You have to take the first lecture before you can take the lab, and you can take the lab with the second lecture or later. Anyone else like this? I wonder if we covered more material in organic than most schools.•

My school works exactly the same way with organic, 2 lectures and 1 lab. Theres a regular organic chem lab and an advanced organic lab but not many people take the 2nd lab.

I took the MCAT in Aug 99, and the organic stuff was very straightforward with relatively simple reactions. I ended up studying too much for organic and not enough for inorganic, especially all the different varieties and flavors of acid/base chemistry.