What is the MCAT
Chapter 1: What is the MCAT
🧭 Overview
🧠 One-sentence thesis
The MCAT is a standardized, full-day exam that medical schools use to assess applicants' critical thinking and analytical skills alongside other application components, providing a universal comparison tool across thousands of candidates.
📌 Key points (3–5)
- What the MCAT measures: not total knowledge, but how well you analyze and critically think through questions.
- Why it exists: provides a standardized assessment that allows medical schools to compare students from any institution, unlike GPA which varies by school and professor.
- Structure: four timed sections (Chem/Phys, CARS, Bio/Biochem, Psych/Soc) plus breaks, totaling over six hours of testing.
- Common confusion: many students treat the MCAT like other exams and focus on memorization rather than critical thinking, leading to lower scores.
- Scoring principle: only correct answers count; incorrect answers don't penalize you, so always guess.
📋 What the MCAT is and why it matters
📋 Basic definition and scope
The MCAT: a standardized test used by medical school admission committees to assess applicants' analytical and critical thinking abilities.
- It is a full-day experience with over six hours of testing, plus approximately 90 minutes of breaks and administrative tasks.
- Often called "a standardized test on steroids" because it requires years of prerequisites and months of preparation.
- Don't confuse: the MCAT is one component of your medical school application, considered alongside GPA, letters of reference, personal statements, extracurriculars, and other factors.
🎯 Purpose and history
- Originally developed in 1928 to address the large dropout rate among first-year medical students.
- Established to help schools filter out students with little potential to succeed in their programs.
- Today: admission committees use it to choose candidates who will thrive in their specific medical school for that specific year.
🔍 What it actually tests
- Not a test of your total knowledge base.
- Instead: gauges how well you can analyze and critically think through questions.
- Example: Too many students approach the MCAT like other exams in their life and end up with less-than-great scores because they focus on memorization rather than critical reasoning.
🏗️ Test structure and format
🏗️ Four main sections
The MCAT consists of four sections, breaks, and administrative components in this order:
| Section | Time | Questions | Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems (Chem/Phys) | 95 minutes | 59 multiple-choice | Biochemistry, biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, physics |
| Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills (CARS) | 90 minutes | 53 multiple-choice | Reading comprehension |
| Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems (Bio/Biochem) | 95 minutes | 59 multiple-choice | Biology, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, biochemistry |
| Psychological, Social and Biological Foundations of Behavior (Psych/Soc) | 95 minutes | 59 multiple-choice | Psychology, sociology, biology |
⏱️ Breaks and administrative time
- Optional 10-minute tutorial at the start
- Optional 10-minute break after Chem/Phys
- Optional 30-minute lunch break after CARS
- Optional 10-minute break after Bio/Biochem
- 5 minutes to decide whether to void the test
- Optional 5-minute satisfaction survey
📝 Question types
- Discrete questions: one-off questions that don't require additional information to answer.
- Passage-based questions: require reading up to several paragraphs of information; each passage has several associated questions.
🔄 Evolution of the exam
- The MCAT is constantly evolving, regularly restructured to be compatible with the changing nature of medicine.
- The most current format was implemented in 2015, developed by the AAMC after exhaustive interviews and surveys with medical school faculty and admissions committees.
📊 Scoring system
📊 How scores are calculated
You receive ten different scores total:
- One combined total score
- Four individual section scores
- Five percentile scores (one total, four for each section)
Score ranges:
- Each section: 118 to 132 points
- Total lowest possible: 472 (118 × 4)
- Total highest possible: 528 (132 × 4)
✅ Scoring rules
Your score is determined only by the number of questions you answer correctly.
- Incorrect answers do not count against your score.
- Answering incorrectly is the same as not answering at all.
- Always guess if you don't know the answer.
📐 Raw vs scaled scores
- Raw score: the number of questions you answered correctly.
- Scaled score: the 118-132 range, adjusted based on the difficulty of your specific test compared to other tests.
- Don't confuse: the test is not graded on a curve; variations between different MCAT versions are considered when generating your scaled score, but scaled scores are not generated by comparing your performance to other students.
🎯 Understanding "good" scores
🎯 What counts as competitive
A good score is one that increases your chances of acceptance into the medical school you want to attend.
Benchmark numbers (2016-2017 data):
- 50th percentile: 500 (average)
- Mean score for all applicants: 501.8
- Mean score for accepted students who started medical school: 508.7
📚 How to research target scores
- Use the Medical School Admissions Requirements (MSAR) and College Information Book (CIB) to see what the previous year's class looked like.
- Look at more than just the median: by definition, 50% of the class is above and 50% below the median.
- Examine the ranges to determine your competitiveness as an applicant.
- Remember: the MCAT is just one part of your application.
🏆 The ultimate answer
The best MCAT score is the highest one you can get.
🎓 Special considerations
🎓 Nontraditional students
Nontraditional students: those who have taken time off from college or changed careers.
- Many apply to medical school after taking a few (or more) years off between completing undergraduate study.
- For these students, the MCAT enables programs to judge how well they can still handle difficult standardized tests.
- This is important because standardized testing will become a regular thing during medical school.
📝 Eligibility and registration basics
Eligibility requirements:
- You must intend to use your MCAT scores to apply for medical school acceptance.
- You may only register for one MCAT at a time.
- You are not eligible if you've already taken the MCAT three times that year.
- Special permission may be needed under certain circumstances (e.g., not planning to attend medical school).
Registration timing:
- Register as soon as you can, ideally months in advance.