House Said "MCATs"

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
L

LittleRocker

Full Member
10+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Jun 20, 2007
Messages
442
Reaction score
1
Members don't see this ad.
I was watching an episode of House and I noticed he said "I aced my MCATs (plural)" on the show. Surely anyone who's ever taken the test knows its singular... He's suddenly lost all credibility haha.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
i dont think ive ever seen a TV show say it right. there are some old episodes of ER where they keep saying MCATS and then "boards" interchangeably. :laugh: they even show one of the characters looking up a question after the "MCATS" and slamming the book shut saying something like "damn it i should have said narcan and not flumazenil for the treatment of the heroin overdose!" :laugh:
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
LittleRocker said:
I was watching an episode of House and I noticed he said "I aced my MCATs (plural)" on the show. Surely anyone who's ever taken the test knows its singular... He's suddenly lost all credibility haha.
Click to expand...


Maybe he had to take the MCAT twice or the test was administered differently back in the day in sections!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
LittleRocker said:
I was watching an episode of House and I noticed he said "I aced my MCATs (plural)" on the show. Surely anyone who's ever taken the test knows its singular... He's suddenly lost all credibility haha.
Click to expand...

What does it mean to "ace" the MCAT, anyways? Get every question correct?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
oooo! I want to play semantics!
Consider:

What if he was talking about the MCAT as four individual tests. This is reasonable since each section of the MCATs (or MCAT pending further debate) is normed and curved individually. Thus, each section could be considered it's own exam, the 'MCATs'.

But then again, all the scores for the individual sections are compiled into your 'composite' score, so the entire exam could be singular, the 'MCAT'.

So which is it?

I personally think it should be the 'MCAT', but its completely arbitrary and based on what I perceive to be the common usage.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
justletmeinplz said:
What does it mean to "ace" the MCAT, anyways? Get every question correct?
Click to expand...

Getting every question correct is nearly impossible! In my opinion you've "aced the MCAT" when you get an offer of admission to medical school. Afterall, the point of the MCAT is to get into medical school. 😛
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I say MCATs routinely. Lots of people do.

But house lost his credibility with me when he called toxo a fungus.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
House is amazing. Anyways.. if 30+=ace .. then I guess acing the MCAT makes you pretty average.

Acing doesn't == barely getting enough. It should be much more. In my book it would be a 45. At least a 40. I wouldn't say I aced it.

But anyways, since the word isn't well defined for the MCAT, it's meaningless.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
dv8silencer said:
House is amazing. Anyways.. if 30+=ace .. then I guess acing the MCAT makes you pretty average.

Acing doesn't == barely getting enough. It should be much more. In my book it would be a 45. At least a 40. I wouldn't say I aced it.

But anyways, since the word isn't well defined for the MCAT, it's meaningless.
Click to expand...

I would say "acing" the MCAT would be higher than 90th percentile.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
If you score any less than a 44 you are inferior and do not deserve to even have the internet. Go to your hole. Simpletons.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
House isn't a real doctor; he only plays one on TV...

Anyway, it's officially "MCAT," to my understanding. It has four sections, but it is one test. That's my analysis of the situation, FWIW. 😀
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
MooseKing said:
its a good thing u cleared that up for me, i was under the impression that it is an ongoing documentary of a real doctor.
Click to expand...

Har, har. I knew somebody was going to write that. It is SDN after all, home to dripping pre-medical sarcasm.

Anyway, as you suggest, it is quite obvious. Not to turn this into a social commentary, but, have you noticed how much our society tends to draw their impression of medicine and doctoring from TV? Grey's and House and ER before that... Medicine in real life might dip it's big toe in the river of TV medicine, but probably not much more than that. I think this was more or less what I was attempting to get at, but I guess I only succeeded in stating the obvious. Oh well... *snap*
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
spicedmanna said:
Har, har. I knew somebody was going to write that. It is SDN after all, home to dripping pre-medical sarcasm.

Anyway, as you suggest, it is quite obvious. Not to turn this into a social commentary, but, have you noticed how much our society tends to draw their impression of medicine and doctoring from TV? Grey's and House and ER before that... Medicine in real life might dip it's big toe in the river of TV medicine, but probably not much more than that. I think this was more or less what I was attempting to get at, but I guess I only succeeded in stating the obvious. Oh well... *snap*
Click to expand...

There was some Attending at Mass General that is quoted as having said, "TV docs? The most realistic TV doctor show out right now is 'Scrubs'. They get it right more often than the others."

:laugh:
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
bodonid said:
I say MCATs routinely. Lots of people do.

But house lost his credibility with me when he called toxo a fungus.
Click to expand...

I never call it "MCATs", but many people do refer to it as that.

As to getting an "A" on the MCAT, it all depends on what letter grade we assign to the mean. As many of you know, the mean is around a 25 with a standard deviation of about 5 points. A 30 is one standard deviation above the mean, a 35 is two standard deviations above the mean.

If the mean is set to a B-, then a 30 is an A-, thus an A would be a....33? In most years, that score is about 90th percentile, so I'd roll with that number.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
has anyone read house's wikipedia?? he 'aced' the MCAT and got into Johns Hopkins (so i'm guessing a mid-30 mcat at least?)... but then he cheated on an exam... was kicked out... picked up by some school in Michigan where he finished the rest of med school.

sorry i've started watching alot of house now that app process is done...
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
hum3a said:
has anyone read house's wikipedia?? he 'aced' the MCAT and got into Johns Hopkins (so i'm guessing a mid-30 mcat at least?)... but then he cheated on an exam... was kicked out... picked up by some school in Michigan where he finished the rest of med school.

sorry i've started watching alot of house now that app process is done...
Click to expand...

U of M👍
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Rofeh20 said:
I never call it "MCATs", but many people do refer to it as that.

As to getting an "A" on the MCAT, it all depends on what letter grade we assign to the mean. As many of you know, the mean is around a 25 with a standard deviation of about 5 points. A 30 is one standard deviation above the mean, a 35 is two standard deviations above the mean.

If the mean is set to a B-, then a 30 is an A-, thus an A would be a....33? In most years, that score is about 90th percentile, so I'd roll with that number.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I essentially agree here. I'd go with the 90th percentile as well, which is 33 (88.0–91.1 percentile) for the 2007 administrations. That's what I'd consider "acing the MCAT."

If you want to look at "acing" individual sections, I'd suggest the following, also taken from the 2007 AAMC MCAT statistics:

PS 12 (89.3–94.5 percentile)
VR 11 (85.4–95.2 percentile)
BS 12 (87.9–94.8 percentile)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

mjo9943
MCAT Advice
Replies
2
Views
1K
Janilla
J
LMAGZ
MCAT Advice
Replies
2
Views
1K
Rachapkis
Rachapkis
Lifeanddreams
  • Question Question
MCAT Study Guide
Replies
1
Views
1K
SenatorTractor
SenatorTractor
Arsenal_
MCAT last date accepted?
Replies
1
Views
874
stew_md
S
P
MCAT Prep Advice
Replies
4
Views
2K
BerkReviewTeach
B
Top