MCAT Pointers
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MCAT Pointers 1. Don t believe in luck! "I, personally, do not believe in luck. I think luck is an excuse for people that have failed in their mission to do something. If you do your preparation correct, if you do the work, if you think about things, if you make the correct judgments on the risks that you take and if you stay out of the pits, then you win the race... and that's not luck, that's hard work." Allan McNish. Study hard and you ll do fine! 2. Stay mellow. Always relax when you take the test, frustration only clouds your judgment. 3. If you are on crack don t get off crack. Don t dramatically alter your life style before the exam; keep a steady sleep schedule before you take the exam. If the exam starts at 8 am, start waking up at 6:30am and be sure you are comfortable doing physics and chemistry problems at 8am. 4. Food is good. Bring sugary drinks to the testing site, and drink some when you take a break. Your brain runs on glucose. If you are doing it right, thinking actually uses up a lot of glucose. 5. You actually don t have to know shit! MCAT is a logic based test that rewards logical thinking more than knowledge, so before attempting any questions try to see the big picture. 6. Don t go in blind. Preview the questions before you start on a passage, knowing the questions could help you zero in on the important and relevant parts of the passage. 7. Time is money. Time management is important on the MCAT so please know what you are capable of and keep track of the time. If you are spending too much time on a single question, skip it, a hard question is worth the same amount of points as an easy question. 8. A dog can do it. If you have time u better not aimlessly guess on questions. There are 4 answer choices and 3 of them are wrong, so try to eliminate answers before you guess. The thing that separates us from most animals is our logic, and if u guess aimlessly u might as well just send in Fido and tell him to take the test. 9. 50 50. When working with Roman numeral questions, start with the statement that only appears 2 of the answer choices. Both invalidation and validation will eliminate 50% of your answers. 10. Flip a coin. When you see a question with 2 answer choices that are contradictory to each other, the answer is one of them 99.9% of the time. 11. Don t stop until the fat lady sings. Be sure read all the answer choices. Sometimes you may misunderstand the question and the first answer may seem right. 12. The world is upside down. If a question contains the word except, start reading the answer choices in the reverse order, most of the times the answer is c or d. 13. Inductive reasoning. When an answer choice contains the word induction in chemistry or o chem section that is most likely the answer choice. 14. Never an easy choice. None of the above is rarely the answer choice, so when you do indeed decide to choice D(none of the above) as your answer choice be sure to exhaust all the possibilities. 15. Better safe than sorry. In physical sciences be comfortable with the equations, but take comfort in the fact that most passages will provide you with the necessary equations. 16. Don t take the knife to a gun fight. Carefully consider the units used in answers, if the question is asking for acceleration you are looking for answers with acceleration units and not units like meters, for feet. If you miss a question because of this, consider our friendship over.
17. Assumption is crap! In physical science section when you see answers that only differ in the number of zero within them( a10, b100, c1000, d 10000,) be sure to consider the units mentioned in the question itself. Not all the length units are in meters, and not all accelerations are measure in m/s^2. Believe it or not the world isn t a perfect sphere and people aren t always telling you the truth. 18. Easier than it may seem. If you are using more than 5 lines of math for a question you are probably doing it wrong. MCAT doesn t allow you to use a calculator, so all the calculations are fairly simple. I personally have the math skill of a 2nd grader. 19. Seeing is believing. The ability to visualize the scenario is paramount to certain physics problem. So if you are not sure what the answer is try to visualize the scenario and see which answers are possible and which are not 20. Russian roulette. Lenses are a topic that s either a hit or a miss. So if you choose not to study lenses do know that getting them on a passage is unlikely but within the realm of possibility. 21. Common sense that shit! If a red light is reflected off of an object and it changes color, you better not pick blue as the new color(I ll find out and beat ur head in with a giant mushroom.) Energy can not be gained. 22. Why bother! Don t try to over complicate things by using numbers with too many significant digit, the mcat uses 3 as pi, and 10m/s^2 as g, so why should u try to use a number like 22.4! 23. Look Ma no math! Acid and bases are a high yield section on the mcat, one must realize that the ph scale is a log scale. So if I say an acid solution with a ph of 2 is 99% neutralized and what is its new ph. You better say it s 4. As only 1% remains which is a decrease of 100x the original concentration. 24. A pictures is worth a thousand words; understanding the meaning behind a graph is often the key to success for science passages, and don t get too cocky that u forget to read the scale of the graph. 25. Careful with words. The word inflammable doesn t mean it can t catch on fire!(that one may have only been relevant to me as I am Asian and quite bad with English) 26. Certain things never change. Doesn t matter if it is an electrolytic cell or a galvanic cell, the anode is always where oxidation occurs and the cathode is always where reduction occur. Same rule applies when you talk about real images being upside down, and virtual images being right side up. 27. Equality is a lie! The verbal passages in the back are easier. So if you are pressed for time, start doing the back passages first. 28. Don t buy speakers from back of vans! For verbal be wary of answers that look like they were copied verbatim from the passage, they are rarely right. 29. Fonclbrisch this bitch. FONClBrISCH is the list of commonly used atoms arranged from most electronegative to least electronegative. So if you have an ionic solution containing 2 of these compounds it s easy to see which ion wears the + and which wears the -. 30. If it appears twice, it is always wrong. If you see enantiomers and racemic compound as answer choices, they aren t the answers as a racemic compound is the same as enantiomers. Sometimes this is obvious other times it requires a bit of thinking. 31. Get used to reading science papers. If you are having trouble understanding the science sections the best way to prepare is to read some scientific research papers. 32. U can t make carbons! If the reaction started with 9 carbons and the answer choice u picked had 10 carbons.
33. Don t get too worked up over o chem., generally speaking o chem. isn t as important as biology, so if you don t have time to study o chem. just focus on recognizing all the steromers. 34. Know your SNs and Es. Substitution reactions and elimination reactions are a huge part of o chem. be sure you know all the factors concerning these reactions. 35. The test is always right! Don t think you found a mistake, read the question again! Only one time did the MCAT ever mess up, and that was a very obvious mistake. 36. It pays to listen. Most bio passages involves experiments that one of your teachers talked about, so every bio major should make a 10 or above.
17. Assumption is crap! In physical science section when you see answers that only differ in the number of zero within them( a10, b100, c1000, d 10000,) be sure to consider the units mentioned in the question itself. Not all the length units are in meters, and not all accelerations are measure in m/s^2. Believe it or not the world isn t a perfect sphere and people aren t always telling you the truth. 18. Easier than it may seem. If you are using more than 5 lines of math for a question you are probably doing it wrong. MCAT doesn t allow you to use a calculator, so all the calculations are fairly simple. I personally have the math skill of a 2nd grader. 19. Seeing is believing. The ability to visualize the scenario is paramount to certain physics problem. So if you are not sure what the answer is try to visualize the scenario and see which answers are possible and which are not 20. Russian roulette. Lenses are a topic that s either a hit or a miss. So if you choose not to study lenses do know that getting them on a passage is unlikely but within the realm of possibility. 21. Common sense that shit! If a red light is reflected off of an object and it changes color, you better not pick blue as the new color(I ll find out and beat ur head in with a giant mushroom.) Energy can not be gained. 22. Why bother! Don t try to over complicate things by using numbers with too many significant digit, the mcat uses 3 as pi, and 10m/s^2 as g, so why should u try to use a number like 22.4! 23. Look Ma no math! Acid and bases are a high yield section on the mcat, one must realize that the ph scale is a log scale. So if I say an acid solution with a ph of 2 is 99% neutralized and what is its new ph. You better say it s 4. As only 1% remains which is a decrease of 100x the original concentration. 24. A pictures is worth a thousand words; understanding the meaning behind a graph is often the key to success for science passages, and don t get too cocky that u forget to read the scale of the graph. 25. Careful with words. The word inflammable doesn t mean it can t catch on fire!(that one may have only been relevant to me as I am Asian and quite bad with English) 26. Certain things never change. Doesn t matter if it is an electrolytic cell or a galvanic cell, the anode is always where oxidation occurs and the cathode is always where reduction occur. Same rule applies when you talk about real images being upside down, and virtual images being right side up. 27. Equality is a lie! The verbal passages in the back are easier. So if you are pressed for time, start doing the back passages first. 28. Don t buy speakers from back of vans! For verbal be wary of answers that look like they were copied verbatim from the passage, they are rarely right. 29. Fonclbrisch this bitch. FONClBrISCH is the list of commonly used atoms arranged from most electronegative to least electronegative. So if you have an ionic solution containing 2 of these compounds it s easy to see which ion wears the + and which wears the -. 30. If it appears twice, it is always wrong. If you see enantiomers and racemic compound as answer choices, they aren t the answers as a racemic compound is the same as enantiomers. Sometimes this is obvious other times it requires a bit of thinking. 31. Get used to reading science papers. If you are having trouble understanding the science sections the best way to prepare is to read some scientific research papers. 32. U can t make carbons! If the reaction started with 9 carbons and the answer choice u picked had 10 carbons.
33. Don t get too worked up over o chem., generally speaking o chem. isn t as important as biology, so if you don t have time to study o chem. just focus on recognizing all the steromers. 34. Know your SNs and Es. Substitution reactions and elimination reactions are a huge part of o chem. be sure you know all the factors concerning these reactions. 35. The test is always right! Don t think you found a mistake, read the question again! Only one time did the MCAT ever mess up, and that was a very obvious mistake. 36. It pays to listen. Most bio passages involves experiments that one of your teachers talked about, so every bio major should make a 10 or above.
