Medical College Admission Test

The Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) is a standardized test administered by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) to prospective medical students as a means to standardise comparison between them for purposes of admission to medical school.

The test is given twice a year, once in April and once in August. The test consists of four sections: verbal reasoning (VR), physical sciences (PS), biological sciences (BS), and a writing sample (WS). The verbal, physical science and biological science sections are multiple-choice. The writing sample is evaluated with two short essays. Scores for the multiple-choice sections range from 1 to 15. Scores for the writing section range from J to T. Often, the numerical scores are added together to give a composite score.

The physical sciences is first. It comprises questions on both general chemistry and physics.

The verbal reasoning section follows the physical sciences, and unlike the PS and BS sections, it does not explicitly require knowledge of the topics being tested.

After a lunch break is the writing sample. This is not scored numerically.

The last section is biological sciences. It consists of questions relating to biology and organic chemistry.

The use of calculators on the MCAT is forbidden.

Related topics

• List of MCAT topics
• List of admissions tests

External links

• AAMC official site (http://www.aamc.org/)
• AAMC official MCAT site (http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/start.htm)

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