Is it possible to know everything for the MCAT? AAMC content outline

[lexswift]

The AAMC published a list of possible topics for the MCAT here: https://aamc-orange.global.ssl.fast...a-4c00-83dd-c17cee034c47/mcat2015-content.pdf .

I have reviewed content from Kaplan and EK. I feel like I have run into topics that were not covered thoroughly in those books. How can I make sure I know everything? How can I make sure I know all the relevant details regarding all topics? Would this be possible?

Would Khan Academy cover everything? His videos are organized by the content outline. I have heard the MCAT/AAMC would not test anything that was not covered in this list of topics.

I am kind of regretting renting almost all my books in college as I feel like they would have been good sources to consult.

I want to go into the test as confident as possible and not be thrown off by any topics that show up on test day that just didn't happen to show up on the FLs I have been taking as low yield as they may be.

Are there a better set of prep books anyone can recommend?

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[baby_monkey1]

I found it helpful to make a note of any topic that I wasn't strong on content-wise but that wasn't covered to the depth I wanted in the review books. Then I went and watched khan academy or similar videos and made notes of those topics. I remember doing that specifically for the physics optics reflection/refraction topic and for the kidney anatomy/physiology.

 

[wanderingorion]

Khan academy's videos were made in cooperation with AAMC, so I'd assume that they cover mostly everything. KA is an excellent resource. If you know all of that material, you're in pretty good shape I would say.

That being said, you still might get a curve-ball thrown your way on test day. That's the nature of the beast.

 

[lexswift]

I have not watched all the Khan Academy videos, would you say he does a good job of covering everything on that outline thoroughly? I might just stick to Khan Academy then.

 

[wanderingorion]

I have not watched all the Khan Academy videos, would you say he does a good job of covering everything on that outline thoroughly? I might just stick to Khan Academy then.

I would say so.
I used the videos to refresh/reinforce material I had trouble with. Used in conjunction with EK/Kaplan, you should have your bases covered. =)

P.S. You can ask around on the MCAT forums if you have more questions. That bunch would be helpful too

 

[baby_monkey1]

yeah I think if you watch the Khan academy videos on the specific topics you need help on and study those specifically (take notes on the videos, make flashcards, etc.), you should be more than prepared to handle those questions on the real test

 

[lexswift]

One thing I'm a little scared about is getting a score that is significantly different than my AAMC scored practice test. That would not be a pleasant surprise. I feel like the main reason that could happen is getting a questions on topics I didn't cover thoroughly or am a little weak on.

 

[Lucca]

One thing I'm a little scared about is getting a score that is significantly different than my AAMC scored practice test. That would not be a pleasant surprise. I feel like the main reason that could happen is getting a questions on topics I didn't cover thoroughly or am a little weak on.

You're basically right. If your test taking skills are solid and consistent, knowledge is the biggest barrier. Usually it's the other way around for most people: content is okay, they need practice to help hone their test taking skills and stamina.

To answer the OP directly: definitely doable to know everything on the exam, content wise. Every little detail? Probably unreasonable for most mortals. All of the concepts covered in the AAMC list? Absolutely possible.

That being said, the test *will* feature information that you will not recognize from any class or explicitly from the AAMC topic list. This is by design, the idea is to use reasoning to synthesize the information you know with what is immediately available in the passage to deduce an answer. The MCAT is decidedly not principally testing depth or totality of knowledge, rather breadth and the ability to reason when presented with new information, graphs, arguments, etc.

 

[BunnyMan17]

I used the 2015 2nd/3rd edition PR books and I thought they were excellent review. They do go into more detail than you really need but it's pretty obvious when they start to do this. Some people (like me) use them more as a hole filler sorta thing. I.e. you keep missing questions on the immune system then go read the chapter on immunology a few times. Targeting weakness like this drastically improved my practice passage scores. I've heard other people say they used them as a blanket review and that always seemed to yield decent scores.

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

I'm of the opinion that you can't know everything, and being able to reason through a question you don't understand will be increasingly critical the higher you go.

As for content mastery, just try as many questions as possible. If you find one you can't answer, figure out why. Repeat until you run out of questions (from the AAMC, Kaplan, tpr, etc)

 

[lexswift]

You're basically right. If your test taking skills are solid and consistent, knowledge is the biggest barrier. Usually it's the other way around for most people: content is okay, they need practice to help hone their test taking skills and stamina.

To answer the OP directly: definitely doable to know everything on the exam, content wise. Every little detail? Probably unreasonable for most mortals. All of the concepts covered in the AAMC list? Absolutely possible.

That being said, the test *will* feature information that you will not recognize from any class or explicitly from the AAMC topic list. This is by design, the idea is to use reasoning to synthesize the information you know with what is immediately available in the passage to deduce an answer. The MCAT is decidedly not principally testing depth or totality of knowledge, rather breadth and the ability to reason when presented with new information, graphs, arguments, etc.

I'm of the opinion that you can't know everything, and being able to reason through a question you don't understand will be increasingly critical the higher you go.

As for content mastery, just try as many questions as possible. If you find one you can't answer, figure out why. Repeat until you run out of questions (from the AAMC, Kaplan, tpr, etc)

Thank you for this. I feel like that's a good perspective and I am happy to realize that now so I won't freak out and lose focus when presented with slightly unfamiliar details in future tests.

I am sticking to Kaplan/EK and now Khan Academy. do you think these resources are sufficient?

Do you have recommendations on how to go about practicing? I want to take at least 18-20 practice tests to make sure I have my test taking skills down. I have done about 5 so far with my highest being 507 so far .

 

[Goro]

No, but you will be well prepared by doing well in your coursework.

BTW, the median MD school acceptee scores in the 90th %ile.

The AAMC published a list of possible topics for the MCAT here: https://aamc-orange.global.ssl.fast...a-4c00-83dd-c17cee034c47/mcat2015-content.pdf .

I have reviewed content from Kaplan and EK. I feel like I have run into topics that were not covered thoroughly in those books. How can I make sure I know everything? How can I make sure I know all the relevant details regarding all topics? Would this be possible?

Would Khan Academy cover everything? His videos are organized by the content outline. I have heard the MCAT/AAMC would not test anything that was not covered in this list of topics.

I am kind of regretting renting almost all my books in college as I feel like they would have been good sources to consult.

I want to go into the test as confident as possible and not be thrown off by any topics that show up on test day that just didn't happen to show up on the FLs I have been taking as low yield as they may be.

Are there a better set of prep books anyone can recommend?

 

[Mcatbot]

The AAMC published a list of possible topics for the MCAT here: https://aamc-orange.global.ssl.fast...a-4c00-83dd-c17cee034c47/mcat2015-content.pdf .

I have reviewed content from Kaplan and EK. I feel like I have run into topics that were not covered thoroughly in those books. How can I make sure I know everything? How can I make sure I know all the relevant details regarding all topics? Would this be possible?

Would Khan Academy cover everything? His videos are organized by the content outline. I have heard the MCAT/AAMC would not test anything that was not covered in this list of topics.

I am kind of regretting renting almost all my books in college as I feel like they would have been good sources to consult.

I want to go into the test as confident as possible and not be thrown off by any topics that show up on test day that just didn't happen to show up on the FLs I have been taking as low yield as they may be.

Are there a better set of prep books anyone can recommend?

If you want a top tier score, you need to study everything. If not though, you can get away with not studying some low yield ones.

 

[wizzed101]

Yes, you absolutely can IF they make a detailed content outline to the most obscure of topics they would cover. They don't. They will ask stuffs outside of the content outline but because they make it so vague that they can argue that the topic was implied.

Stuffs like urea cycle is not mentioned anywhere but is believed to be covered but rarely tested. But people and most test prep agree that it is fair if they do test it.

I mean I am not complaining about too much materials. When I studied, I learned pretty obscure stuffs out of interest/curiosity too. But the way they are doing it in the science sections are completely unfair for people who shoot for the perfect scores. It all comes down to luck: which obscure contents we took interested in determines the last few % on some versions.

If the urea cycle is fair, would stuffs like lactate metabolisms in brain or the transport mechanism of thyroid hormone or the precise timing/origin of the lub-dub sounds be fair too?

 

[TaupePremed]

No, you absolutely can't know everything on the MCAT. In fact, if you had unfettered access to the internet and test prep books and triple time, I still think you might not get a perfect score. Dare I say, I think you would not get a perfect score. Achieving a perfect score would also require a fair dose of luck, not just raw knowledge and extra time.

I am not saying this because I am bitter - I actually got a 519 and am very happy with that. I think my score comes, in part, from my acceptance of the facts stated above. You can't know everything, you can't have time for everything, so you need to prioritize. For me, that got me to a 519. Are there topics that I simply ignored because I knew there would be like zero or one questions on that whole topic? Absolutely. Go for the low-hanging fruit. That's my motto. If a question looks like high-hanging fruit, make that decision in the first 10 seconds and skip it. Come back if you have extra time left over.

BTW, the median MD school acceptee scores in the 90th %ile.

What is the 90th percentile on the scaled score? Is it like 510?

 

[wizzed101]

In fact, if you had unfettered access to the internet.

For the science section: Yes you absolutely can score perfectly every time with internet access because you study enough you will know exactly which part of the questions/answers you need info about in order to 100% sure about the answer.

I'm not talking about passage-based questions. Those are fair. They can ask us anything under the sun there. But they should never use stuffs not explicitly written in the content outlines in discrete/semi-discrete questions. For many people, those questions are blows to confidence. Answering a passage-based question wrongs/ or unable to be sure is much less damaging than if they were discrete/semi-discrete.

 

[Goro]

~513.

I must correct my earlier post. The median for acceptees is ~83rd %ile, about 510-511 on the new exam!

But still, one doesn't need to know everything. In fact, trying to learn everything means you'll end up learning nothing.

What is the 90th percentile on the scaled score? Is it like 510?

 

[MaxPlancker]

Yes you should know everything. If a review source doesn't cover something well, use dear Google. Also, mcat-review.org is good, they go topic by topic through the outline and are pretty simple. It's free as well.

 

[Promethean]

You absolutely can know everything and perfect scores are possible.

Just, are they worth the additional trouble to get? If you get a 500 on your first practice exam, then spend 100 hours of study getting a 510, a 520 isn't just another 100 hours away. Maybe more like 1000. If you had the time and resources to plow into pursuing that, you surely could. But there is a point of diminishing returns...

Not to mention that medical school isn't at all like that. You can't just brute force your way to superior performance by taking extra weeks to study. You get as much time as you get, and you need to make it count. You learn to focus in on what matters and not to chase every tangent down to its tiniest details. I like to know all that I can about everything, but you will reach a point where you have to learn to triage.

And there is my eternal speech about the fact that the MCAT isn't really a test of content, but of cognition. You can not know anything about a topic, but if you have good reading comprehension and a good sense of logic, you can rationalize your way to the correct answer. Very often, if you just look at the relationships between the data you are given and the answer choices, one becomes the obvious answer, even if you don't actually know the exact equation you are supposed to use or what principle is being referenced. Not on every question, but on a great many... enough to get a respectable score when coupled with the ones that you do just know cold.

Obviously, it is better to have a strong grasp of the underlying content, but no matter how well you know it, if you can't reason and aren't getting at what is really being asked, you don't stand a chance. The most successful examinee has a thorough grasp of the content and couples that with the ability to think like the test writers. If you treat it like a game, where you are trying to out think the game makers, it becomes easy and even fun.

 

[wizzed101]

Ok. Game time!

You have answer every question correction in the B/B section. Every question has been fair so far. You are one question away from 132!

Dun dun dun! Discrete question time!

Triose Phosphate Isomerase most reasonably has a catalytic efficiency closest to:

A. 10^-3
B. 10^8
C. 10^12
D. 10^13

 

[Mcatbot]

.

 

[wizzed101]

Oh yea, if you thought that to answer the question above you needed to memorize the catalytic efficiency of that enzyme, you would be wrong. The question is "fair" because it is "implicit" within the content outline (huehuehue) and does not require crude memorization, i.e the structure of hydroquinone.

 

[pithy84]

@wizzed101: Is the answer A? Lol, I don't know what catalytic efficiency is, but "efficiency" is usually less than one so I chose A.

How did I do?

 

[Promethean]

Ok. Game time!

You have answer every question correction in the B/B section. Every question has been fair so far. You are one question away from 132!

Dun dun dun! Discrete question time!

Triose Phosphate Isomerase most reasonably has a catalytic efficiency closest to:

A. 10^-3
B. 10^8
C. 10^12
D. 10^13

It isn't A, because that would mean that it makes reactions LESS efficient. It is unlikely to be C or D because it is very unusual for correct answers to be very close to an incorrect answer. After all, this is a test that approximates gravity as 10 rather than 9.8 m/s/s. Precision just isn't given that much value. So, I'd go with B.

Checking Wikipedia:
Triose phosphate isomerase is a highly efficient enzyme, performing the reaction billions of times faster than it would occur naturally in solution. The reaction is so efficient that it is said to be catalytically perfect: It is limited only by the rate the substrate can diffuseinto and out of the enzyme's active site.[2][3]

Billions. 10^8 fits that order of magnitude better than the other options. B. is right. I really don't remember squat about catalytic efficiencies, if I ever learned it in the first place. I came to my answer entirely by familiarity with the test and how the test writers usually think when they make up wrong answers.

 

[wizzed101]

It isn't A, because that would mean that it makes reactions LESS efficient. It is unlikely to be C or D because it is very unusual for correct answers to be very close to an incorrect answer. After all, this is a test that approximates gravity as 10 rather than 9.8 m/s/s. Precision just isn't given that much value. So, I'd go with B.

Checking Wikipedia:
Triose phosphate isomerase is a highly efficient enzyme, performing the reaction billions of times faster than it would occur naturally in solution. The reaction is so efficient that it is said to be catalytically perfect: It is limited only by the rate the substrate can diffuseinto and out of the enzyme's active site.[2][3]

Billions. 10^8 fits that order of magnitude better than the other options. B. is right. I really don't remember squat about catalytic efficiencies, if I ever learned it in the first place. I came to my answer entirely by familiarity with the test and how the test writers usually think when they make up wrong answers.

First, thank you for the bolded part. Maybe AAMC should hire me

The answer is B. But I did make it easier. The original 4 choices I had in mind was

A. 10^7
B.10^9
C.10^11
D.10^13

But that's too mean. Anyway, you should know what TIM does. It's one of the enzyme used in glycolysis. One peculiar fact about the enzyme was that the forward reaction is heavily unfavorable. In order for it to work then, the products must be consumed readily and that the enzyme has to be extremely efficient. In fact, TIM can be categorized as a perfect enzyme. In short, it's a among the more interesting enzymes in those 10 steps.

Catalytic efficiency is kcat/km and has a max value of 10^9.

In my original choices, if you know what catalytic efficiency is C, D are thrown-away, and A is extremely unlikely.

In the revised version, you should know 2 things: catalytic efficiency and what TIM does. I can rewrite this question using many different imperfect enzymes and the answer should be A.

Do you think this question is fair? It's sure as heck more fair than some of the questions in the question bank. What if you have 5 discretes like this in a real test?

 

[Promethean]

I have taken a lot of tests over the past couple of years, and I've found myself longing for the MCAT's test writers. They are almost too consistent in how they structure their questions. Your original was absolutely on point for what I would expect to see from them. 1 unreasonable answer, and 1-2 unlikely but tempting to careless guessers. Would that my exams now were so straightforward!

So, yeah, I'd say those questions are "fair," but I didn't see any questions on my exams that would have required this degree of specific knowledge about a particular substance. Even what you call discrete questions were usually secretly about something else entirely. Like, they would seem to be asking you to recall specific knowledge about a component of the question, but a more careful read would reveal that the real question was about a concept, not a random fact. If I did see such a specific question, I'd assume that it was one of the ungraded trial questions, and that it would fail to make it into the real question bank.

Ultimately, if you get down to just having 5 questions per section where you aren't totally certain of the answers, you are still going to have a score competitive for any school you'd want.

 

[wizzed101]

If you have money to blow to satisfy your curiosity, you can look at some of the questions in the new Q bank of the new MCAT. Most of them are beautifully written but some of them required you to know very particular details.

In my real test, I saw some that would've been thrown-away for some people because some advanced bio courses would cover them for sure. And some I knew, as a matter of a fact, during the exam that were not covered in the outline at all.

I got my score. I did quite well in science section. But it kinda left a bitter taste in my mouth knowing how some people outscored me.

It would've felt much better if those people simply covered the content more thoroughly than I did or outsmarted me.

But look at this question from the Q bank.

Deficiency in long chain fatty acid synthesis would most likely affect which reaction?

A. fructose-6-phosphate to fructose-1,6-biphosphate
B. fumarate to malate
C. pyruvate to acetyl-CoA
D. oxaloacetate to phosphoenolpyruvate

Really? WTFBBQsaucue?

 

[Horse Apiece]

For the fatty acid synthesis one above, is the correct answer D? Fatty acid synthesis and degradation is important to gluconeogenesis, as the aerobic process of ATP generation by beta-oxidation is used to fuel the energy intensive formation of glucose from precursor molecules.

 

[wizzed101]

The answer is C. Apparently, per the AAMC, you are supposed to know the structure of pyruvate dehydrogenase complex. The long chain fatty acid is a key component of the "swinging arm" mechanism.

Here, if that is fair, this question of mine should be fair too!

During starvation, in order to mobilize fat storage for bodily distribution, within adipose tissues and the liver, respectively:

A. Phosphoenol pyruvate carboxyl kinase (PEPCK) is up-regulated and PEPCK is up-regulated
B. PEPCK is down-regulated and PEPCK is down-regulated
C. PEPCK is down-regulated and PEPCK is up-regulated
D. PEPCK is up-regulated and PEPCK is down-regulated

 

[Lawpy]

Deficiency in long chain fatty acid synthesis would most likely affect which reaction?

A. fructose-6-phosphate to fructose-1,6-biphosphate
B. fumarate to malate
C. pyruvate to acetyl-CoA
D. oxaloacetate to phosphoenolpyruvate

Really? WTFBBQsaucue?

The answer is C. Apparently, per the AAMC, you are supposed to know the structure of pyruvate dehydrogenase complex. The long chain fatty acid is a key component of the "swinging arm" mechanism.

A simpler approach is that you need acetyl-CoA to make fatty acids. If the fatty acid synthesis is disrupted, you have an oversupply of acetyl-CoA. This will downregulate the pyruvate decarboxylation reaction because there is no need to make more acetyl-CoA.

But i guess knowing how the dehydrogenase complexes work would help too. Seems unnecessary details but at least you could see a B vitamin in action!

 

[wizzed101]

That's hindsight 20/20 though. You can also make an argument like @Horse Apiece. However, all of those reaction are more or less affected by a glut of acetyl-CoA. Whoever made that question had a very particular solution in mind.
That explanation is directly from the AAMC.

 

[Lawpy]

That's hindsight 20/20 though. You can also make an argument like @Horse Apiece. However, all of those reaction are more or less affected by a glut of acetyl-CoA. Whoever made that question had a very particular solution in mind.
That explanation is directly from the AAMC.

Not really. The other choices listed indirectly depend on acetyl-CoA through additional reactions. Pyruvate to acetyl-CoA is the only direct reaction listed, so it would be most affected by the disruption of the fatty acid synthesis.

 

[cke11]

Not really. The other choices listed indirectly depend on acetyl-CoA through additional reactions. Pyruvate to acetyl-CoA is the only direct reaction listed, so it would be most affected by the disruption of the fatty acid synthesis.

I agree 100% with your reasoning when I was thinking about this problem as well

 

[wizzed101]

I don't think the writer used "affected" in that sense lol. If it were just product/reactant regulation, then the reactions themselves would be "unaffected." In C though, the reaction is impaired because the enzyme is not functioning anymore.

Plus, how can you be sure that the usage of acetyl-CoA would be down/up or even changed? What prevented it from being shunted into making ketone bodies? There are metabolic states with excessive acetyl-CoA too.

I mean it's okay if you think about the word "affected" that way, what if this same person wrote another question that your reasoning would lead to a wrong answer?

 

[Lawpy]

I don't think the writer used "affected" in that sense lol. If it were just product/reactant regulation, then the reactions themselves would be "unaffected." In C though, the reaction is impaired because the enzyme is not functioning anymore.

Plus, how can you be sure that the usage of acetyl-CoA would be down/up or even changed? What prevented it from being shunned into making ketone bodies? There are metabolic states with excessive acetyl-CoA too.

I mean it's okay if you think about the word "affected" that way, what if this same person wrote another question that your reasoning would lead to a wrong answer?

I just go to the simplest reason possible since overthinking can lead to second guessing. The question wasn't very good though, since as you had mentioned about the AAMC explanation, the long-chained fatty acid itself can be used as a substrate in the reaction. The problem then is to find out what. So like two ways in getting the same answers.

I just don't see how the other choices would help. Stopping fatty acid synthesis doesn't affect gluconeogenesis reactions, since overall reactions go from glucose to fatty acids, and not vice versa, so D is out. A being true necessarily requires C being true. The citric acid cycle incorporates acetyl-CoA to oxaloacetate, so only the oxaloacetate to citrate reaction would be affected (B is out).

Also, regarding your question:

During starvation, in order to mobilize fat storage for bodily distribution, within adipose tissues and the liver, respectively:

A. Phosphoenol pyruvate carboxyl kinase (PEPCK) is up-regulated and PEPCK is up-regulated
B. PEPCK is down-regulated and PEPCK is down-regulated
C. PEPCK is down-regulated and PEPCK is up-regulated
D. PEPCK is up-regulated and PEPCK is down-regulated

PEPCK is a gluconeogenic enzyme, which is key in liver and kidneys, and not so much elsewhere. In adipose tissue, it could be glucose to fatty acid route + fatty acid release, so PEPCK would be downregulated (can't see PEPCK being upregulated in adipose since it doesnt produce/release glucose).

In liver, gluconeogenesis is key esp with glycogen reserves depleted during starvation. Don't see why the liver will engage in energy-consuming process of synthesizing fatty acids when the reverse reactions could help (although indirectly via citric acid cycle and glycerol metabolism). So PEPCK being upregulated seems reasonable.

So i'd pick C, but i could be wrong and would need to revisit the pathways

EDIT: nvm. It turns out A is better because gluconeogenesis can synthesize glycerol for fatty acid reesterification! Nice. Didn't know that. Guess it was too simplistic to assume that gluconeogenesis is used only for production of glucose, since pathways can be shunted elsewhere.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11872659

 

[wizzed101]

Whoever wrote that question expected that you knew the structure of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex because every single biochem textbook will talk about it at length. The reaction mechanism itself is quite fascinating! So in his mind, it is a freebie. My complain is that it was included but that we are not told that it was included in the content outline, except that it would be categorized under "metabolism."

I mean the other 3 answer choices can be anything because the vast majority of metabolic enzymes do not share that arrangement.

As to my question, C is a bait. Your reasoning is very on point, but I made that question because that's what I thought when I was studying "metabolism." It is just a peculiar phenomenon that happened to stay in my mind.

A is the answer. Can you explain it?

Edit: the key is not synthesizing fatty acid but as stated in the question stem: mobilizing stored fat.

 

[Lawpy]

Whoever wrote that question expected that you knew the structure of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex because every single biochem textbook will talk about it at length. The reaction mechanism itself is quite fascinating! So in his mind, it is a freebie. My complain is that it was included but that we are not told that it was included in the content outline, except that it would be categorized under "metabolism."

I mean the other 3 answer choices can be anything because the vast majority of metabolic enzymes do not share that arrangement.

As to my question, C is a bait. Your reasoning is very on point, but I made that question because that's what I thought when I was studying "metabolism." It is just a peculiar phenomenon that happened to stay in my mind.

A is the answer. Can you explain it?

Yeah it looks like the fatty acid in that question serves as a substrate in the reaction. Seems unusually detailed for a discrete question though which is why i was hesitant to stick with that. I guess the mechanism of dehydrogenase complexes is important to know.

Yeah i realized i had erred when i posted the answer. It's interesting because i thought gluconeogenesis necessarily produces glucose. I didn't know the pathway could be shunted to produce glycerol that can be used with fatty acids to mobilize and release triglycerides.

Good questions! Got me to look into the metabolic pathways more carefully now since they are definitely not linear pathways with all these branches and shunts happening! So thanks for these

Edit: the key is not synthesizing fatty acid but as stated in the question stem: mobilizing stored fat.

I'd need to revisit these, but i think mobilization would mean regeneration and release of triglycerides? So glycerol production is key.

The lipase pathways are a bit blurry atm

 

[wizzed101]

You are right! The key is glycerol production! The reason PEPCK is up-regulated in adipose tissues was to reduce the level of free fatty acid liberated by hormone sensitive lipase, in order to protect the tissues.

Quite counter-intuitive tbh. But it's fascinating for me personally

Still not explicitly stated in the content outline.

 

[Lawpy]

You are right! The key is glycerol production! The reason PEPCK is up-regulated in adipose tissues was to reduce the level of free fatty acid liberated by hormone sensitive lipase, in order to protect the tissues.

Quite counter-intuitive tbh. But it's fascinating for me personally

Still not explicitly stated in the content outline.

Noted this thanks! The lipases still confuse me so i'd need to read up on that. But one thing i found cool is that lipid digestion actually starts at the mouth thanks to lingual lipases... and continues at the stomach by gastric lipases. That surprised me since i thought lipid digestion actually started at the duodenum, but guess not.

Lipid metabolism is pretty complex though. I could see this being extensively covered in medical school biochemistry and physiology courses. Good topics for MCAT passages though

 

[wizzed101]

oh yea. I read somewhere that gastric + lingual lipases were responsible for ~30% of fat digestion. Quite substantial.

After some research, I think I am kinda done with the MCAT though lol. There is not much point for me, and it would be foolish for me to retake! Unless next year percentile distribution got shaken up really badly...

I still don't think the content outline is fair!!!!

 

[LoveBeingHuman:)]

No, but you will be well prepared by doing well in your coursework.

BTW, the median MD school acceptee scores in the 90th %ile.

I've never been able to understand how slightly less than half of all applicants obtain admission to medical school yet the average acceptance is at 90th percentile. I will admit that this may be due to me thinking about this erroneously. Or perhaps some people abandon the idea of med school altogether after scoring very low on the MCAT?

 

[Goro]

The median score for ALL MCAT takers is ~50 %ile (about 25-26 on the old test). So yes, MCAT makes or breaks most people.

I've never been able to understand how slightly less than half of all applicants obtain admission to medical school yet the average acceptance is at 90th percentile. I will admit that this may be due to me thinking about this erroneously. Or perhaps some people abandon the idea of med school altogether after scoring very low on the MCAT?

 

[northernmd]

to anyone who has taken the MCAT, how much analytical chemistry content is there? Deciding whether this is a course that is necessary to take prior the MCAT or if I could take it afterward

 

[freak7]

IIRC almost none.

 

[Dr. Jan Itor]

to anyone who has taken the MCAT, how much analytical chemistry content is there? Deciding whether this is a course that is necessary to take prior the MCAT or if I could take it afterward

Nothing that wasn't covered in organic or gen chem.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[theBriefing]

It is absolutely possible! And this is precisely what you should be aiming for, given that you have enough time. I wondered whether it is possible to master everything a couple of months ago. And now I know, that with persistence, this is absolutely achievable. Here is what helped me MASTER everything I come across in my MCAT books: 1) Create your own notes for everything (I do so through concept mapping) 2) Screen record all your digital notes as if you are lecturing the material 3) Consistently watch your recordings and make sure you know everything you're talking about when watching your video notes. The great thing about this is that it is so easy to track your knowledge and know where you stand in terms of understanding everything. Good luck!

 

[iqe2010]

looks like the MCAT has a ton of cell bio and biochem on it.

 

[libertyyne]

No, you absolutely can't know everything on the MCAT. In fact, if you had unfettered access to the internet and test prep books and triple time, I still think you might not get a perfect score. Dare I say, I think you would not get a perfect score. Achieving a perfect score would also require a fair dose of luck, not just raw knowledge and extra time.

I am not saying this because I am bitter - I actually got a 519 and am very happy with that. I think my score comes, in part, from my acceptance of the facts stated above. You can't know everything, you can't have time for everything, so you need to prioritize. For me, that got me to a 519. Are there topics that I simply ignored because I knew there would be like zero or one questions on that whole topic? Absolutely. Go for the low-hanging fruit. That's my motto. If a question looks like high-hanging fruit, make that decision in the first 10 seconds and skip it. Come back if you have extra time left over.


What is the 90th percentile on the scaled score? Is it like 510?

1+ on this. I too scored well and share this outlook in terms of the randomness associated with 95~ish percentile scores and aboce. I would add that taking as many practice exams under timed conditions and learning from those mistakes pays higher dividends compared to "knowing everything" on the exam.

 

[freak7]

1+ on this. I too scored well and share this outlook in terms of the randomness associated with 95~ish percentile scores and aboce. I would add that taking as many practice exams under timed conditions and learning from those mistakes pays higher dividends compared to "knowing everything" on the exam.

@libertyyne PREACH

 

[aldol16]

There's no randomness associated with 520+ MCAT scores. What people perceive as "randomness" is a factor that cannot be prepped for. That is, that factor is how well you've already prepared your analytical reading/analytical science skills from the classes you've taken. On the new MCAT, the number one factor that determines whether you're in the mid-90s percentiles or the 99th+ percentile is whether you can take scientific data and make reasonable inferences from it based on your background knowledge. That sort of analytical reasoning is the most important skill to have and not something that can be easily prepped for.