Preparing for Genetics on the MCAT (New trend)

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futuredoctor10

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According to posts, on recent administrations of the MCAT (especially 6/13) there has been an upward trend in the amount of genetics on the MCAT and perhaps less physiology/anatomy (the systems).

It's hard to know what we should review beyond basic genetics in MCAT books.

SO for those who took the MCAT on 6/13 or another recent test date with lots of genetics:

1. How would you recommend future testtakers study Mendelian Genetics and Molecular Genetics (transcription, translation, etc)? Is Kaplan (or TPR or EK) enough, and if not what would you recommend supplementing with?

2. What topics of genetics came up on test day which you did not expect? Alot of people said calculations- what type? Were they complicated recombination/gene problems? Hereditary/probability problems?

3. Was physiology undertested and if so how much so compared to AAMCs or Kaplan FLs? (I think this is not as important because we know it is still possible alot of physio will come up on future dates even if it was not prominent on 6/13. But what's more concerning is if new genetics material never seen before, in practice exams or prep books, is showing up on the MCAT!)
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bump. I would like to know the answers to these questions as well.
 
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I took the 6/13 MCAT.

The only thing more mindblowing than the sheer volume of genetics was the utter lack of anything else on the bio section.

I spent thousands of hours studying physiology, only to find one single passage on a neuron. So much for Examkrackers' statment that "there will be a negative feedback problem on the MCAT."

There was so much info that I knew (endocrine, sarcomeres, respiration, etc) that I had no place to show.

At first, I thought they hosed everyone with high level genetics. After reading a post from someone who is a T/A in a genetics class (this person found the material brutal), I came to the conclusion that solving these questions does not require advanced knowledge in genetics, but really good knowledge of the basics.

Know everything in the genetics chapters COLD. When you see a question over your head, simply be confident that the answer is in the passage.
 
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I was talking to my friend in medical school and I told him I was taking Biochem and molecular genetics and he said that should guarantee me atleast a 10 in the BS section, and I got a 10 on the June 13th MCAT.

So if you have time to take a genetics course I would strongly recommend doing so, I swear there was a passage in the BS section I think that was right out of my genetics text book.

If only I did better on the PS section then I wouldnt have to retake this test!!!
 
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The genetics on the MCAT doesn't require anything outside of rudimentary genetics knowledge. The genetics questions are cleverly disguised logic games. I've seen the genetics section of the Kaplan Premiere 2008 book, and its totally sufficient IMHO as a 6/13 taker.
 
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While I do agree with what tncekm said (a lot of the answers were in the passage, genetics is a lot of logic games etc) My professor gave ridiculously hard tests filled with all sorts of thinking outside the box questions that made the molecular genetics passages on the MCAT seem not as hard.
 
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PsxDcSquall said:
While I do agree with what tncekm said (a lot of the answers were in the passage, genetics is a lot of logic games etc) My professor gave ridiculously hard tests filled with all sorts of thinking outside the box questions that made the molecular genetics passages on the MCAT seem not as hard.
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Yeah, practice definitely helps 🙂 But, I'm just saying that people are blowing this out of proportion. I've never taken genetics and it was probably my strongest section in the BS. I think almost everyone can do it, as long as they don't let themselves get thrown off by the apparent complexity of the passages.
 
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tncekm said:
The genetics on the MCAT doesn't require anything outside of rudimentary genetics knowledge. The genetics questions are cleverly disguised logic games. I've seen the genetics section of the Kaplan Premiere 2008 book, and its totally sufficient IMHO as a 6/13 taker.
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Yep. I completely agree. I feel like all of my studying for BS was a complete waste because all it required was basic knowledge. Everything else is in the passage.
 
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I would agree with what has been generally said. On the 6/13 exam, I was just really disappointed how much of a genetics exam it turned out to be rather than a comprehensive biology section. If I remember correctly, I had like 2 passages on body systems, 1 ochem passage, and the rest were related to genetics in some manner.

The thing that really got me was how they dressed up the problems to be overly complex and lengthy. I was beyond nervous, sleep deprived, and burnt out, so I just couldnt grasp the lengthy genetics passages, charts, and graphs. The bio section started off deceivingly easy so I didnt pace myself all that well and then come the 4th or 5th passage, it was like driving into a brick wall. The genetics passages were so much longer than what I had seen on the practice exams and a couple passages had like 3 or 4 charts/graphs a piece. The questions weren't straightforward and simple like the practice exams. You really had to sort out what they were asking of you. I was just not expecting that, after completing so many AAMC tests and PR diags and consequently, kind of freaked out.

I would agree that you really only need to know the basics, but you really need to know them SOLID and be able to apply them quickly. I didnt devote much time to genetics other than doing the assigned HW problems in the PR books (which just more or less breezes over genetics), hence I wasnt comfortable with what I saw on the exam and was quite disturbed by it.

Bottom line, just make sure you are very comfortable with genetics and expect the calculations/probability problems to be slightly more difficult than what they show you on the practice exams

Things I wish I had spent more time with: Mendelian genetics (mono hybrid, dyhybrid ratios, etc.), probability practice questions, "doubling time."
 
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tncekm said:
Yeah, practice definitely helps 🙂 But, I'm just saying that people are blowing this out of proportion. I've never taken genetics and it was probably my strongest section in the BS. I think almost everyone can do it, as long as they don't let themselves get thrown off by the apparent complexity of the passages.
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This could be test dependent too. I agree with the previous poster who said that it was the absence of everything else that made it so monstrous. I think I had four or five genetics passages.

The review books that I've seen (EK and last year's TPR) aren't sufficient. They may update for next year's editions, but in the meantime, get yourself a Genetics book if you can't take a class and do some problems to get yourself used to it. You really do need to know the fundamentals like the back of your hand.
 
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So are there any CBT practice exams out that more or less accurately reflect the amount of genetics on the current mcat?
 
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maybe future exams might might focus less on genetics because 6/13 was so heavily genetics-based?
 
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trojanMD said:
Things I wish I had spent more time with: Mendelian genetics (mono hybrid, dyhybrid ratios, etc.), probability practice questions, "doubling time."
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Monohybrid = something like Bb X Bb and knowing that the ratio will be 1:2:1?

Dyhybrid cross = BbDd X BbDd produces 9:3:3:1 ratio?

Doubling time = the time it takes for a cell colony to double in number?

What kind of probability practice questions? LIke from the example I wrote above, what are the probability of getting two little blue eyed ****s when you have eight children and both parents are heterozygous Bb?
 
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engineeredout said:
Monohybrid = something like Bb X Bb and knowing that the ratio will be 1:2:1?

Dyhybrid cross = BbDd X BbDd produces 9:3:3:1 ratio?

Doubling time = the time it takes for a cell colony to double in number?

What kind of probability practice questions? LIke from the example I wrote above, what are the probability of getting two little blue eyed ****s when you have eight children and both parents are heterozygous Bb?
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Well without being too specific of the type of questions I saw on my MCAT, you should be able to solve problems something along the lines of "with regards to the gene in question in the passage, if a mother has disease X and the father doesnt, what is the probability that the child's child will have the disease if it is a girl?" I'm not even sure if that question makes sense, but expect questions in that general form.

Definitely know the Mendelian ratios, but also know how they can probe you for something more with this basic knowledge like: "if you have two pentahydrid parents, what is the probability that their child will have a _____ phenotype (or genotype)?"
 
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My passages/questions were more experimental. It was more along the lines of locations of certain genes and what those particular genes do and what affect inhibiting this or that would have on a number of other things. A lot of transcription/translation stuff. It was more molecular than Mendelian for me.
 
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trojanMD said:
Well without being too specific of the type of questions I saw on my MCAT, you should be able to solve problems something along the lines of "with regards to the gene in question in the passage, if a mother has disease X and the father doesnt, what is the probability that the child's child will have the disease if it is a girl?" I'm not even sure if that question makes sense, but expect questions in that general form.
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Well I just did a question in EK that was "Sickle cell anemia is an autosomal recessive disease. A male with the disease and a female that is not diseased but carries the trait produce two girls. What is the probability that neither girl carries a recessive allele?" The answer is 0%, is this the kind of question you're referring to?


trojanMD said:
Definitely know the Mendelian ratios, but also know how they can probe you for something more with this basic knowledge like: "if you have two pentahydrid parents, what is the probability that their child will have a _____ phenotype (or genotype)?"
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Pentahybrid parents? I'm going to make the wild assumption that this means two parents with five traits like AaBbCcDdEe. So if there is a question "What is the probability that the child will have a AaBBccDdEe genotype?"

Probability of Aa: 1/2
Probability of BB: 1/4
Probability of cc: 1/4
Probability of Dd: 1/2
Probability of Ee: 1/2

1/2*1/4*1/4*1/2*1/2 = 1/128



Is this a good example of what they might ask?
 
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engineeredout said:
Well I just did a question in EK that was "Sickle cell anemia is an autosomal recessive disease. A male with the disease and a female that is not diseased but carries the trait produce two girls. What is the probability that neither girl carries a recessive allele?" The answer is 0%, is this the kind of question you're referring to?




Pentahybrid parents? I'm going to make the wild assumption that this means two parents with five traits like AaBbCcDdEe. So if there is a question "What is the probability that the child will have a AaBBccDdEe genotype?"

Probability of Aa: 1/2
Probability of BB: 1/4
Probability of cc: 1/4
Probability of Dd: 1/2
Probability of Ee: 1/2

1/2*1/4*1/4*1/2*1/2 = 1/128



Is this a good example of what they might ask?
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👍Yep, more or less. Looks like you're in good shape.
 
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engineeredout said:
Sweet. Watch out everyone, you're going to have engineeredout shatter the curve come august 22nd :hardy:
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Haha nice. Although the two examples seem to be too simple.
But anyways, any pedigree questions on the real deal? The pedigree in TPR ICC really freaked me out.
 
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engineeredout said:
Which is why I'd like to see examples of some of the more difficult questions that they could ask, but where to get these questions?
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TPR is pretty good with genetics stuff, so I feel pretty prepared. But you have to take the Hyperlearning to get the material. I guess you could try genetics textbooks?

Bump on the pedigree question?
 
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I had one pedigree. It was very easy (compared to everything else). Again, it's all test-dependent. Some people had a lot of Mendelian questions, some had molecular, some had both, some had less genetics than others overall.

Honestly, there's no way we can tell you how to prepare because I think many of us were surprised by the BS section.
 
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Yes, there was a pedigree on the real deal for me this year.

I blew it.

After the test I got "Genetics for Dummies."

It actually has the best chapter on pedigrees. It's a shame how actually easy they are.

Also, know the Hardy Weinberg equation and everything you can do with it.
 
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Thanks everyone for replying. There are alot of helpful posts in here!

What exactly is "doubling time" referenced earlier? Can anyone post a sample problem with doubling time? (Doesn't have to be an MCAT testtaker, just to understand this concept- wikipedia unfortunately isn't helping besides telling me "time to double" hehe)

What types of molecular bio/molecular genetics questions were there that takers found MORE difficult than practice materials? Kaplan seemed thorough enough, but I learned much more in detail about transcription/translation in university.

To make my question more specific, are the molecular genetics questions hard because they are extremely detail-oriented (example: requiring you to know in bacterial transcription a sigma factor binds downstream of the promoter between -35 and -10 basepairs) or more conceptual (microarray vs PCR vs Southern blotting, what tests you can use to detect transcription vs translation, etc)?

Was the Biological Sciences section in general difficult because there was material/background knowledge you had to know NOT in any MCAT prep books, or was it hard because it required integration with complex passage information?

Ivyleaguethug, you mention the Hardy Weinberg equation. We did this in my Kaplan course and had several practice problems using the equation - (i.e. given the "expressed percentage" of a disease, p^2, find the number of heterozygotes in the population). Were they these kind of problems? If not what kind/type were they?
 
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futuredoctor10 said:
Thanks everyone for replying. There are alot of helpful posts in here!

What exactly is "doubling time" referenced earlier? Can anyone post a sample problem with doubling time? (Doesn't have to be an MCAT testtaker, just to understand this concept- wikipedia unfortunately isn't helping besides telling me "time to double" hehe)

What types of molecular bio/molecular genetics questions were there that takers found MORE difficult than practice materials? Kaplan seemed thorough enough, but I learned much more in detail about transcription/translation in university.

To make my question more specific, are the molecular genetics questions hard because they are extremely detail-oriented (example: requiring you to know in bacterial transcription a sigma factor binds downstream of the promoter between -35 and -10 basepairs) or more conceptual (microarray vs PCR vs Southern blotting, what tests you can use to detect transcription vs translation, etc)?

Was the Biological Sciences section in general difficult because there was material/background knowledge you had to know NOT in any MCAT prep books, or was it hard because it required integration with complex passage information?

Ivyleaguethug, you mention the Hardy Weinberg equation. We did this in my Kaplan course and had several practice problems using the equation - (i.e. given the "expressed percentage" of a disease, p^2, find the number of heterozygotes in the population). Were they these kind of problems? If not what kind/type were they?
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"Doubling time" (a.k.a. growth time) is just the time it takes for a colony of bacteria to divide. So if you start out with 1 colony and 30 minutes later you have 2 colonies, your doubling time would be 30 minutes. Its really simple, but a concept often overlooked. I had a more complicated one on my MCAT and in retrospect it was really easy, I just fudged the math.

As far as the difference of the real MCAT goes, (IMO) I found the bio section to be MUCH more passage based rather than just asking for a simple fact. Definitely more critical thinking involved on the real deal rather than just many of the knowledge based questions on the practice tests. Conversely, I found the PS section to be more calculations based and less conceptual than the practice tests which may or may not be a good thing for you. Personally, I like plug and chug, so it was nice.

Oh and to address your question, you dont have to know about really trivial genetics stuff like sigma factors, transcription factors, etc. Just know the basics, but know them like its your job
 
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Hey everyone. Today's exam had one passage on genetics of about 6 questions for the passage. I think there may have been more genetics lingered throughout. My best suggestion is to take a genetics course before the exam. This worked out for me last semester because of degree requirements. However, taking genetics as a free course would be good too because its atleast interesting. I won't say fun, but it was definitely interesting. That being said, if a genetics class isn't possible I feel that my Kaplan 2007-2008 Premier Program book (the really thick one) would teach genetics sufficiently.

Things I've noticed on my first exam and the retake:
1. Pedigrees were on both
2. There seems to always be specific questions of inheritance (who gets what, etc.)

Edit: Definitely know your genetics. On the calculation problems today I definitely just had to do a quick look and could get a percentage quickly which saved a lot of time. Also in the discussion forum there is a great question about determining q and p that I saw the other day. Take a look at that, it helped me today!
 
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Based on my experience, here's what you need to know:

Pedigrees: know them cold. Very common on the MCAT and they're free marks
Punnet Squares: see above. Good old Mendel and his equal segregation. More free marks!
Hardy-Weinberg: I never, ever thought they'd test this but it was on my MCAT. Thankfully I knew how to apply it since I took a Genetics course otherwise I would have been in the dark. (p^2 + 2pq + q^2 = 1, where p^2 = homo dominant, 2pq = hetero, q^2 = homo recessive)

The Molecular Genetics stuff is all pretty basic, I'm sure you've done it tons of times in your bio classes.
 
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So yesterday, I talked about how much genetics was on the June 13th exam. Today's exam was the opposite. I had one passage and one discrete (possibly two discretes now that I think about it). I did have a pedigree which was very straight forward. Know your pedigrees, know your Hardy-Weinberg (I was so happy it showed up today), and know your punnett squares and test crosses. Aside from that, I'd say know your molecular genetics as well, just in case you end up with an exam similar to the June administration.
 
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On my test today there wasn't even a straight genetics passage, it was a genetics/physiology hybrid thing. I thought the bio section was extremely fair, although it was a bit heavy on microbiology (an entire passage on bacteriophages and another on yeast/bacteria).
 
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Hardy-Weinberg: I never, ever thought they'd test this but it was on my MCAT. Thankfully I knew how to apply it since I took a Genetics course otherwise I would have been in the dark. (p^2 + 2pq + q^2 = 1, where p^2 = homo dominant, 2pq = hetero, q^2 = homo recessive)
Click to expand...

The Hardy Weinberg equation came up in my Kaplan BS notes... but good to know it actually showed up on the MCAT! I like it so I hope it comes up on my Aug MCAT 🙂
 
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i took the exam yest and as previous posters said, there was only one passage on genetics and a couple of discretes dealing with H-W.

IMO, you need a solid understanding of basic genetics and you should be fine, depending on your test date.
 
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mcant said:
On my test today there wasn't even a straight genetics passage, it was a genetics/physiology hybrid thing. I thought the bio section was extremely fair, although it was a bit heavy on microbiology (an entire passage on bacteriophages and another on yeast/bacteria).
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I had both of those, plus one on fungi. (Curse you, random cell wall question!)

There was a Hardy-Weinberg and an inheritance question yesterday. Both were simple.
 
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Be VERY careful when trying to determine what is on and not on the MCAT. Examkrackers makes this horrendous mistake and then students find out the hard way that they are wrong (one of EK's biggest flaws). You try to focus on genetics and end up getting a test mostly on organ systems and orgo, what are you going to do?

Study everything required. Kaplan Premier purple book more than adequately covers biology.
 
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no one should try and study for one section specifically because you may have your whole test on the subject or one another subject that you decided to ignore. imo, the best way to study for this exam is to understand the concepts of all the ideas and specific details about a few of the topics. granted some of the questions may require a lot of detail, most questions on the test can be figured out by the key concepts surrounding a topic.
 
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Yeah I saw that link - very nice genetics problems which should prove helpful extra practice considering this new emphasis on genetics on recent MCATs. Thanks for the post!
 
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