“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” MCAT Study Guide “Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” Presented by Conclave 2009 New Orleans, Louisiana International Director of Education Brother William L. Powell, Jr.
“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” MCAT Overview The Medical College Admission Test, or the MCAT® for short, is a standardized exam that is required in order to enter most medical schools in the United States. This exam is designed by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) to determine whether or not an individual has the basic knowledge necessary to succeed in a medical program.
“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” MCAT Sections The MCAT is comprised of four primary sections: 1) Physical Sciences 2) Verbal Reasoning 3) Writing 4) Biological Sciences
“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” Overview The information covered in each section of the exam may not necessarily be directly related to medicine, as most of the information covered on the exam is related to basic verbal and scientific topics rather than specific medical concepts.
“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” Question Types The physical science, verbal reasoning, and biological science sections of the exam each include a series of multiple-choice questions that are related to basic biology, chemistry, physics, and reading comprehension skills. The writing section of the exam, however, is not a multiple-choice section, as it requires the individual to write two essays based on two separate statements.
“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” Testing Format The MCAT test is administered in a computerized format using a fixed-form method where the questions on the exam vary from version to version. The MCAT test is not a computer-adaptive exam and the questions on the exam do not scale in difficulty based on whether you correctly answer each question or not.
“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” Testing Format, cont’d However, each multiple-choice question on the exam is weighted based on the difficulty of the question and the difficulty of the questions you answer correctly will affect your score. The individual will receive more points for correctly answering questions that are considered to be more difficult than he or she will receive for questions that are considered to be easier.
“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” Testing Format, cont’d The exam-taker will have a total of four hours, 20 minutes to complete the exam: –70 minutes-physical sciences section –60 minutes-verbal reasoning section –60 minutes-writing section –70 minutes-biological section
“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” Testing Format, cont’d The exam may take up to another hour in addition to the time necessary to complete each section due to: –a 10 minute optional tutorial, –three 10 minute optional breaks, –5 minutes allotted for a mandatory non- disclosure agreement, –5 minutes allotted for the void option screen, and –10 minutes allotted for an exam survey.
“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” Testing Format, cont’d During the exam, each question will be displayed one at a time, but the individual may go back to any question that he or she has previously seen or answered within the same section. Once the exam-taker has completed a section, he or she will not be able to go back and view or change any answers within that section.
“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” Physical Sciences The physical sciences section of the exam is designed to assess an individual's knowledge of basic scientific concepts. This section of the exam consists of 52 multiple- choice questions that are designed to test the individual's knowledge of a variety of topics related to chemistry and physics. The exam-taker will have 70 minutes to complete this section.
“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” Verbal Reasoning The verbal reasoning section of the exam is primarily designed to assess an individual's basic reading skills. This section consists of 40 multiple-choice questions that are designed to test the individual's ability to comprehend and apply the information that the individual reads. The exam-taker will have 60 minutes to complete this section.
“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” Verbal Reasoning, cont’d The exam-taker will be presented with a series of written passages that are approximately 500 to 600 words long and each passage may be related to a wide range of different topics such as: –Humanities –Social Sciences –Natural Sciences
“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” Verbal Reasoning, cont’d Each of the reading comprehension question sets included in the verbal reasoning section consists of approximately questions that relate specifically to one of these passages and examines: –the individual's understanding of the passage, –the individual's ability to apply the information found in the passage, –and/or the individual's ability to relate key concepts of the passage.
“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” Writing Sample This section consists of two essay questions that the exam-taker will have to answer by following the instructions that accompany each question. Each essay question will present the exam-taker with a statement and the exam-taker will have to analyze that statement and write an essay that explains its meaning and establishes the individual's viewpoint regarding that particular statement. The exam-taker will have 60 minutes to complete this section.
“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” Biological Sciences The biological sciences section of the exam is designed to assess an individual's knowledge of basic scientific concepts. This section of the exam consists of 52 multiple- choice questions that are designed to test the individual's knowledge of a variety of topics related specifically to biology and organic chemistry. The exam-taker will have 70 minutes to complete this section.
“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!” Test Scoring The multiple-choice sections of the MCAT test are each individually scored on a scale of based on the number of correct responses, weighted for the difficulty of each question. The essays found in the writing sample section of the exam are each scored on a scale of by two separate trained readers. The scores from the two essays are then added together to give the exam-taker a single essay score for the section, which is then converted into a letter score on a scale from J to T with J as the worst score and T as the best.
“Educational Empowerment: We Are Our Brother’s Keeper!”
William L. Powell Jr. International Director of Education For Further Information: Phone: