So the current trends in the MCAT bio section are...

[215353]

After reading a lot of the MCAT test day threads I have come to this conclusion:

The bio passages in the biological section have:
- a strong probability of being expirement passages w/ a lot of graphs, tables, etc
- you use the information from the passage to answer MOST of the questions.
- It appears you use less of your acquired bio knowledge to answer the questions.
- Some question stems can be very long (like mini-paragraphs).
- You could go as far as saying the bio passages are more like verbal reasoning bio passages.

The orgo passages are straight up from your orgo knowledge...so you either know it or you don't

Is this is a safe description of the current MCAT biological section test takers have seen or read about this cycle?

 

[DOC209]

interesting thread...any one??

 

[BNSN]

I took the exam last year, and everything you said reminds me of my Bio section. Very experiment-based. In fact, at least two passages were from scientific papers.

 

[Fallenonez]

and the ochem is gonna be focused more on ochem 2 right? with emphasis on those carbonyl reactions, alcohols and no testing on the benzenes since its not on the topic list?

 

[pandoraaj009]

This is a good thread. I think the experiment-based passages are what make the mcat so hard, you know? The basic knowledge is sometimes barely needed to answer the question.

I know ppl say genetics is heavily tested, which seems to be somewhat true. However, I think it's unwise to look for trends in the content tested, because they really DO test anything. Example: my may 22 PS had passage on solids, which didn't seem to be. heavily emphasized by the content books (except that TBR had a good amount of passages in their physics book to help me out).

I think learning to interpret data-visual as well as the experimental results from the passage- are crucial skills for the mcat. TBR helps me a lot w/ this I think, because they have a lot of experiment based passages.

I suck at graphs tho. The mcat ones have weird ways of messing me up, both w/ questions and the graphs themselves. Humph.

It seems like another "trend" in BS is asking about what can go wrong w/ systems and/or processes, not just what SHOULD be happening. They'll ask about respitory acidosis, for example, and how the kidney will respond to maintain homeostasis. I try and take notes on what some of the main diseases and/or malfunctions are for stuff in biology. They like to ask about gene/chromosomal mutations, blood flow problems, cancer, infections, etc. By asking about what can go wrong, it requires us to piece together a lot of info about stuff and take it another step.

I think they also like to ask about treatment options, like how to administer things, how/why/when to treat the malfunction in question, and so forth.

 

[pandoraaj009]

and the ochem is gonna be focused more on ochem 2 right? with emphasis on those carbonyl reactions, alcohols and no testing on the benzenes since its not on the topic list?

Yeah, if a benzene shows up, pay attention to the functional group. The benzene will probably be an R group, thrown in to confuse you.

 

[215353]

bump...i like the feedback lets keep it going here guys and gals...

Did people have a lot of orgo passages that dealt with reactions solely? Were there any discrete orgo questions on basic orgo I material?

 

[Mattabet]

That's an interesting assessment of the bio passages, and it makes some sense that it would trend that way. In recent years the USMLE step 1 (the first, biggest test med. students take at the end of their second year) has also trended toward heavier reliance on 'clinical vignettes' where a couple paragraph story will introduce questions.

It might be that the MCAT is trying to better reproduce the kinds of cognitive drains that you'll face a couple years down the line.

 

[thebillsfan]

if the trend in bio is less acquired knowledge, whats the best way to approach the passages?

 

[BigDolla]

I have the AAMC 2009 Official MCAT Guide and they completely omitted alkenes which includes benzene. In other words, I would skim it but not lose any sleep over it

 

[sv3]

I have the AAMC 2009 Official MCAT Guide and they completely omitted alkenes which includes benzene. In other words, I would skim it but not lose any sleep over it

alkenes does get tested and is an important part of orgo. I'd know it well.

 

[215353]

if the trend in bio is less acquired knowledge, whats the best way to approach the passages?

from what i have read from former posters, it appears the mcat bio section is more like a verbal/bio section. Basically you try and interpret what is presented to you.

some of the question stems will even ask a convoluted question in which you need to simply interpret the information in the passage correctly to answer the question right.

this is all speculation...if anyone who recently took the mcat and is repeating or who took the mcat this cycle and was successful and wants to confirm or disagree with this speculation it would be much appreciated

 

[QuackaDO]

Really like this thread and idea... I hope we hear from a lot more recent test takers as I am taking the MCAT in about 3 weeks and would love to hear what is said.

IF the OPs original assessment is true it's a good an bad thing. Good becuase like someone above mentioned that it will have more parity with Step I but bad because if this is true then our current study methods will be come less and less effective over time. If this is true sounds like a greater grasp is being put on reading and comprehension than in depth background knowledge. Sounds to me like they are incorporating the VR aspect into the BS section a little bit now...

 

[shaggybill]

Sounds to me like they are incorporating the VR aspect into the BS section a little bit now...

I hope so. That would be good news. VR is the one subject I'm doing well enough in without having to put a lot of time into it.

 

[215353]

I will more posts about the Biological section from other test days ASAP:

Most informative quotes from the June 18th MCAT thread:

"That was really brutal. Based on the length of passages/difficulty of questions I had no time to spare in any section. What was up with the super long questions in bio? So many questions seemed like mini-paragraphs!"

"BS - Not too much orgo (1-2 passages at most, and they were really straight forward), LOTS of indepth Bio passages with experiments where you had to analyze a million graphs and tables."

"BS: **** organic. Idiot reactions. Still the easiest section...would have got 10-11."

"bs-- 3 MONSTER orgo passages in a row. multiple mechanisms and reactions per passage. the bio part wasn't terrible though."

"BS - OMG! usually my best subject and I don't freak out. I'm more likely to get bored. I agree the question stems were really long and pretty ambiguous!"

"BS was going fine until i realized i had 7 minutes to go for the last 2 passages, had to guess on 4-5 questions. Are you kidding me with those 2 superlong orgo passages?? it was like reading the textbook"

"BS - ran out of time. Mechanism diagrams, seriously?"

"BS - I personally found bio to be pretty doable. The orgo passages were long, so I just read the questions first and went back to the passages as needed."

"BS was dumb, so much organic chem, boo. The biology didn't seem awful, a couple of tough questions, but so so much organic, I kept telling myself, 'OK this has to be the last organic question/passage' then BOOM here comes another organic passage to help your score, haha. I finished each section with about 3-5 minutes to go, but that really wasn't enough time to review many questions."

"BS....I thought this was by far the hardest bio exam i have every came across. discrts were aright but damn...3 orgo passages!!! damn my friends to hell for telling me not to spend so much time on orgo DAMN THEM! But even the bio passages did not feel right..."

"BS: had more orgo but the orgo part was easy....the bio passages that were hard were very HARD and lenghty...I found it harder than any bio passages I encountered in my practice test..nth like the AAMC bio passages."

"BS: Def the hard part for me. I felt like the genetics passages were really convoluted. Still not much orgo, which was nice. overall a little harder than AAMC"

"BS: Skipped 3 questions...that should give you clue about timing...I only had 1 (yes, one) orgo passage and it was fairly easy...the other bio passages were just brutal...they were so in depth, so long, too many graphs which were all really confusing and difficult to read (there were 4 lines on 1 graph and they all intersected with different shapes...my eyes hurt after this)...I hated everything about bio, way too many inferences to be made in such a short time...."

"BS: Holy mother...WTF?????? This section was ridiculous. I always had 20 minutes left over in the section with Kaplan and AAMC, but I barely finished in time with this test. There were two passages that I thought were just ridiculous...I don't know if that was because I had a massive headache by then or what. One was on some experimental thing with carbohydrates or something like that and another was on some experimental thing with the immune system. First of all, who the hell knows anything about an in depth immune system process? I took Physiology this past semester and we barely even covered the subject then, let alone in Introductory Biology. I wish we could have had 3 orgo passages instead of those two. That is EASILY my best subject. The most I ever missed on practice tests was 2 orgo questions, and that was rarely. Hell, I had over 100% going into both orgo finals. This was definitely the hardest BS section I have taken."

"BS: thought i did ok on this.. pretty much had to guess on the 2 hard as hell biology passages.. i thought the ochem was pretty easy. I'm kicking myself in the butt right now cause i missed a stupid question about fungi."

"BIO- HARD AS ***. This is usually my best section and I was expecting to find easy topics and definitely not so many experimental passages. WTF was up with that immune antibody and that bacteria passage. It was WAY more reasoning/critical thinking than I was expecting. They tried to even it out by making the questions a bit easier especially the discrete, but I was not expecting to have to knack away at my brain trying to figure out all the extra information in the passage. I don't even know how it would be possible to expect that after taking the easy AAMC bio sections. It's ridiculous..I hope the curve reflects this. There was more OCHEM than I was expecting also. I didn't think it was fair to give us those outdated AAMC tests and tell us it would be similar to that. Needless to say, I feel braindead. I hope I lucked out and don't have to retake it...ugh."

"BS- OMG!!!!!!! I was getting 13 on aamc tests and I dont think I even got a 10 on this one. Some realy long passages with confusing graphs and nucleotide sequences. Not very knowledge based, lots of pulling answers out of passages that were very long and confusing."

"BS:
Mitochondrial Inheritance
Wittig Reaction
Neuronal Action Potential
Hb/O2 Saturation
Lac Operon (Bacteria that has dynamic surface protein)"

BS: This wasn't terrible. I got lucky in that I took micro so one of the passages was fairly easy for me. I loooved that it was more critical thinking than memorization, because then I could just go back to the passages and think it through instead of fishing through my head for minutiae. The orgo, not a big fan, but it wasn't too, too bad. It was definitely difficult, but I felt prepared.

"The BS, wow! Harder than i expected! this was something beyond the Kaplan and AAMC. No Hormones, No Circulation, No Digestive, No Nothing!! All the stuff was the most random combination of items that I ever encountered. The Orgo was alright. I was happy that only one passage was there. However, there were more orgo questions without passage than bio. which is okay, not that bad."

"Like an AAMC but more genetics based. Memorize physio and understand cellular and molecular biology (cell organelles, enzymes) and moleculer genetics(histone acetylation....) I got some methylation questions, easy cell bio questions..........EK was great in review, aamc was great in showing me how they would test it. Though I don't know my score, I have a subconcious inkling that this may have went well. I had 2 ochem passages. One you can do the questions w/o passage (if you know alkene rxns) and the other questions could all be derived from the passage ( easy points like nmr of an element in the passage l)....AAMC really helped me figure out what types of ochem would be asked and how they'd be asked."

" The BS section was probably the roughest for me. I'm usually pretty good at this section but it seemed like the Bio passages were long and the questions took a lot of time to answer. I finished the section on time, but I think that's only thanks to a pretty lite Orgo load (only one passage that I can remember but it was an alkene passage"

"BS- hmmm. well, i can see why everyone thought it was so hard. i think i did ok, but here's why. i am a bio-med grad student. i've taken histo, anatomy, physiology, cell bio, biochem, IMMUNOLOGY . . . i was drawing almost 100 percent from things i learned in my grad school classes. i don't know how anyone could answer those questions based on 2 semesters of bio and a prep class. wow. those questions reminded me of ones from tests i've taken @ graduate level. jeez. so im sorry all of you got so supremely f*cked, and i hope the tens of thousands of dollars i've sunk into grad school have paid off in my BS score. hope orgo didn't drag me down too much."

"BS...I had mostly experimental passages!!! Which are not my favorite. Pretty straightforward bio though except the last passage. Did anyone have the last passage I had about mice and experimenting with basal metabolic rate, etc (I hope I'm not saying too much!)?!?! Ridiculous ridiculous graphs, not knowledge-based at all. Required really going throught the passage to pull out answers. I was running out of time and didn't have the time to go through the convolute passage to get them. I'm shocked at how much I studied wasn't on here...nothing about kidneys, digestion, endocrine, reprod, development, nervous system...everything I went through one last time last night. Also it was raining organic all over the bio, which I didn't appreciate. Wish I would've went through carboxy acid derivatives a little better. But the SN1/SN2, stereochem, spec reading parts I felt were easy. Feel like I could've gotten 11-12. All depends on that last passage which I mostly guessed on"

"Now biological on the other hand... I don't know if it was my brain being dead or what, but I thought it was just so convoluted. It seemed like it was all experiments and we had to think about the outcomes.

I can remember passages on:
Fungi toxin
Sickle cell anemia
Virus infection
High fat/low fat/some weird enzyme-- AHHHh
One o chem
And maybe another ochem??

It sucks, because right now I feel like I could have gotten anywhere from a 10-45. How is this possible?? Anybody else with those same biology sections"

"BS- Well was bull ****. Last time I checked the MCAT was not supposed to be research briefs about stuff that we have never heard of. I have never seen so many experiment passages ever feel like we were MCAT guinea pigs. At least the organic and the first passage was easy."

"BS - by far my strongest section. Never had to guess on more than 5 on any practice test. Always scored between 12-14. On this test, all there was only one organic passage which is my strongest subject and was really easy. Not to mention there was only one orgo passage. The biology portion, on the other hand, was rediculous! More microbiology and molecular bio than I can fathom on a single test. All I can say is...I wish I had taken microbiology, I wish I had taken microbiology, and maybe I had been alright!"

"BS: This was what I really liked about my MCAT. 2 simple orgo passages (didn't study this section much) + few discretes, and lots of genetics stuff, but not the molecular kind. (translations/transcription) Also very little physiology. I am kicking myself for messing up one problem though. I for some reason thought erythrocyte = white blood cells because of the the first question... -_- gg me. Hopefully, I did okay in the passage. Some fungus stuff that I guessed on but seemed easy? o_0 Like others have mentioned lots of graph/data reading so I guess more of a verbal biology? Anyone remember the amino acids for the one discrete? (2xhistidine as a hint)"

"BS: Usually my best section. Average was a 12 on practice tests. Very little outside knowledge required on this one. MAjor critical thinking stuff. The anxiety hit me about half way through like a brick wall. STarted with the chest pain. I really almost got up half way through. I had that mouse metabolism passage, the NET bacteria thing, etc, only 2 orgo, some other tough bio... orgo not so bad although I'm sure I missed some questions anyway."

Biological: Too much experimental, which I do not mind. I have been doing research for a while, but the questions were ridiculuos. I had to go back to the passage a thousand times on the mouse DA2 knockout passage. Very time consuming, the NETs one was stupid, compare values from the table that would match. I kept thinking, both of these answers would work.

1. Mouse Knockout
2. NETs
3. VACV
4. Orgo passage (They used symbolism, portrayed us premeds as the electrophile, but the message was clear. AAMC did a backside attack by SN2 mechanism on us, June 18th takers)
5. Fungus Toxin
6. mold Aggregate

*Armadillo discrete was a big WTF, same with the orgo discretes.

The questions had a subjective element to them (most in biological), nothing where you can say: "oh I know that, this is what happened, so it must be this".

BS:
Mitochondrial Inheritance
Wittig Reaction
Neuronal Action Potential
Hb/O2 Saturation
Lac Operon
The synthesis reaction with the 2 benzenes
Esters

BS: Freakin harder than the AAMC's and Kaplan's! Two crazy passages that required more reading and interpreting crazy graphs and symbols than any application of knowledge. I usually finished BS early but I ran out of time on test day while I still had 22 mins left for 2 passges!

The BS section with the experiments is classic! Drug treatment vs no drug. Introduction of a mutation, then see if drug still works. That is how most researchers go about testing the efficacy of their drug or to see which genes are responsible for drug targeting. I think if you had difficulties interpreting the graphs, try to get your hands on a couple primary articles and familarize yourself with interpreting it, I think it would be great practice (its tough especially if you havent had much exposure). Now all primary articles are not equal, some will be ridiculously hard to interpret then others, but you have seen what the difficulty of the mcat ones are (to be honest and im sure im going to get a lot of grief about this, but they are not really that bad). I think once you get the hang of this, the passages should be a breeze.

Bio: Seemed a lot harder but I think I did alright. A lot of critical thinking...

 

[215353]

Most informative quotes from 5/2/09 thread:

BS-The first half I was sailing through, then i had like 3 straight passages that gave me a lot of trouble-the two about genes and the ochem one. I thought the little ochem that there was was pretty difficult.

BS was a breeze aside from a few from the orgo passage. I thought the prion passage had some strange questions and the last of the discretes had some interesting stuff... aromatic amines? ok... I thought the ApoL passage was great.

BS- Medium difficulty. The orgo passages were WAY, way harder than last time...I actually had to think each one out fairly diligently. Charge-to-mass ratio? Seriously? I had one, super easy orgo passage when I took it on 3/28, and a few simple individual questions. This was much different. Seemed also to be a lot of questions on developmental biology...which was sweet because I'm a developmental biologist.

bs: so-so, tons of developmental bio

BS: Dare I say, I really enjoyed this section. Being a biomedical grad student really helped me here. Glad there was very little organic. The one organic passage was on the tougher side, but luckily I was breezing through bio and was able to spend a good amount of time on it.

my BS ones were
apoL, prions, orgo, hermit crab, neural tube, liver induction.. can't remember the last one

BS: This was pretty easy for me. 4-5 confusing questions, but in general was pretty breeze and I had enough time to go over too. I definitely think being a neuroscience major and some development classes helped more than my studying in the past months......

Bio - the discretes really pissed me off..i thought it tested things that it didn't seem to focus much on the practices..the specific amino acid question bothered me..and there wasn't too many orgo questions..may 1-2 passage and discretes..i prob spent the most time on the prion passage though, that was prob the worst part for me

BS: A lot easier than the practice tests, were much straightforward. That ochem passage...I was just like... ? hahaha. probably about a 9-11

BS: Most passage stuff was pretty easy except for that one orgo passage and the discretes seemed much harder than usual.

BS -- Wow, by far the easiest for me. I was breezing through the first half of the section. The OChem passage was tough, but not too terribly bad. Thank goodness there was only one OChem passage! The prori (sp) protein passage was by far my most difficult for me. And wasn't there 2 passages on development?? That was kind of lame, but it sure beats having extremely hard passages on something like dna recombination. Overall, this is by far my highest scored section. . .

bs - for me, this was really hard. on aamc's, the only q's i got wrong were careless errors etc so usually got 14 or 15. On this, i had to guess on at least 6/7 questions...looked a few up and know i got at least some of those wrong... First couple passages seemed really easy, like high school stuff, i was like 'awesome - i hope its all like this!' Then it wasn't...oh well. Def some stuff in there that was nowhere in my practice materials/tests.

for bs, it was going fine, until thoses experimental passages came, i always miss couple questions there, no matter how hard i try, dude the discretes were hard

BS- If there was such thing as an anti-myself section, this was it. BS was my most consistent section of all AAMC tests. Ranged 12-15. I was NOT prepared for that much developmental biology. By far my weakest and least familiar topic. However, that was my fault as I didn't think they would ask more than 1/2 questions on it. I too had the 2 ochem passage test. I will admit there were 2/3 passages that were ridiculously straight forward. Kind of scared me how black/white they were. HOWEVER, wtf were up with the discretes and ochem passages? I know my ochem, but WTF did they test on? Some seemed designed solely to take up time, rather than test knowledge. And the discretes seemed very random, and not your typically tested ones. I think I understood the crab passage pretty well, but the 2 on liver regeneration and growth factor seemed rather funky.

BS - Did not like the fact that TWO passages were on embryology. Also had some trouble with making sense of the data in the crab passage.

BS: This section was waaaaaay easier than last months. On 3/28 I had 14 minutes left to do 2 passages and 1 set of discretes, this one I had 20 minutes left to do my last passage. However, the one ochem passage that was on this test was insane.... I probably only got like 1 or 2 questions correct on that one even though I saved it for the end and had plenty of time to do it.

BS: there were some really easy questions (digestion passage was too easy) and some hard ones. The Ochem questions were wacky and much harder than the ones on the practice tests. I didn't expect a mass spec question either. The NMR ques on the 4 compounds ate up a lot of my time too.

BS: Overall, not THAT bad. Wished I had reviewed the development stuff more. Also, the orgo was wtf? I was using EK and felt that I was underprepared.

BS - It was ok... crabs.. meh.. for some reason I had a hard time w/ what exactly the table was telling you. Chalking it up to rushing and not reading carefully. Later realized I missed a ridiculously easy question on another passage... oh well.

BS- similar to AAMC tests if not easier. 1 orgo passage so I was happy. Too bad it was harder then AAMC orgo passages.

BS: Indifferent on this one. I loved the digestion passage, so easy. Unfortunately I probably made some dumb mistakes, so we'll see. What was awesome was that I skipped the two passages with only 4 questions and focused on the long passages, and then had 10 min each on Fgf liver thing and the mice which helped. Organic asked something about charge/mass which I had never heard of (in class or EK). Cheap shot on that one.

BS - Thought it was pretty normal. Ochem wasn't too bad. WTH was that mass/charge crap? Made 3-4 guesses all in all.

Bio: Also not bad, I had two orgo passages which sucked, but better than three which the 5/1 test takers had to deal with. The crab passage data was a little confusing at first to understand, but I think I understood it. If not, there goes that whole section since every question pretty much depended on understanding the data.

BS: It really does goes to show, the more you study it, the more likely it will not show up. I went out of my way to know everything about Reproduction and Genetics. That O-Chem passage was not bad. I hated the wording of that spectras. Hoping for an 11.

BS - hmm. not sure what to think. I was running short on time so had to do two passages in a rather rushed manner (the prion passage and one other one...trypanosomes?). I found it odd that there were two embryology-based passages, though one of them really seemed to be about genetics if I recall correctly, which I probably do not. the hermit crab passage was cool. at first I felt stumped by it, then I realized that even though the questions seemed confusing they could be answered by looking for patterns in the data. I hope! thought the o-chem passage was kind of tough, and I love o-chem. it rocks my world in a good way. I think I could have figured it all out if I hadn't felt so rushed.

BS: Was this section a joke or what? Many of the questions were very straightforward. So straightforward that I thought I was falling for a trap answer because the information could so easily be pulled from the passage. The O-Chem passage was a kick in the pants. As described by others, mass/charge what? The crab passage wasn't too difficult, but it's probably b/c I work as a lab rat and I'm use to constantly analyzing data.

BS: I'm kind of afraid that the curve will be really brutal for BS. Some of the passages like the digestion one was probably easier than most AP Bio questions. The crab one was cute, but come on, a ninth grader can do that one (and do do them in state science exams). The Ochem, aside from the amino acid question, was pretty much expected arrow-pushing stuff. Learned something about prions though, but that was straightforward too (with a few genetic concepts thrown in). 12-14

BS- I thought this was hard, mainly because the non-passage questions were so simple that I over-thought them. All of the bio passage questions were super-easy in my opinion (including the crab one)...much simpler than the ones I took the first time I had the MCAT. They also asked some questions on things I always glanced over during studying because I didn't think they were important (like sperm development or specific amino acid structure). I was also surprised to see a fair amount of random orgo lab questions (I've never seen an IR questions without a carbonyl 1700 peak, Rf factor is pretty rare but I think nailed that one, or recrystallization which I know I misinterpreted). If I was a junior and had just taken orgo and orgo lab I would have done a lot better on those.....but I'm three years out from orgo and it definitely wasn't as fresh. My test scores were between 10-14 on this section, and I'm PRAYING for an 10 or 11. Already know I missed 5-6 for sure (probably 3 of which should have been marked correctly), and counting on at least an additional 3-6 more for ones I probably didn't know I got wrong.

 

[QuackaDO]

Thanks for compiling this... it's good info. From what I see it looks like both test dates had 2 or 3 variations of the test for that day with several of the same questions on all versions. It also concerns me about some things I saw here... like they are testing benzenes and Alkenes when they are not mentioned anywhere on the study guide and they are subjects pretty commonly passed around here on SDN that people say you don't have to study... guess it goes to show everything is fair game. The big draw I take from this is basically the point of the OP in the first post.... more experimental based passages than passages that draw on your knowledge. Like I said... thanks for the work in compiling this (I'm sure it took awhile!) and i'd love to see more.

 

[215353]

more is coming but i will get to it later tonight...need to use the rest of my time and energy for studying for the day

 

[cher25]

Thanks for compiling this... it's good info. From what I see it looks like both test dates had 2 or 3 variations of the test for that day with several of the same questions on all versions. It also concerns me about some things I saw here... like they are testing benzenes and Alkenes when they are not mentioned anywhere on the study guide and they are subjects pretty commonly passed around here on SDN that people say you don't have to study... guess it goes to show everything is fair game. The big draw I take from this is basically the point of the OP in the first post.... more experimental based passages than passages that draw on your knowledge. Like I said... thanks for the work in compiling this (I'm sure it took awhile!) and i'd love to see more.

I took the 8 a.m. test on June 18. I had two alkene passages on my exam. The alkenes were not side chains... they were the focus of the entire passage! Know alkenes! I ended up with a lower score than expected in Bio and I think it's solely because I didn't know those alkenes. I think I pretty much guessed on many questions in the alkenes passages because I just didn't study them. That's my own fault though... I should have known better.

As far as Bio, it was challenging.. but doable. I personally think that Kaplan's Bio section tests were very representative. Their sectionals are loaded with molecular bio, molecular genetics, experimental type passages, etc. However, I must admit that I have not seen the practice material from any other source (EK, TPR, TBR, etc) so I don't know if their material is a better representation.

 

[SysBio]

(deleted post....will post under new thread instead)

 

[coolchix321]

Due to these new trends in MCAT Bio... what is the best way in studying for this section?
How does one prepare for these experimental Bio questions and such?

 

[215353]

Berkeley Review Biology practice passages are very helpful. Most answers require you refer back to the passage to answer the questions correctly and some questions require to pull from you current knowledge base....but more from the passage. This is similar to what has been described from past MCAT test takers about the Bio section on the MCAT.

Princeton Review Science workbook has a lot of bio passages that are experimental based as well...

get your hands on either source

 

[Hemichordate]

So the consensus is that Kaplan 1-7 are the best/most similar to MCAT BS and the AAMC tests are too easy?