MCAT Equations

[901608]

Hello!

I am studying for the MCAT right now and I will be taking it early May of this year. I've realized there are a lot of equations when I have been going through my Kaplan books. I was wondering which ones should be memorized for the MCAT, or which ones are more important than others.

Thank you!

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[djsbaseball2014]

Memorize all the equations from the kaplan quicksheets.

 

[901608]

Memorize all the equations from the kaplan quicksheets.

Thank you!

 

[Swagster]

I mean this in the politest of ways, but if you are worried about which equations to memorize, then you may not fully grasp what this test is about. A formula sheet may offer a placebo effect, but spending any time memorizing a third party equation sheet is time you are wasting. You should focus of practice passages and practice questions, doing so many that any equations that may arise are second nature.

 

[901608]

I mean this in the politest of ways, but if you are worried about which equations to memorize, then you may not fully grasp what this test is about. A formula sheet may offer a placebo effect, but spending any time memorizing a third party equation sheet is time you are wasting. You should focus of practice passages and practice questions, doing so many that any equations that may arise are second nature.

I understand what you are saying and I fully understand what the MCAT is about. I've just read a few practice questions that ask things like "if this in increased by this much, how would this affect that". And I know having an idea of the equation would help. That's what I was wondering. I wasn't going to sit around for hours memorizing equations. Thank you though!

 

[NextStepTutor_1]

Hi @tyn34 -

A couple things to note about equations -- yes, you do have to know some for the MCAT. The equations mentioned in the AAMC content outline are especially important (Google "AAMC what's on the MCAT" and you'll find the official info on the AAMC site, broken down by section or as a single large PDF), and third-party equation sheets will usually include those as well as other equations that we consider to be worth knowing. As a rule of thumb, if the writer of a textbook put an equation in, there's usually a reason for it -- although that absolutely does not mean that you're guaranteed to see it, and not all equations are equally likely to come up (which is why realistic practice tests are important to help give you a sense of how the content is tested).

However, the flip side is that just memorizing the equations isn't the best strategy. Instead, try to think of equations as being very condensed sentences describing how the world works, and as you study them, try to understand what they're saying, rephrase in your own words, get an intuitive feel for them (easier for some equations than others, but still...), and so on. This might be part of what @Swagster meant by making them second nature, which I think is excellent advice.

Another way of thinking about it is that equations are best studied in context, not in isolation -- so you can view an equation sheet more as an extremely condensed way to check your understanding of key pieces of content, instead of something to just learn by heart.

Hope this is helpful & best of luck as you study!!

 

[Mr Max]

Memorize all the equations from the kaplan quicksheets.

+1 on this. They were a fantastic quick review for me the night before/morning of.

 

[Chimapnzee3]

I agree that the Kaplan quicksheet were awesome. I also made my own formula sheets. A lot of formulas overlap between the different subject, so I thought is was really helpful to be able to cut and paste things between different sections to find a way to organize things that worked best for me.

I attached my formula sheets in case that helps.

... Whoops, responding to this way late. Well, hope you did well in any case!

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

It’s so much better and easier to just learn the actual concepts and how to do unit analysis. There really aren’t that many equations you need to straight up memorize. Many of them will be given to you along with the constants. But even if they aren’t, if you know the concepts and how to do unit analysis, you don’t need to memorize very much. It’s a multiple choice test, and you can reason your way to the answer very quickly just by understanding what’s going on and what units are involved.

And just knowing the equations isn’t enough anyway. On my mcat, the first question was a calculation question. The equation was provided in the passage, but unless you understood the actual physics of what was happening, you wouldn’t know what to plug into the equation. You gotta know what’s going on.