What is an image?

[Rhino1000]

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We didn't cover this in my physics class, and it isn't clicking completely for me. Let's say you have a diverging lens to the right of an object. The object is beyond the radius of the diverging lens. I see that if you trace a light "ray approximation" from the top of the object, parallel to the axis of the lens, it (the light ray) will bend away in such a way that it could be considered to appear to diverge from a certain point called the image (of the top of the object). But what is that image? Is this where a visual reproduction of that object/point on that object would appear to be located with a human eye/without a screen? Hypothetically, if the image is in between the object and the lens (specifically the focal point and the lens), and is upright and appears to be smaller than the real object, does this mean that a human eye would see a reproduction of the object at that point, regardless of where the human eye is? Not really seeing the significance/meaning of the image location/information on paper. An explanation is appreciated!

 

[DrknoSDN]

Your description is completely accurate. For a diverging lens the image is what your eye would see when looking through the lens toward the object.

For scale and position with relation to where the human eye is, there may be the some requirement for parallel lines. I can't imagine the MCAT would ask something like that because an Eye is a complex lens with a curved retina and a non-flat image so that is probably beyond what you would need to be able to apply to any lens formula.
Also the MCAT lens is always "ideal", so you would never need to apply real world behaviors like compensation for varying thickness or any motion parallax you could observe in reality by changing your viewing angle.

Mainly focus on under what conditions you get real/virtual, upright/inverted, and how changing the distances will changes the image.