The exam is offered 25 or more times per year at Prometric centers. The number of administrations may vary each year. Most people who take the MCAT are undergraduates in college in their Junior or Senior year of college before they apply to medical school. Ever since the exam's duration was shortened to 4.5–5 hours, the test may be offered either in the morning or in the afternoon. Some test dates have both morning and afternoon administrations.
The test consists of four sections, listed in the order in which they are administered on the day of the exam:
- Physical Sciences (PS)
- Verbal Reasoning (VR)
- Writing Sample (WS)
- Biological Sciences (BS)
The Physical Sciences section assesses problem-solving ability in general chemistry and physics and the Biological Sciences section evaluates these abilities in the areas of biology and organic chemistry. The Verbal Reasoning section evaluates the ability to understand, evaluate, and apply information and arguments presented in prose style. The Biological Sciences section most directly correlates to success on the USMLE Step 1 exam, with a correlation coefficient of .553 vs .491 for Physical Sciences and .397 for Verbal Reasoning. Predictably, MCAT composite scores also correlate with USMLE Step 1 success.
Administration
The Physical Sciences section is administered first (prior to the April 2003 MCAT, Verbal Reasoning was the first section of the exam). It is composed of 52 multiple-choice questions related to general chemistry and physics. Exam takers are allotted 70 minutes to complete this section of the exam.
The Verbal Reasoning section follows the Physical Sciences section and an optional 10 minute break. Exam takers have 60 minutes to answer 40 multiple-choice questions evaluating their comprehension, evaluation, and application of information gathered from written passages. Unlike the Physical and Biological Sciences sections, the Verbal Reasoning section is not supposed to require specific content knowledge in order to perform well.
Prior to the computerization of the MCAT there was a 60 minute lunch break after the Verbal Reasoning section followed by the Writing Sample. With the new Computer-Based Testing format the 60 minute lunch break has been substituted by an optional 10 minute break (WTF?!). The Writing Sample gives examinees 60 minutes to compose responses to two prompts (30 minutes for each prompt, separately timed), the prompts are predetermined and there are only two prompts to choose from. Each essay is graded on a scale of 1 to 6 points twice. The scores from individual essays are added together and then converted to a letter scale of J, the lowest, through T, the highest.
After the Writing Samples, there is an optional 10 minute break followed by the Biological Sciences section. Examinees have 70 minutes to answer 52 multiple-choice questions related to organic chemistry and biology.
Scoring
Scores for the three multiple-choice sections range from 1 to 15. Scores for the writing section range alphabetically from J (lowest) to T (highest). The writing section is graded by a human reader and a computerized scoring system. Each essay is scored twice - once by the human reader and once by the computer - and the total writing sample score is the sum of the four individual scores. The total raw score is then converted to an alphabetic scale ranging from J (the lowest) to T (the highest).
The numerical scores from each multiple-choice section are added together to give a composite score. The score from the writing sample may also be appended to the composite score (e.g. 35S). The maximum composite score is 45T. According to the AAMC, the average 2008 MCAT score for U.S. medical school applicants was 28.1P, while for matriculants it was 30.9P. There is no penalty for incorrect multiple choice answers, thus even random guessing is preferable to leaving an answer choice blank (unlike many other standardized tests). Students preparing for the exam are encouraged to try to balance their subscores; physical, verbal, and biological scores of 12, 13, and 11 respectively may be looked upon more favorably than 14, 13, and 9, even though both amount to the same composite score.
The standard deviation is 2.0-2.3 depending on the year and form of the exam.
- Taken from Wikipedia
