Good luck taking new MCAT with no knowledge of Biochem or Physiology. I recommend everyone who will be taking it to look at all MCAT 2015 foundational concepts and decide what courses at their school will be the best preparation. Passages on chemistry and physics will be written in the context of human body (living systems in AAMC terminology) and my school teaches no anatomy or physiology in gen bio whatsoever.
I don't know what med schools think of this but AAMC is expanding science coursework for the new MCAT.
How can you say this confidently? There's no practice test out...what are you basing that on?
For those taking the previous MCAT, nothing is essential besides Gen Bio so long as you use a solid review book (I know Princeton, Berkeley, or EK are good). Anyone who says otherwise is just overplaying their experience of a passage that stuck out to them on their MCAT. All these things are covered with a solid understanding of Gen Bio and a solid MCAT review.
In case you're wondering OP, here's a summary of what I learned in biochem:
In depth protein folding mechanisms and forces involved, various protein rxns, enzyme kinetics in depth, and then memorization of every little detail of glycolysis (+ thermodynamics) and then second semester was in depth fatty acid metabolism, some more protein stuff, and then a large # of pathways, and endless memorization of subunits of things that made nucleic acids, very minor details about DNA etc. None of that is essential. Could you possibly see a passage about how a drug inhibits the alpha unit of DNA Polymerase III on the MCAT? Yes...but doesn't mean you had to take biochem. You just have to read and understand basic things like what inhibit means/drug/allosteric/rate/yeast are eukaryotes/etc (all in gen bio)
Here's a summary of what I learned in physio:
We learnt about cell physiology and how electric and chemical forces balance the cell (a gen bio concept), then talked about those channels in depth. Then we learned about G-proteins and how they along with channel proteins are highly involved in cell signaling. Then we learnt about action potentials and learned a lot of neurobiology (a lot of which is useful on the MCAT). Afterwards, we learnt a good deal of cardiology from a cellular perspective (like what kind of special channels are needed to cause autorhytmicity) which was also important. Next semester, we learnt about stem cells, the gastrointestinal system (MCAT likes to throw in random discretes about this), endocrinology (can be boiled down to negative feedback), reproductive system (the one exception to negative feedback w/ the LH surge), reproduction, and then we wrapped up with some cool case studies.
For the pre-2015 MCAT, if you want to take a class that probably overlaps the most with what you have to know for the MCAT, it's this one, especially if your Gen Bio wasn't so physio heavy. That being said, the MCAT tests basic physiology so you don't need to know all of what you learnt, just the bare essentials.
As for the new MCAT, who knows...but I wouldn't go as far as saying "Good luck taking the new MCAT with no knowledge of biochem and physiology"...your intro classes should cover the basics...
