Why was there so much Physics on the MCAT ?

[AmericanGreet]

There seems to be quite a few comments that the PS section was mostly physics. I am annoyed by this fact because there is NO physics in MEDICAL school.

I have also gleamed that the Physics was more Second Semester stuff than first semester stuff. Is that always the case ?

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[Kikaku21]

There seems to be quite a few comments that the PS section was mostly physics. I am annoyed by this fact because there is NO physics in MEDICAL school.

I have also gleamed that the Physics was more Second Semester stuff than first semester stuff. Is that always the case ?

Why is anything on the MCAT? So that they can compare you to other people.

 

[bruinboy310]

There seems to be quite a few comments that the PS section was mostly physics. I am annoyed by this fact because there is NO physics in MEDICAL school.

I have also gleamed that the Physics was more Second Semester stuff than first semester stuff. Is that always the case ?

Look, I think except for BIO the other two sections are pretty much irrelevant for med school performance. The other two, VR and PS, are there to weed out a bunch of reading comprehension and math challenged folks...

 

[xylem29]

Look, I think except for BIO the other two sections are pretty much irrelevant for med school performance. The other two, VR and PS, are there to weed out a bunch of reading comprehension and math challenged folks...

Well, they said that VR scores correlated with step two scores and science scores correlate with step one scores. i think there's some physics to learn when you do radiology residency

 

[bruinboy310]

Well, they said that VR scores correlated with step two scores and science scores correlate with step one scores. i think there's some physics to learn when you do radiology residency

I actually looked at one of my old roomate's USMLE 2 review book and I don't see how verbal would correlate to it - btw, he is at Northwestern right now as MSIII ... The USMLE 2 basically describes you a paragraph or two about some symptoms and asks you to list some possible steps to test for and to verify a specific ailment. For example, for diabetes, one should check for ketone boides and high [glucose] in the blood and urine.... This type of application seems more like Biological Science section to me.... Anothber example: How would you know that his Kidney might be the problem and not Pancreas? These are more like BS than VR for sure!

 

[Knickerbocker]

I vote for replacing verbal reasoning with Star Trek trivia. I'd get a 15.

 

[thadocta26]

There was physics on the MCAT?

 

[metastasis]

I have been told by people that AAMC likes to throw a curveball at you and see how you do. Most people were expecting a balance of chem and physics, so how do you throw them off, give them more physics. ALso generally most premeds have more experience in chem, and some have not even taken physics, so that be a good way to weed out people, and to see how they really do. Look at AAMC 5R. Why are the readings almost double what you get usually? Same thing with bio.

Its all about seeing how you do with the unexpected.

 

[Pipacus]

There was physics on the MCAT?

no ...by physical science they mean kinesiology

 

[ssquared]

There seems to be quite a few comments that the PS section was mostly physics. I am annoyed by this fact because there is NO physics in MEDICAL school.

When I was studying one day at starbucks a guy came over to talk to me because he saw my MCAT books. He was studying for USMLE step 1, and he commented that it was bunk that they test physics on the MCAT. I asked him how much physics he had covered in med school and he was like, "Um, maybe we went over some thermodynamics once....for like 15 minutes maybe?". He confirmed that physics is just a weed-out tool.

I felt the only physics on there was 2nd semester stuff, too. I was all prepared for projectile motion problems, but nope, no luck. They like to test stuff that's a lot less concrete....it's a whole lot harder to visualize magnetism over throwing a ball.

 

[thadocta26]

You mean people in med school don't routinely calculate the torque of the biceps by multiplying the force by the lever arm? lol

 

[deleted106503]

I was glad there was more physics than gen chem on my form.

 

[87138]

You mean people in med school don't routinely calculate the torque of the biceps by multiplying the force by the lever arm? lol

We did plenty of that kind of stuff in my Biomechanics course. I doubt I'll ever do something like that in med school.

 

[bluemonq]

There seems to be quite a few comments that the PS section was mostly physics. I am annoyed by this fact because there is NO physics in MEDICAL school.

I have also gleamed that the Physics was more Second Semester stuff than first semester stuff. Is that always the case ?

By that measure, almost the entire undergraduate college program is useless for medical school, so why do they insist on applicants taking such-and-such classes? Because if you can do well in the weeder courses, they feel you'll have the intellectual wherewithal to tough out medical school.

 

[Quix]

You mean people in med school don't routinely calculate the torque of the biceps by multiplying the force by the lever arm? lol

No. Nor do they calculate the charge between two plates or estimate the wavelength and/or energy of lasers via E=hc/lambda. For whatever reason, they actually study the body. Making everything you learned about plants irrelevant, too. Bah!