The MCAT Dissected - PS Section

I thought I'd give a better breakdown of the MCAT for anyone curious about it who wants to formulate a good study strategem.

The Physical Sciences section is 70 minutes with 52 questions (http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/mcatessentials.pdf.  Accessed 6/3/2010).  I think these were the most common formats for passages:

1.  Text-heavy, graph-light
2. Graph-heavy, text-light
3. All text with equations

The PS section is roughly 50% physics, 50% general chemistry, and a small number of discretes between "blocks" of passages.  My method of tackling the PS section was really direct, going straight through the first passage to the end of the section.  Some people say to do the discretes first, while others say do the passages first and come back to the discretes.  See what works for you by doing practice exams, but it's important to know that the majority of the PS section questions are passage-based.

What's the best way to tackle a PS passage?

Some people recommend reading the passage first, while others recommend reading the questions and answers first.  What I find helpful is to really quickly skim the questions (not answers) so you know what is being asked and know what to focus on.  This is helpful because you might spend a lot of time trying to understand a paragraph on a characteristic of soundwaves, only to find out that that no question on soundwaves is asked for that passage.

Highlight equations and relevant words as you read the passage, but try to minimize the amount of time you spend deciding what is the best information to highlight.  Also, what I find helpful if time permits, whenever you come across a concept about say, light waves in a paragraph about wavelength and speed of light, write out the equation so you can start jogging your mind and getting into "light wave mode" for your light wave passage.

When I was getting ready for the test, a lot of MCATers were concerned about the PS section the most, and that's because to do well on it, you need to be the best you can be at chemistry and physics.  That's because out of all the chemistry and physics you study in undergrad, the MCAT will probably test you on about 33% of everything, and you want to be make sure you don't end up working on a group of passages that you're very weak on.

There are two ways you can be weak on this section: you aren't the best you can be at solving a type of problem and need more practice, or you are "artificially"weak because you've ignored a type of problem or concept because you don't find it interesting enough or you think it's low priority and think it won't be tested on the MCAT.


The EK workbooks are great for doing drills as I've discussed before, but practice exams are important because the MCAT is all about taking basic knowledge and solving problems involving phenomena and concepts you haven't seen before.


Some more advice: if you get hung up on a passage, skip it and come back to it later instead of spending a lot of time on it that could be better spent on "easier passages" or discretes.  I think it's fair to say there's a blend of "challenging" MCAT passages and "easier" ones, so don't stress out when the first passage you get is challenging.


Some skills to master that will help you on the section:


Chemistry:
-Electrochemistry
-Acids/Bases, normality, neutralization
-Solubility, molarity, molality, concentration
-Stoichiometry
-Finding out empirical and chemical formulas from percent mass
-



Physics:
-Circuits
-Sound and light waves
-Momentum, force, impulse
-Magnetism
-Period, frequency, wavelength
-Pulleys, simple machines