How much did your upper-division classes help?

[LincolnTwins]

Did you actually acquire more critical thinking skills from your upper-divison courses?

Which upper division courses were the most helpful for the MCAT? Thanks.

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[jamilla_w]

Lots for bio. Most of the immunology passage's questions I had were like my immuno final. I could have done them w/o the passage.

 

[J ROD]

I could not have done it without them for Bio.

 

[crunchymilk]

biochemistry was a large reason why I got a 14 in bio

 

[jamilla_w]

I could not have done it without them for Bio.

It's almost unfair for people who have just taken 1st year bio.

 

[TheElement]

Yeah like me. I didn't even take first year bio. STUPID AP TESTS. That was years ago. I should have done a bio major.

 

[JesperIt]

the full year of biochemistry will definitely cover a great deal of topics, and you'll learn stuff that are sometimes reference in passages. genetics helps too, especially all the genetic technology stuff. physiology will help you with all the important systems, immunology will help with all the infectious items. mircrobiology will cover all those fun nomenclature and classifications. cell biology is where i learned the details about apoptosis! these courses have overlap of topics depending on which school and who teaches them, but i would have to say the more you know the better foundation you will have. the key is still learning how to read, analyze and answer quickly!

 

[RPedigo]

I took only the 1-year prerequisite introductory biology course, and one quarter of upper division biochemistry. There wasn't any biochemistry on my exam. I think that me reviewing all the material was enough.

However, on the physical sciences section, there was a whole passage on a specific law that I had gone over in my advanced kinetics class for my chemistry major, so that was pretty cool. In short, it may help, but you don't need it.

 

[MEG@COOL]

well thest put it this way. i didnt really study for the bio section of the mcat but made a 12. probably would have needed to stucy to make that without having taking upper div classes.

 

[mrmilad]

I took no upper div anything, and I will tell you how I did in 21 days.

 

[tdjn]

Wow... after reading all the posts here, I am seriously thinking about changing my course of plans for next year. I was planning on taking PChem and IChem (Inorganic-adv) next year... but since I already have the basics for Chemistry and not so much for bio (I only had one year of bio in college)... maybe I should consider classes like immunology...

so all in all, i am pretty confident in the physical sciences, but not so much in bio... hence the thought about taking all the adv bio classes.. bah, any opinions on this?