MCAT 2015 Tools & Resources

With the first round of the new MCAT just around the corner now let’s talk about the range of your study arsenal! A lot of MCAT resources out there are outdated and tailored for the old/current test rendering them to be of little real help for the MCAT 2015 beast! The word beast is not an understatement. This test isn’t just longer, it’s definitely harder:

jimmy fallon med school joke

 

AAMC MCAT 2015 Interactive Guide

The Association of American Medical College thankfully has laid everything out pretty clearly covering all the bases of the MCAT 2015. Using their interactive guide here you can explore explicitly stated tested material and even check out sample questions with explanations! The AAMC also sells a book guide to the test along with sample question for $35 here but with the MCAT 2015 costing $300 itself this guide is not totally necessary. Then there is their full-length practice test for $25 here.

 

Khan Academy Tutorial Videos

The AAMC with the Khan Academy has also released over 100 videos on numerous topics to be tested for free. Just by using your AAMC log in, you can access the video tutorials here.

 

Class Notes & Textbooks

These are your best tools for studying and reviewing and since you took tests for these classes already you know the best ways to study for you. Stick to these strategies when studying for the MCAT. The saying “treat it like a class” is real. Using the AAMC guide mentioned earlier as well a guide is the best thing you can really do. Since the material is laid out so well you can pin point areas for review. Commonly students tend to spend too much time reviewing material while spending not enough energy on practicing…

 

MCAT Cracker Is More Than You Think!

Speaking of practicing: with MCAT Cracker you take MCAT 2015 practice tests that simulate the look and feel of the new MCAT and that emulate the difficulty level of the real thing. To start you can log on to MCATCRACKER.com and take a free diagnostic test here to see where you stand and pin point your weaknesses.

 

MCAT Cracker also shares awesome videos giving an overview to each section. Check out the introductory MCAT 2015 video below and here’s the MCAT Cracker YouTube channel to watch all the videos.

 

Besides using MCAT Cracker for practical practice and advantageous tutorial videos, THIS BLOG is a treasure trove for an inside scoop on all things MCAT 2015! Be sure to check out our breakdown series where we talked about in length not only the new test itself but each of these new integrated sections! Shameless plug: There’s also great posts on study tips and study motivation! So thanks for tuning into the blog and stay tuned for more tips and tricks!

MCAT 2015 Breakdown: Introduction Guide to the All-New MCAT!

Starting in April 2015 the completely revamped Medical College Admission Test rolls out and to put it simply: IT’S A LOT!

In case you’ve missed it, here on the blog we’ve discussed the changes in the MCAT 2015 and even had a series of posts breaking down each individual section of the MCAT 2015 so check them out!

Consider this post a bonus round of breakdowns for a look at the all-new MCAT as a whole!

 

Why the big changes?

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) really out did themselves crafting this new exam! The changes reflect a shift of focus on a more holistic approach to medical education and testing how students can apply their all their knowledge to the medical field. In addition to testing on the application of the natural sciences there is now a section on the social behavioral sciences highlighting the importance of sociocultural and psychological expertise integration needed in today’s diverse healthcare world.

 

Registering for the MCAT 2015

You can start registering the new test starting in February 2015!

Fun fact: To encourage examinees to be the first to take the new exam, AAMC will provide April 2015 examinees with a $150.00 Amazon.com gift card. FAP (more on FAP below) recipients who take the exam in April of 2015 will receive a $60.00 Amazon.com gift card.

 

$ Cost of Taking the MCAT 2015 $

The test is a bit pricier than it’s predecessor at $300 (up from $275). This is to make up for the fact that this MCAT is longer with more questions in each section and longer in actual test time.

Keep in mind the AAMC will continue to offer the Fee Assistance Program (FAP) to help student who may need financial assistance. Those who qualify for FAP benefits will be charged a reduced registration fee of $115 so be on the look out for that and apply asap!

 

What’s on the MCAT 2015?

On the new MCAT there will be 4 big broad sections (remember there are individual breakdown post on each):

  • Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems, 59 Questions & 95 minutes
  • Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems, 59 Questions & 95 minutes
  • Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior, 59 Questions & 95 minutes
  • Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills, 53 Questions & 90 minutes

Overall the AAMC have slated 10 Foundational Concepts and 4 Skills within the sections that they are testing you on. These concepts and skills reach across all the courses you’ve taken and really stretch your knowledge to the limit! Each of the Foundational Concepts are broken down further into Content Categories for further detailed clarification on the subjects. The test makers here are really thorough! Learn about each section, concept, content category and skill with the AAMC’s  tour of the exam here.

 

How long is it?!

Get ready for this. Ready? It’s a marathon with total testing time is 6 hours and 15 minutes! But counting everything including the tutorial, breaks, and check-in procedures, test day clocks in at around 8 hours! Time breakdown below:

MCAT 2015 Breakdown

 

Scoring the MCAT 2015

You will receive 5 scores, that’s one for each of the four sections and one total score! Each section’s score ranges from a low 118 to the high of 132 with the midpoint for each being 125. Thus the total score range is from 472 to 528 with a midpoint of 500. That’s a little confusing to conceptualize so check out the AAMC’s graphic below:

Scoring the MCAT 2015

 

This all is really an outlined introduction to everything MCAT 2015 (it’s huge). See everything the AAMC’s has got to say on the test here and be sure take a gander at the FAQs here. Remember that with this major overhaul of the MCAT a lot of resources available out there are now outdated and won’t be the right in preparing for MCAT 2015. MCAT Cracker has it down though and you can PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE to gain the edge over this new beast.

MCAT 2015 Section Breakdown: Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills

This is Part 4 of a series breaking down each section for the new MCAT 2015. Be sure to check out the whole series to get the full rundown of all things new with the upcoming MCAT 2015 because this really is a whole new ballgame! The new sections really aren’t just revamped versions of the old 3 sections: Biological Science, Physical Sciences, and Verbal Reasoning, these integrated giant sections are really brand new monster sections! On the menu today: The Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills or CARS Section! The official tagline of this section is that it assesses your ability to “Analyze, Evaluate and Apply Information Presented in the Passages”. As you’re aware of by now, the magic word for the MCAT 2015 is integration and the CARS section is basically testing your comprehension by integration! Yep, integration is here too!

 

The CARS section is different from the others in quite a few ways. First off it’s slightly shorter, you only have 90 minutes here and about 50-60 passage-based questions (no free-standing). It’s also different from the other sections because you don’t necessarily need specific content knowledge to answer these questions; all the information needed is in the text (and your interpretation of said info). The topics of the passages fall into two broad categories and are distributed equally in the section: 50% Humanities and 50% Social Sciences. These cover big subjects like Ethics, Population Health, Philosophy, Studies in Diverse Cultures, and etc. Below is MCAT Cracker’s further breakdown of possible topics in Humanities and Social Sciences:

CARS Subjects

Notice that these aren’t the ‘Natural Sciences’ kind of subjects and that’s because Medical Schools want to see you apply your analytical and critical thinking to these areas of study too! You have to be well-rounded and well-read to succeed not just in future schooling but also to be a productive member of the healthcare community. Keeping that in mind, you should know these passages are highly stylized in writing type and contain a fancy vocabulary. They are meant to be complex and thought-provoking pieces, different from medical journals and textbooks that you’re used to. You’ll have to read the text and consider the author’s intentions, tone, point of view then be make inferences and suggestions based of all that. If it’s been a while since you’ve had to do this kind of reading, that’s completely understandable! Recreational reading? Who’s got the time? With practice, *coughMCATCRACKERcough*, you really can hone your Critical Analysis and Reasoning skills set! Check out the AAMC’s spiel on the CARS section here and MCAT Cracker’s full introduction video to it below:

 

Although there are no Foundation Concepts covered in this section like the rest of them, here are the skills and percentage breakdown being tested here:

1) Foundations of Comprehension (30%) – Summarizing the text and developing the overall meaning

2) Reasoning Within the Text (30%) – Evaluating and critiquing the big picture!

3) Reasoning Beyond the Text (40%) – Synthesizing, adapting, and reinterpreting the concepts and content of the passages

This Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills section is not to be taken lightly and the skills they’re testing really are important for you sooooo PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE! This is not just reading comprehension; you gotta Analyze, Evaluate, and Apply your reading of the text! Hop to it! Go to MCAT Cracker and PRACTICE!

MCAT 2015 Section Breakdown: Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations

This is Part 3 of a series breaking down each section for the new MCAT 2015. Be sure to check out the whole series to get the full rundown of all things new with the upcoming MCAT 2015! These really aren’t just revamped versions of the old 3 sections: Biological Science, Physical Sciences, and Verbal Reasoning, these integrated giant sections are really brand new monster sections: 1) Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems, 2) Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems, 3) Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations and 4) Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills.In case you haven’t figured it out: The magic word for the MCAT 2015 is integration. You’re not being tested on straightforward subjects more like all your knowledge will be tried intertwined together. The Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations section is not to be underestimated as a just a psych section. To quote the AAMC, “This section tests your understanding of the ways psychological, social, and biological factors influence perceptions and reactions to the world; behavior and behavior change; what people think about themselves and others; the cultural and social differences that influence well-being; and the relationships between social stratification, access to resources, and well-being.” Well… that sounds like… a lot! Let’s take a closer look.

The addition of this section comes with the move towards a more holistic testing field looking for well-rounded incoming med students. Because really doctors and medical professionals in real world settings don’t just deal with the sciences and diseases; they have to consider the human factor. So this new section dedicated to access your understand of the impact of behavior on health and it, again from AAMC, “communicates the need for future physicians to be prepared to deal with the human and social issues of medicine.” You can read the AAMC’s full overview of the section here. This section is definitely where a background in Public Health will come into play!

As you know the MCAT 2015 is testing for 10 Foundation Concepts: the Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems section tests 3, the Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological System section covers 2, and the Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations section wins with the most coming in with 5 Foundational Concepts being tested here. This means this section and the material covered is BROAD but just like the other sections we’ve broken down here on the blog, you get the same number of questions and the same amount time for this section. The Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations section will consist of around 60 passage-based and freestanding questions and you with have 95 minutes to answer them. Check out MCAT Cracker’s video introduction guide to this section and those Foundational Concepts covered below:

With the previously discussed sections all about the NATURAL sciences and this one really focusing on the SOCIAL sciences, no doubt this section can be a tricky! This part of the big exam will be asking you to pull information from courses like psychology, sociology, and biology, not to mention it’s the integration and how all these subjects combine in the medical field. If you’re not completely comfortable with the social and behavioral aspects of public health, well MCAT Cracker can really give you a leg up on acing for this section! MCAT Cracker has this whole new section figured out and will help you get a handle on it! It is possible and you can conquer this new best of the MCAT 2015! Happy Studying!

MCAT 2015 Section Breakdown: Biological & Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems

This is Part 2 of a series breaking down each section for the MCAT 2015. Starting in April 2015 no more broad straight-forward sections, now it’s 1) Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems, 2) Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems, 3) Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations and 4) Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills. These revamped sections are not just a mouthful to say they are dense and all-encompassing sections designed to test a wider range of your knowledge than the MCAT before. The Biological and Biochemical Foundations section will consist of around 60 passage-based and freestanding questions and you will have 95 minutes to answer them. These questions will being testing you specifically from courses you taken like First-semester Biochem, Intro Biology, General Chem, and Organic Chem. but keep in mind the integration factor of MCAT 2015 so really it’s so much more. Check out the approximate percentage breakdown of the section below:

Courses:
o First-semester biochemistry, 25%
o Introductory biology, 65%
o General chemistry, 5%
o Organic chemistry, 5%

If you’re a biology major thinking, ‘Well I can relax like a little studying for THIS section, amirite?’ Nope. The key thing to remember in all this is integration. Each section is integrating nearly all the classes you might have taken in college to better assess your knowledge as a whole and how you relate it to the medical field. There is also an emphasis of research practices and procedures to keep in mind. For example you might be presented with an experiment and asked why they chose this particular protein and why not this other one. That kind of question integrates research methods while also testing your biological and chemical structures and properties of proteins knowledge too. If this sounds like a lot, that’s because it is. Well MCAT Cracker has got it all figured out and will help you practice, practice, practice. You can read the AAMC full overview of the section here and check out MCAT Cracker’s complete video introduction to the section below:

The Biological and Biochemical Foundations section is concerned with Foundational Concepts 1, 2 and 3. Learn in depth what Foundational Concept 1 entails, which will make up about 55% of the section here. Foundational Concept 2, which makes up the other 20% of the section here. Foundational Concept 3, which makes up the other 25% of the section here. Thankfully, MCAT Cracker is designed to emulate the real test in both look and in difficulty. Each practice test is complete with streaming tutorials and explanations of answers to really give you the edge in studying for the MCAT 2015. Also each explanation gives you a breakdown of the Foundational Concept and Content Category the test question comes from. Below is a sample passage-based question, which you don’t even need the passage to answer!

Freestanding questions can actually have a lot of unnecessary information or really be fairly straightforward like this sample one below. With these MCAT Cracker streaming tutorials, not only do you get explanations of the answers but also a review of the subject at hand ☺! Plus you can still upgrade your MCAT Cracker account and unlock the all the practice tests for $39 instead of the regular $99!

This section of the MCAT 2015 is not to be underestimated especially considering the move towards everything integrated! Don’t panic! With MCAT Cracker and practice, practice, practice, this section of the rest of this new MCAT beast can be dominated!

MCAT 2015 Section Breakdown: Chemical & Physical Foundations of Biological Systems

This is Part 1 of a series breaking down each section for the MCAT 2015. As you know, starting in April 2015 a completely revamped MCAT rolls out and the changes to what you need to know are huge! Instead of the broad bland sections of Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences, and Verbal Reasoning the MCAT 2015 will have, 1) Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems, 2) Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems, 3) Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations and 4) Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills. So it’s pretty evident that this isn’t going to be a straightforward section just testing your knowledge on chemistry and physics but really an integration of so much more. The changes reflect a shift of focus on a more holistic approach to medical education and testing how students can apply their ALL their knowledge to the medical field.

The Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems will consist of around 60 passage-based and freestanding questions and you with have 95 minutes to answer them. Keeping in mind the integration overhaul, this section will basically be testing you on a number of the courses you’ve taken including: Intro-level Biology, Organic Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Physics, Biochemistry, and Cell/Molecular Biology. Whoa, it’s been a while since you thought about those classes, huh? Well MCAT Cracker has got it all figured out and will help you practice, practice, practice. You can read the AAMC full overview of the section here and check out MCAT Cracker’s video introduction guide below:

On MCAT Cracker you take MCAT 2015 practice tests that simulate the look and feel of the new MCAT and that emulate the difficulty level of the real thing. Each practice test is complete with streaming tutorials and explanations of answers to really give you the edge in studying for the MCAT 2015. Also each explanation gives you a breakdown of the Foundational Concept and Content Category the test question comes from. FYI the Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems section is concerned with Foundational Concepts 4 and 5. Learn in depth what Foundational Concept 4 entails which will make up about 40% of the section here and Foundational Concept 5 which makes up the other 60% of the section here. Below is a sample chemistry question to give you an idea of what you’ll be facing. The wording and phrasing of the question is meant to be tricky but really it’s just asking about protein and protein interaction. Breaking down the question is half the battle and MCAT Cracker helps you practice not only that but also gives a great review of the subject matter at hand.

Besides your knowledge of the subjects, remember you are also being tested on your scientific reasoning, analytical problem solving, and research methods. This new integrated system is highly intimidating and studying for it is no easy task. But with the right practice (and more practice, practice, practice) you can breakdown the questions, remain calm, and conquer! P.S. right now you can upgrade your MCAT Cracker account and unlock the all the practice tests for $39 instead of the regular $99!