How Difficult is the MCAT?

Part 1: Introduction

Your premed advisor and friends have probably questioned you about taking the MCAT. Their tones undoubtedly express a mixture of optimism that you already took the exam and did well and worry that you still have to take it. In the meantime, you've undoubtedly heard harrowing tales about how difficult the MCAT is.

The MCAT plays a significant influence in what medical schools look for in applicants, which adds to the strain. The average MCAT score for applicants to medical schools for the 2022–2023 academic year was 506.5, whereas the average MCAT score for medical school graduates was 511.9. The data indicates that your chances of being admitted to medical school are significantly impacted by standing out from the crowd.

To those who have not yet begun studying for the exam, the MCAT has a mysterious aura. It’s one of the last obstacles that you must face on your premed journey—and it’s notoriously difficult. Some people have even asked, “Is the MCAT too difficult?”

While the exam is challenging, the short answer to that question is “no.” Each and every year, plenty of students do well on the MCAT, making them even stronger candidates for medical school. Nevertheless, it’s time we take a deeper dive and answer the following common question: exactly how hard is the MCAT?

Part 2: How hard is the MCAT?

The MCAT is a hard test, but it’s manageable if you approach it diligently and efficiently. In other words, you’ll need to work hard and smart. Let’s look at what makes the exam more challenging than other tests you might have taken or heard of.

Challenge #1: The MCAT is long.

The MCAT’s testing time is 6 hours and 15 minutes while the total seated time is just over 7.5 hours. This makes the exam much longer than its standardized testing counterparts.

Challenge #2: The MCAT tests your knowledge of many different subjects.

The MCAT contains 230 total questions that cover many different subjects, including:

• General chemistry
• Organic chemistry
• Physics
• Reading comprehension
• Biology
• Biochemistry
• Psychology and sociology

From this list, you can see that some of the subjects are quite different. For example, you will have to study differently for sociology than you would for organic chemistry. As a result, your MCAT study approach should be different from your approach to other exams. Specifically, you must master many subjects, not just one.

For the MCAT, however, mastery does not mean knowing every small detail about every small fact in a biology textbook. Yes, you will need to know some important details, but more importantly, you will need to apply your knowledge about biology to information that the MCAT introduces in a passage. That brings us to the next reason why the MCAT is a harder-than-average exam.

Challenge #3: The MCAT is a passage-based exam.

The MCAT’s passage-based format means that almost all questions on the exam will be associated with a six- to seven-paragraph passage. This adds a layer of complexity to the exam—you won’t be able to simply recall facts that you have memorized in order to answer questions correctly.

Instead, you will need to synthesize information from the passage and interpret graphs in the context of your background knowledge. For example, the MCAT will require you to know not only a biological process such as glycolysis, but at the same time understand a passage and answer a question that draws on both outside knowledge and information from the passage.

Challenge #4: The MCAT is timed.

Because the MCAT asks a lot of questions in a relatively short period of time, students often struggle to finish some sections of the exam (e.g., Chem/Phys and CARS) in the allotted time, which leaves points that they could have earned on the table. As a result, reading comprehension and the ability to quickly analyze graphs will make a huge difference in your score, and this explains why even students with a 3.9 GPA are not guaranteed success on the MCAT.

Now that we’ve covered why the MCAT is hard, we’ll provide strategies proven to combat those difficulties, make the exam easier over time, and help you earn the score you deserve.

Part 3: How to ace the MCAT

Challenge #1: The MCAT is long.

Solution: Take many simulated full-length practice exams.

The length of the MCAT makes it mentally and physically draining. During the course of your test preparation, you should take at least five full-length exams under test-like conditions. Start the exam right at 8 a.m., take each of your breaks as you would on the real test, and treat each question and passage as if you were taking your real MCAT. Come test day, you will be more than ready and the test will fly by!

Challenge #2: The MCAT tests your knowledge of many different subjects.

Solution: Choose the most effective study strategy for each specific subject.

Let’s look at an example: Jeremiah is struggling on two MCAT subjects: organic chemistry and CARS passages on humanities. Will Jeremiah be able to study CARS the same way he studies organic chemistry? Of course not!  

For organic chemistry, Jeremiah should write down important functional groups, memorize their structures, and learn how those structures are important for the different chemical reactivities of the functional groups. For example, Jeremiah should write down what a carboxylic acid is, memorize the structure, and understand that the carbonyl carbon is electrophilic because the oxygen pulls away electron density. As a result, a nucleophile can attack the carbonyl carbon and cause the hydroxyl (-OH) group to leave.  

Without “memorizing” a specific mechanism, Jeremiah just reasoned through nucleophilic acyl substitution. He should repeat this process for the other highly tested organic chemistry functional groups to improve his performance on the Chem/Phys section of the exam.

What’s the most effective study strategy for Jeremiah to improve his CARS score? He won’t be able to draw out reactions or memorize functional groups for CARS. Instead, Jeremiah should focus on finding and taking as many CARS humanities passages as he can. After each passage, he should do an intense review of what he missed and why he missed it in order to identify patterns in his wrong answer choices.  

As you can see, the most effective way to study for CARS is very different from studying for organic chemistry.

Challenge #3: The MCAT is a passage-based exam.

Solution: Understand whether the test-writers at the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) want you to find the answer in the passage, use outside knowledge to the answer the question, or utilize a combination of the two approaches.  

For the Chemistry/Physics, Biology/Biochemistry, and Psychology/Sociology sections of the exam, you will need to ask yourself where the AAMC wants you to find the answer. By taking practice problems and thoroughly reviewing them afterwards, you will begin to understand what the AAMC expects of you on any given question. As a general rule of thumb, if can’t figure out the answer to a question, return to the passage to make sure you didn’t miss a key detail.  

For the CARS section, you do not need to know outside information, meaning the answer choice must be somewhere in the passage. Use this to your advantage—in order to choose an answer choice in CARS, there must be a piece of text evidence that directly supports the question.

Challenge #4: The MCAT is timed.

Solution: Develop and rigorously practice a timing strategy.  

For the Chemistry/Physics, Biology/Biochemistry, and Psychology/Sociology sections of the MCAT, you should aim to spend 8 minutes per passage on the 10 passages and 1 minute per standalone question on the 15 standalone questions.

For the CARS section, you should aim to spend 10 minutes per passage on the 9 passages.