HOW TO FIND ANSWERS TO THE 3 TYPES OF QUESTIONS ON THE MCAT The Do You Know Your Stuff? Questions These questions will test you on how familiar you are with the subject at hand. They will test how well you remember the content. It s mainly about memory here. At times they ll be detailed questions, other times they ll be straightforward. Your strategy here is to figure out 2 things: 1 What related information do I know about this that can be useful to me? 2 What is the main concept or the main equation here? If you can t remember, don t sit there trying to remember. That can take up a lot of precious time. Instead, try to eliminate as many answers as you can. Pick one, and move on! Lastly don t worry, because these will never be way too detailed or way too specific for you to answer.
The Can You Apply What You Say You Know? Questions This is where critical thinking comes into play. Sometimes this question will require you to use general concepts that you already know, other times they will give you the concepts in the passage itself. What they want to know is how you apply those concepts. The strategy here is to solve the problem presented, one part at a time. Your strategy is to figure out: 1 What context do I have right now? What do I know for sure? 2 How do I use this information, along with the concepts I have, to break this question up into individual components? As you successfully break it up into individual pieces as suggested here, you will be able to answer this difficult question with more ease. Again, don t worry because they won t ask extremely difficult, complex, and detailed questions and assume you know everything about the concept. They know you re not an expert, yet.
The WTF Did I Just Read!? Questions These are the questions that throw you off. Worded with confusing terms, you ll feel like the question writer woke up that morning and decided to screw over everyone answering that question. But relax, if you had that aaahh reaction, that s exactly what they wanted. They wanted to see if even while you re thrown off, are you still able to stay focused? Those who remain focused, will eventually realize that the question isn t as hard as it seemed initially. Here s the strategy for answering these type of questions 1 - So the first strategy here is to stay calm. 2 - Identify the confusing words meant to throw you off and set them aside in your mind. 3 - Identify the key terms, the ones that really matter. 4 - Relate those key terms to concepts you already know about. 5 - You ll understand what the question is really asking and you ll realize that in its essence, the question isn t that difficult. 6 Identify the question itself as Question type #1 or #2 from above, and take the appropriate strategy.
Understand What The MCAT Is Really Testing The goal of the MCAT is to test your critical thinking skills, not how much content you know. You may know A LOT of content but it s pretty much guaranteed that you ll discover content on the MCAT, which you ve never seen before regardless of how much you study. Does that mean you can t master the MCAT? With every exam, there are students scoring well over 509. The AAMC wouldn t make an exam that you can t achieve exceptional results in. So how do the MCAT Masters do it? Here s the secret The majority of questions on the MCAT can be answered by implementing problem-solving strategies. That includes questions with content you ve never seen before. The key to dominating the MCAT is 1) to study your ass off of course (just like everyone else will) BUT ALSO 2) to apply proven MCAT testing strategies to maximize your ability to get the right answers (what most people won t do or won t even know about).
How To Get Proven MCAT Testing Strategies To Maximize Your Ability To Get The Right Answers There are several ways to obtain testing strategies: You can use the generic testing strategies that the big test prep companies give you which are the same strategies they give to everyone writing the GMAT, LSAT, etc. You can figure them out on your own. Which isn t the best option for your time someone has already figured it out, why reinvent the wheel? You can ask your peers who are writing the MCAT with you. Which isn t wise because firstly, you don t know if they really know what they re talking about. Even those with the highest GPAs end up messing up on the MCAT. Why? Because unlike most college exams, the MCAT doesn t just test how well you know the content, it tests your critical thinking abilities (how you strategically solve questions and find answers). You can ask those who have already written the MCAT and have already mastered the MCAT, to give you their strategies. This is the probably the best option. You can t go wrong here because they ll give you MCAT specific strategies that you can actually trust.
The Shortcut To Proven MCAT Testing Strategies To Maximize Your MCAT Score Even though finding credible MCAT mentors (those who have already succeeded on the MCAT) is clearly the best option, it still has its drawbacks; it takes a lot time to do the research. Where are you going to look for them? How much time are you going to spend looking for them? How are you going to convince them to give you time (from their busy interviewing/med-school lives)? There s a lot to consider here We heard your frustration. In fact, we felt it. That is exactly why we spent our own time and did all the research for you. We spent our own time and energy and we reached out to MCAT Masters for you! From the insights we got, we created a downloadable PDF guide filled with the best of the best, proven, MCAT-specific testing strategies. Once you download it, you can now focus your time on actually applying the strategies and that s it you don t have to spend your time looking for MCAT mentors, or convincing them, or any of that. You can download the MCAT Mastery Strategy Guide here.
A Step-By-Step Approach To For Answering Passage-Based Questions 1. Skim through the passage and try to identify what the main theme of the passage is. 2. Skim through the passage again and make note of any important equations and figures. 3. Read through passage carefully and as you read, begin coming up questions that you think will be asked of you. o Underline or highlight any information you come across that makes a conclusion or contrasts thoughts. o Underline or highlight any keywords. 4. Summarize the main points and equations of each paragraph in your own words, briefly. 5. Classify the question. o Is it a content-based question ( Do You Know Your Stuff? ) o Is it a critical thinking question ( Can You Apply What You Say You Know? ) o Is it a confusing question ( What Did I Just Read?! ) 6. Once classified, use the appropriate strategy for that question type. 7. Try to guess what the answer will be (better yet, try to guess what the answer choices will be as well). 8. Look at the answer choices. Is your predicted answer there? If not, go back to Step 5. 9. Choose the answer that matches your predicted answer.