Is a physiology class necessary before MCAT?

[aoum86]

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Is it necessary to take a physiology class before taking the MCAT? The way my progress is going, and because of the way pre-reqs etc at my school are set up, I won't be able to take physiology until second semester of my junior year, and of course I want to take the MCAT before then. Is it possible to get a good bio MCAT score after just taking intro biology and genetics and using prep materials (I use EK), or does the material test physiology stuff? I'd appreciate any advice or stories... thanks.

 

[HunterGatherer]

Is it necessary to take a physiology class before taking the MCAT? The way my progress is going, and because of the way pre-reqs etc at my school are set up, I won't be able to take physiology until second semester of my junior year, and of course I want to take the MCAT before then. Is it possible to get a good bio MCAT score after just taking intro biology and genetics and using prep materials (I use EK), or does the material test physiology stuff? I'd appreciate any advice or stories... thanks.

All you need is BIO 101/102 for the MCAT. The genetics and physio on the MCAT is so basic. EK bio review book is complete. Anything you did not cover in Bio 101/102 and need for the MCAT will be found in there. If you look at the "30+ MCAT" thread a lot of people are taking the MCAT with only prereqs.

 

[Sol Rosenberg]

Is it necessary to take a physiology class before taking the MCAT? The way my progress is going, and because of the way pre-reqs etc at my school are set up, I won't be able to take physiology until second semester of my junior year, and of course I want to take the MCAT before then. Is it possible to get a good bio MCAT score after just taking intro biology and genetics and using prep materials (I use EK), or does the material test physiology stuff? I'd appreciate any advice or stories... thanks.

I think taking Physiology is helpful for the MCAT, but my situation may be a little different. At my school, into Bio used to be broken up into 4 courses, one of them was basically an intro. to Physiology Course. The others were Molecular Bio, Intro. to Genetics, and Intro. to Population Genetics/Ecology. Just last semester, they decided to combine the courses, pairwise, into 2 courses. They combined the Molecular Bio. and Intro. to Genetics Course into one course, and the Population Genetics/Ecology course and the Intro. to Physiology Course into another. My prof. for this latter course was an Ecology prof. so we spent so little time covering the physiology and so much time covering completely non-MCAT-relevant stuff like Species Diversity, that I felt that I needed more Physiology.

I guess I would say that if you think your Intro. Biology course did a good job covering Basic Physiology, that would be good enough, but be honest with yourself, because that stuff is definitely covered heavily on the MCAT.

Good Luck,

Jota