Plant Crap on the MCAT?

[jankanator]

I don't want to offend any hard core botanists out there, but how much plant crap is on the MCAT? I guess for me plants are interesting, but I could care less when I'm thinking about a future in medical research.

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[E'01]

None! Unless there's a verbal passage on plants - but you wouldn't need to have a botany background to answer the questions

 

[jargon124]

No plant stuff on the MCAT - although I don't understand your point about not needing any botany for medical research. Most new therapeutic drug candidates are plant products, as I'm sure you know. That said, I'm glad I didn't have to go through "plant crap" when I was studying for the test.

 

[WISC-ite]

I just would like to add that there was plant related questions on the MCAT last April (at least the exam I took). They were of the basic research-result flavor.

It was a passage in the Bio section and it was related to Arabidopsis thaliana mutants. One could have easily answered the questions as long as you understood basic mutant selection and the concepts of various alleles and phenotypes.

Also, just because you don't understand something does not make it crap. I also highly agree with jargon124, plants research is extremely important. Much of the current medical research techniques (i.e. patch-clamping, DNA microarrays, etc.) were FIRST used/discovered by plant researchers and then borrowed by other fields.

And yes, botany is not specifically tested...but knowing a little wouldn't hurt you. Don't be narrow minded, all of biology is intertwined. Good luck!

 

[jankanator]

hmmmm . . . who said i didn't know anything about plants or didn't understand them? . . . i certainly didn't say that in my post . . . i was wondering if i would be forced to, for example, re-learn the reproductive cycle of plants or the plant growth hormones, or be able to recognize leaf patterns in order to gain admission to medical school . . . and compared to more relevant topics, that would be crap in my opinion . . . i'm not saying it IS crap, just in terms of a this type of evaluation i think it would be a little irrelevant . . . and basically, i just wanted to know if there was plant "stuff" on the mcat, that's it . . .

 

[A. Caveman]

yeah but extracting chemicals from plants for a drug or something like that doesn't require one to understand plants. just order some freakin plants and extract the chemicals. you don't need to study it's growth cycle or mating pattern or whatever. not in the medical field at least. that can be done by the people that ship you the plants, can't it. and Heck no that plant garbage is NOT on the mcat. i only call it garbage because to me it's boring garbage. not because i don't understand it..although i don't. last time i checked my common sense, people like, well..me, are allowed to just have an opinion when it's as inconsequential as my taste for botany or plants in general, can't I?
btw..the questions that will come up, which may involve plants but in no way require you to know about plants, will be about general bio-level genetics and evolution. but the mcat format IS changing, so i would read up at least 3 botany books just to be on the safe side.

 

[megkudos]

I just had to post here cuz this topic made me laugh...I agree plants are soso bad. Besides the oxygen producing thing and they are nice to look at sometimes. But that's about it

 

[Ceelo]

"Plant crap" is what made me decide not to major in Biology. Don't want to offend anyone, but I just can't get all excited about plant physiology and structure.

 

[Vader]

There is very little, if any, plant material tested on the MCAT.

However, just because something doesn't excite you doesn't make it any less important or relevant in general. What you termed "plant crap" demonstrates an unsettling level of dismissiveness on your part, perhaps due to ignorance or lack of interest. Plant research has profound implications for health and the development of new pharmacueticals. Genetic engineering of plants has the potential for feeding much of the world's hungry population and is a cause of much controversy these days. In addition, many, many patients take alternative herbal medications these days.

In general, I prefer to keep an open mind about things, rather than make judgements and be dismissive. The most intelligent researchers that I've interacted with have the ability to connect seemingly unrelated concepts to discover something new.

 

[Jamier2]

Originally posted by jankanator:
•i was wondering if i would be forced to, for example, re-learn the reproductive cycle of plants or the plant growth hormones, or be able to recognize leaf patterns in order to gain admission to medical school . . .•••

I think that the ability to recognize North American plants based on leaf patterns is definitely a viable way to weed out med school appplicants.

 

[A. Caveman]

vader,
yeah but you're pretty much arguing against yourself. nobody said that plant research is unimportant. and yes it's important to not have a dismissive attitude towards certain subjects. but you're absolutely correct, it's lack of interest that lead to this attitude. not everything will interest you in your life. these things you will ignore, allthewhile noting their relevance, but leaving those studies to someone else.
besides, if you've ever taken a class in plant structure and function or in the developmental biology of plants, you'd realize that that's the kind of stuff that we will never have to know about. so it's not so unsettling, i think. tell the botanists at the plant lab to figure all that stuff out, and just send us the plant when they're ready to "part" with it. when it gets to your lab, you'll extract the chemicals you need, and you are done. as far as feeding the world with plants...that may be an area that you'll work in. but that will require you to konw a lot about plant biology. However, if you don't choose to go into that area, i would not find it so unsettling, nor would I call you unprofessional, nor would I worry about your patients if you didn't care about plants.