What makes the MCAT so difficult?

[pk2016]

As someone who is embarking on the path to pre-med, I'm wondering what makes the MCAT such a daunting task? Is it the sheer volume of material? The type of questions?

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[ZPakEffect]

Like all standardized tests, the only thing that determines the difficulty of the MCAT is the people who take the MCAT. Its difficulty reflects the capability of the people who would be physicians in the US. We should feel assured that it is as difficult as it is.

 

[MaxPlancker]

Like all standardized tests, the only thing that determines the difficulty of the MCAT is the people who take the MCAT. Its difficulty reflects the capability of the people who would be physicians in the US. We should feel assured that it is as difficult as it is.

Bingo.

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

As said above, the other takers is what makes it so difficult. To be competitive for MD admission you're expected to be better than at least 80% of other test takers.

Practically speaking I found the challenge was that often you're asked to reason an answer by integrating scientific material you know with obscure concepts provided in the passage. I recall having a passage about a photon hitting a lake and being detected by a submarine and having to do some calculating of the speed and angle of the submarine or something weird like that.

Also verbal just because so much is innate ability and improving your score is a huge b*tch.

 

[MaxPlancker]

As said above, the other takers is what makes it so difficult. To be competitive for MD admission you're expected to be better than at least 80% of other test takers.

Practically speaking I found the challenge was that often you're asked to reason an answer by integrating scientific material you know with obscure concepts provided in the passage. I recall having a passage about a photon hitting a lake and being detected by a submarine and having to do some calculating of the speed and angle of the submarine or something weird like that.

Also verbal just because so much is innate ability and improving your score is a huge b*tch.

I agree a lot of the difficulty for testers is the lack of exposure or experience to utilising one's knowledge to real-world, unfamiliar scenarios. I suppose you could say it is somewhat a problem of the education system in general. A lot of the passages are examples of real protocols, equipment, etc that have been developed and students need to reason their way through the process that the inventors had to go through (on a more simple level of course). Even if it's the same concept, if you take redox and apply it to rusting or optics and apply it to the human eye, people panic because they aren't familiar with it.

 

[mimelim]

As someone who is embarking on the path to pre-med, I'm wondering what makes the MCAT such a daunting task? Is it the sheer volume of material? The type of questions?

For a well prepared student that has the appropriate foundation the MCAT is not a particularly hard exam. The reality is that there are thousands of people taking the MCAT. Many of which know they are under prepared and are hoping that they will get lucky. Many more don't understand that they aren't prepared because they lack foundation or the will power to study appropriately.

The MCAT is a standardized exam. The content isn't particularly in depth. But, it is on a relatively broad group of topics. If you aren't organized (which the average pre-med is not), then you will find the exam "difficult".

 

[ChrisMack390]

Most people are accustomed to tests that ask you to basically regurgitate information. The hardest exams I took in college were the ones from professors that insisted on testing on completely obscure details. The MCAT is nothing like that, its a different game.

 

[nomoreequationsplease]

Overall, the MCAT is not technically hard per se. It requires a decent amount of knowledge that you pick up in college science classes. The hard part about it is that you are not competing against yourself. The fact that it is curved and you will be ranked against every other test taker is what makes it hard. You have to have a decent set of reasoning skills and be able to make quick assumptions based on the information you are given.
The reason you have to do so well in order to score high is because you're competing against other people who are trying to do better than you. The MCAT is a competition to help weed out people who have poor study or reasoning skills.

 

[avgn]

Because people aren't adequately prepared for the kind of questions it throws at you. I would have failed out of college if all I were capable of was regurgitating information on exams. Our professors held us to a much much higher standard, especially in biology, so the MCAT just felt like a multiple choice version of my school's science exams. Our premed applying to medical school average (no committee screen) is a 34-35 consistently (though not everyone gets in). Not an accident, folks. Looking back, I was answering MCAT-type critical thinking questions in freshman year.

*insert something about better quality of education at top private colleges despite those who believe quality is the same and "your school doesn't matter" bc it sure as hell ****ing does but not for the reasons most people think*

 

[feather421]

For me, nerves really kicked the difficulty up a notch. The first time I took the test, I was scoring 31-34 on my AAMC tests. My actual test was lower than my lowest FL score, and closer to the first practice test I ever took!

The second time I took the test, I was scoring 36-42 on my practice tests (Kaplan). I scored lower on the actual test as well, but I was still really happy with what I got, so there you go.

For me, the MCAT was a huge mental hurdle of being the "gatekeeper" of medical school, especially because I'm a nontraditional student and felt like I needed to prove myself. I'm optimistic that I'll have more time to prepare for step 1 (was working AND taking a night class while MCAT prepping), and that I won't feel as threatened by the test because I'm okay with a wide range of specialities.

 

[Goro]

Adcom members are particularly allergic to this type of individual. This will not be the only poor choice they make in their lives. If they make it into med school, they routinely sabotage their success by continually making foolish choices.

For a well prepared student that has the appropriate foundation the MCAT is not a particularly hard exam. The reality is that there are thousands of people taking the MCAT. Many of which know they are under prepared and are hoping that they will get lucky. Many more don't understand that they aren't prepared because they lack foundation or the will power to study appropriately.

The MCAT is a standardized exam. The content isn't particularly in depth. But, it is on a relatively broad group of topics. If you aren't organized (which the average pre-med is not), then you will find the exam "difficult".

 

[MaxPlancker]

5) exam skill set: all of the above requires some method, process, discipline. focus, etc to actually approach and take the exam

I think #5 is a big factor that separates the good tester from the great tester. Too many students get in the mindset of the MCAT being this rigid exam where you must solve the questions the way they are presented. Actually, a lot of the MCAT questions can be answered in ways that the test takers didn't intend for it to be solved due to the nature of the exam. It could be as simple as balancing a chemical equation. You should never take the time to actually balance an equation since it's MC and typically the correct answer is C or D because these are "time sink" questions - those that are easy but meant to take away time. Getting inside the psychology of test takers and how they word questions, how they arrange answer choices, etc is invaluable. There's certainly more to the exam than meets the eye and oddly no test prep company delves into real effective test taking strategies all while claiming they know the test inside out. There is a LOT of test taking psychology/"shortcuts" involved especially in CARS.

 

[Lawpy]

For a well prepared student that has the appropriate foundation the MCAT is not a particularly hard exam. The reality is that there are thousands of people taking the MCAT. Many of which know they are under prepared and are hoping that they will get lucky. Many more don't understand that they aren't prepared because they lack foundation or the will power to study appropriately.

The MCAT is a standardized exam. The content isn't particularly in depth. But, it is on a relatively broad group of topics. If you aren't organized (which the average pre-med is not), then you will find the exam "difficult".

I noticed that this sentiment is (unsurprisingly) shared by many high scorers on the exam, especially emphasized from posts by @aldol16 @efle @MaxPlancker and @Lucca. There is this view that doing well on the MCAT requires a lot of luck because the exam tests a very broad array of subjects very strangely. This view has been repeatedly disproved by the high scorers, who emphasize that excelling in the MCAT is an art, and that much of the time should be spent really understanding how the exam tests and thinking like the testwriter (i.e. I have to design a question with 1 right answer and 3 wrong answers; how can i make the wrong answers decisively wrong?). There is some gray area but I think understanding and mastering this art of test-taking can go a very long way in excelling standardized exams throughout the medical career.

 

[mimelim]

I noticed that this sentiment is (unsurprisingly) shared by many high scorers on the exam, especially emphasized from posts by @aldol16 @efle and @Lucca. There is this view that doing well on the MCAT requires a lot of luck because the exam tests a very broad array of subjects very strangely. This view has been repeatedly disproved by the high scorers, who emphasize that excelling in the MCAT is an art, and that much of the time should be spent really understanding how the exam tests and thinking like the testwriter (i.e. I have to design a question with 1 right answer and 3 wrong answers; how can i make the wrong answers decisively wrong). There is some gray area but I think understanding and mastering this art of test-taking can go a very long way in excelling standardized exams throughout the medical career.

Fundamentally, I have found that people who claim that processes require "luck" simply do not understand those processes. This is in medicine, and virtually every aspect of life. The ability to do well on the MCAT is developed starting in elementary school. How much time you spend reading matters. How much time you spend problem solving matters. How much time you spend exploring science outside of the classroom matters. Many people discount this and assume, "well I studied the topics/content that they list, so I should be able to do extremely well." That is not a given. Those skills sometimes turn into a more focal, "test taker" skill set. But, I think that it is a mistake to think that people who do well on the MCAT do so simply because "they are good test takers".

Personally, while I certainly see the utility in it, I have never found that 'learning to test take' has come easily to me or has been particularly helpful. It can certainly be a useful adjunct, but, I really think that a lot of people don't realize how poor of learners they are. They assume that because they did well in something or that they got A's in classes that they know how to learn or problem solve effectively. And, since they have gotten good results, they don't spend the time to learn those other skills and get blindsided by something like the MCAT.

Regarding luck, there is random variation in everything we do, so one can get "lucky" or "unlucky", but it all averages out in the end.

 

[Lawpy]

Fundamentally, I have found that people who claim that processes require "luck" simply do not understand those processes. This is in medicine, and virtually every aspect of life. The ability to do well on the MCAT is developed starting in elementary school. How much time you spend reading matters. How much time you spend problem solving matters. How much time you spend exploring science outside of the classroom matters. Many people discount this and assume, "well I studied the topics/content that they list, so I should be able to do extremely well." That is not a given. Those skills sometimes turn into a more focal, "test taker" skill set. But, I think that it is a mistake to think that people who do well on the MCAT do so simply because "they are good test takers".

Personally, while I certainly see the utility in it, I have never found that 'learning to test take' has come easily to me or has been particularly helpful. It can certainly be a useful adjunct, but, I really think that a lot of people don't realize how poor of learners they are. They assume that because they did well in something or that they got A's in classes that they know how to learn or problem solve effectively. And, since they have gotten good results, they don't spend the time to learn those other skills and get blindsided by something like the MCAT.

Regarding luck, there is random variation in everything we do, so one can get "lucky" or "unlucky", but it all averages out in the end.

So in general, would you say that to do well in any standardized exam, it is essential to have a strong foundation in the content being tested, as well as having a very proficient ability in applying these concepts comfortably to any scenario? Of course, there are other factors involved, but I was just putting these two as the highest priority.

 

[mimelim]

So in general, would you say that to do well in any standardized exam, it is essential to have a strong foundation in the content being tested, as well as having a very proficient ability in applying these concepts comfortably to any scenario? Of course, there are other factors involved, but I was just putting these two as the highest priority.

I think that it depends on the exam. For example, the Step 1 exam in medical school does not require much of those skills that I mentioned. You will have students with great rote memory skills absolutely blow the exam out of the water and then when on the wards are flabbergasted when they don't excel clinically because they have no ability to solve problems at hand.

The MCAT on the other hand does actually test problem solving, so in addition to content, I think that those other skills come into play. It isn't particularly hard logic puzzles compared to those you find in many occupations, but it is more than many students have been exposed to through their education.