Why is there so much orgo on the new MCAT?

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nemourspremed

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I thought the emphasis of the new MCAT was going to shift towards more Biology and Biochemistry but I'm seeing organic chemistry questions pop up everywhere on Next Step and TPR FL exams. Is it just the exams I'm using, or do the AAMC FL/real MCAT also have this much orgo? I was neglecting studying for Orgo because I figured other subjects were a lot more high yield and I don't have time to get into all the content.

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I thought the emphasis of the new MCAT was going to shift towards more Biology and Biochemistry but I'm seeing organic chemistry questions pop up everywhere on Next Step and TPR FL exams. Is it just the exams I'm using, or do the AAMC FL/real MCAT also have this much orgo? I was neglecting studying for Orgo because I figured other subjects were a lot more high yield and I don't have time to get into all the content.

High yield orgo MCAT stuff is like oxidizing / reducing agents, sn1/sn2, and H NMR (basically just the peaks for a carbonyl and for NH or OH).

You definitely need to be prepared for any of the material on there man. I highly recommend the TPR o chem book. But yes, as someone who has taken the MCAT, you need to be ready to see a passage or two that draws highly from o chem at least.
 
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I had 2 questions that I could interpret as purely organic chem on my MCAT. Otherwise, knowing what makes electrons move is basically all the organic knowledge I used. I agree with Workaholic however that those topics are still high yield on a test rapidly deviating from classic "high-yield" material.
 
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While it seems there's a lot of organic chemistry, it's more so an illusion. Yes, you need to know all the amino acid structures, for example, but to me, that isn't organic chemistry, more so biochemistry. But, I see your point.

I've taken the exam 3 times now, 1 old, 2 new. The OLD MCAT (45 point scale) had a lot more organic! There was approximately 1.5 organic chemistry passages in the biology section. I say 1.5 because 50% of MCATS back in the day had 1 orgo passage, the other 50% had 2 organic passages. These were traditional organic passages, I'm talking r/s, chirality, grignards, aromatic substitutions, sn1/sn2/e1/e2, naming, and anything else you can imagine!

Don't fret, the orgo on the current MCAT isn't terrible,
 
On my MCAT, my C/P section was, in this order, biochem >> ochem >= gen chem > physics.

There's a decent amount of this stuff.

Know the big stuff like acidity/bascicity rules, nucleophilic and araomatic substitution rules, and ACIDITY ACIDITY ACIDITY. Seriously. That stuff is high yield.
 
On my MCAT, my C/P section was, in this order, biochem >> ochem >= gen chem > physics.

There's a decent amount of this stuff.

Know the big stuff like acidity/bascicity rules, nucleophilic and araomatic substitution rules, and ACIDITY ACIDITY ACIDITY. Seriously. That stuff is high yield.
I was under the impression aromatic substitution is no longer tested?
 
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