Organic on MCAT

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In a post on the pre-DO board I talked about retaking Organic I because I made a B that was like 10 pts away from a C. And the reason why I want to retake the class is because I didn't put that much time into it for a lot of different reasons. Anyways some are saying to not bother retaking it and just do some studying for it through practice books etc.

Anyways, should I retake it? Some say there isn't that much of it on the MCAT.

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There isn't a lot of organic on the MCAT, and what is covered is limited. Every few years the AAMC pulls organic questions and replaces them with biology questions. You do need to know reactions of alcohols, carbonyls, and amines. You also need to know NMR and IR-spectroscopy. It would be helpful to know carbohydrate things (how a-glucose differs from b-glucose, etc.), and know general theory of organic (carbocations, electrophile, nucleophile, stereoisomers, etc.).

One good tip is that you don't need to memorize ANY reactions. As long as you can understand the four mechanisms (SN1/SN2/E1/E2) then you shouldn't have a problem with ANY reaction the MCAT will throw at you. Good luck to you! :luck:
 
I don't think you need to retake if your goal is to do well on the MCAT... any of the popular review books/courses should be adequate for preparation. There really isn't that much there, from what I've seen, and the stuff that is there is not the most difficult.

What I have found is that the class I'm currently taking in human biochem has been very helpful in reviewing both the ochem and bio parts of the BS section, and has just plain been interesting and fun. So that might be an option for you to consider. Whatever you decide, good luck! :)
 
TheDarkSide said:
I don't think you need to retake if your goal is to do well on the MCAT... any of the popular review books/courses should be adequate for preparation. There really isn't that much there, from what I've seen, and the stuff that is there is not the most difficult.

What I have found is that the class I'm currently taking in human biochem has been very helpful in reviewing both the ochem and bio parts of the BS section, and has just plain been interesting and fun. So that might be an option for you to consider. Whatever you decide, good luck! :)

Retaking the class won't really help your gpa amcas whise since they average both grades. you might as well not go through all that stress for a whole semester and study it by yourself w/ no pressure.
 
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You're in a sticky situation because there is not much o-chem on the mcat at all. In fact it is continually being replaced by molecular biology. But unless you can ace (less that 8-9 wrong) the rest of the bio section you may not get a score that reflects your ability. Other peoples advice to study practice mcat materials is a must unfortunately these only give a surface review. I am particularly swayed toward kaplan. In addition to this take as many o-chem practice tests as possible including all passages and discretes that you can find. Kaplan has a whole bunch of them. If you continue to do very poorly (less than 50% correct) then you should consider retaking an o-chem course. If you do it will surely be easier than the first time and you may even enjoy it. In addition you will need to know o-chem for pharmacology in med school so either way practicing o-chem will not be a waste. Good luck.
 
Prophecies said:
There isn't a lot of organic on the MCAT, and what is covered is limited. Every few years the AAMC pulls organic questions and replaces them with biology questions. You do need to know reactions of alcohols, carbonyls, and amines. You also need to know NMR and IR-spectroscopy. It would be helpful to know carbohydrate things (how a-glucose differs from b-glucose, etc.), and know general theory of organic (carbocations, electrophile, nucleophile, stereoisomers, etc.).

One good tip is that you don't need to memorize ANY reactions. As long as you can understand the four mechanisms (SN1/SN2/E1/E2) then you shouldn't have a problem with ANY reaction the MCAT will throw at you. Good luck to you! :luck:

What do u mean by not needing to memorize any reactions?
 
You do not need to memorize specific reactions...such as "Tertiary Amine Formation" or "Aldol Condensation." If you understand the general principles of organic chem (SN2/SN1/E2/E1, carbocation stability, rearrangement, etc.) then you shouldn't need to memorize reactions...it will come 'naturally' to you I suppose.
 
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