Do science majors score higher on the MCAT?
I know there isn't any definitive information that gives the answer to this question. But I've given it a lot of thought, and it seems to make sense that they would. More courses in the sciences would give the student the ability to recognize the material a lot more quickly - imagine taking a HS biology exam after college.
Moreso than the fact that you will have more knowledge in the sciences, you will also be able to think analytically. Taking math courses will raise your problem solving skills (basic logic, not necessarily 'math') and regularly reading scientific material will raise your threshold for those long reading passages.
Is my logic correct, or flawed? I know there are many non-science majors who do incredible on the MCAT due to ample studying, but is it true that science majors have an early advantage for this exam?
Discuss.
I don't think most biololgy majors are asked to think analytically. In fact, most of what I see people doing in my science classes is memorization. Biology, as it is presented in undergrad, is memorization with only a small bit of understanding necessary. There are no logical leaps that need to be taken on behalf of the student. This is how the biology student robs himself of his education and is also why so many bio students have issues with physics--because they are not used to having to put information together themselves. They expect there to be fully worked out examples of every type of problem they're going to do in a homework set in the book. I had the same mentality entering physics and it took a while for my professors to beat it out of me. Now when I sit down with a problem I'm not afraid to think about it for 5-10 minutes before I start writing anything down...and I'm certainly not afraid if I'm 45 minutes into a problem and no solution is in sight. I regularly spend up to 3 hours working a problem. You get a sort of insight into how things work. In this way I think medical school will be a breeze compared to physics.
The humanities does ask for a lot more critical thinking out of a student than does biology. I'm an avid reader and I find that when I talk to literature students they have quite a bit of headway on me when it comes to interpretation. Not to say that their interpretation is correct--but they are constantly thinking and have a more defined paradigm that they're using to analyze literature. I have friends that have never done physics say some very insightful things about physics and physicists from their readings about physics. The study of literature is at it's heart analytical.
Usually when I see a biology student showing off they are just reciting how much of something they can remember. This is because mechanism isn't focused on in biology courses. You don't need to know how something works--or why it works--just that it works and it has this or that name. A class where this was all too common was genetics. Things bind, they unbind, molecules signal eachother, etc. but at the end of the day you know nothing about how these processes work. All you know is a bunch of 3 letter names for genes and some vague terminology(signaling, attaching, etc.) for how they interact.
Another class that comes to mind is organic chemistry--they avoid all touchy questions like "what is spin?" or what the quantum numbers really mean. You just need to know L goes as integers from -L to +L. At the same time I was taking o chem we used methods we learned in calculus 3 and differential equations in physics to separate the schrodinger equation to solve for these numbers explicitly. It was an hour long exercise in class. We even calculated the shapes of the simpler orbitals and then plotted them as homework. I still don't have a clue what physical interpretation a transition state or a mechanism has...but I know it's much more complicated than what is presented in o chem. I didn't understand entropy, enthalpy, or free energy until I took statistical thermodynamics where we derived PV=nRT from scratch and then found all sorts of relations between energy/entropy/probability/temperature. In neurobio I remember the professor explaining to us that the reason some ion channels were selective for certain types of ions is because of how some ions were more ready to give up their water solvation than others due to entropy. I was happy that I understand the entropy argument explicitly and didn't have to settle for the dumbed down version of the potassium molecule simply "not fitting." When we did membrane potential/current problems it was easy to see why things worked the way they did. A lot of times I wonder whether biology students have an idea about how much they're missing...like if you really think mechanisms are like reality or if you know it's much more complicated than what's being presented. Do you guys wonder where PV=nRT comes from? Or what enthalpy is? Or free energy? Entropy?
On a side note, one thing that really bothers me is that you bio majors is that many of you don't understand what a derivative is. This is why teachers always just the delta notation to explain the difference in something. Since you guys don't understand ordinary differential equations you don't understand where any of the equations that involve e^x come from...or even what e means.
In the end I don't know how much critical thinking really comes into play with being a doctor. Of the doctors I've talked to(I come from a large family of them) they say not very much. I mean, you memorize a ton of anatomy and have a cohesive picture of how the body works but it is still a functional type of knowledge that is rooted in empiricism. For a researcher an aptitude for critical thinking is, well, critical.
On the flip side my physics professor told me he got a C in o chem and dropped the class the second quarter. It wasn't for him. Most people in my physics classes cringe at the thought of memorizing huge note sets and think premeds are way too competitive. So I guess it's different strokes for different folks. But you biology majors sure are missing out on understanding the fundamentals of what you're studying and it's very unfair to you. Sadly, physics majors refuse to believe that you can get accustomed to learning large amounts of information in short periods of time and biology majors refuse to believe that you can learn critical thinking skills by practicing. It's a peculiar disposition.
When it comes to the MCAT it is mostly a critical thinking test. Sure you need the background but this is the only part of a bio student's undergrad where they are expected to apply critical thinking skills to solve problems they have never seen before. If you are smart and understand the material you will do well. The VR section is just your ability to understand what is clearly said to you sans a few details. In other words, it's filling in the gaps and making logical assumptions. I don't know of any people that I would consider intelligent that didn't get >30 on the MCAT. In fact, like the SAT, it seemed to reflect the actual ranking of intelligence that I perceived among my peers. But, just like the SAT, you can study for it and learn everything. It is a finite amount of knowledge that is tested and in that sense anyone can score a perfect if they only extend their time spent studying. I don't mean to take on an elitist attitude--just sharing my honest thoughts as a biophysics(biology minor and a physics minor combined) major.
Oh, and in my electrodynamics class of 12 people...the 5 who took the MCAT got a 34, 36, 40, 35, and the other girl won't tell. So at least at my school physics majors do well on the MCAT.
