(In 2025/2026)

The most common things I’ve been asked about the MCAT

I’ve gotten the same questions quite a few times over the years, and here’s my usual response to each:

  • Yes… but I’d argue it’s not that simple.

    A vast majority of your exam is going to feel the exact same as the AAMC FLs. Sometimes the C/P sections are harder and the B/B sections are easier, and vice versa, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.

    Since premeds are in fact getting better at the exam over time, the adjustment the AAMC seems to be making is simply making 1-2 passages per section harder, or testing a more difficult bit of content. The rest of your exam, however, will be very similar in difficulty. It may feel significantly harder on exam day, or you may see people say their exam was way harder than the FLs, but most of the time that seems to be a combination of test-day nerves, the more difficult questions weighing on your brain more, and the fact that the exam is a bit more difficult than, say, 10 years ago.

    Don’t worry too much about it though! Things like UWorld and the Section Banks will do a great job of preparing you for the hardest passages you’d see on the exam, so as long as you get through those and do a good thorough review, you’re going to be fine.

  • No clue! But I’m glad it is.

    The average difficulty of questions on the real exams is going to be lower than on the Section Banks, so your accuracy on the SBs will be lower than you’re expecting. This commonly gets people to freak out a bit, but just keep in mind that the SBs are sort of designed to represent the harder/hardest passages you’d get on your exam, not every passage on your exam.

  • No.

    You can if you want and it’ll calm your nerves, but every single question that has appeared in relation to “identifying a structure” of something within metabolism can usually just be identified by counting the number of carbons on a molecule. For example, if the question asks you to identify which structure isn’t involved in glycolysis, the answer would be a 4C or a 2C molecule (as an example) since glycolysis only includes 6C and 3C molecules.

    Count the carbons! That should get you to the answer you’re looking for.

    Click here for my anki deck that shows you exactly what structures you need to memorize or recognize for the MCAT.

  • This is an even hotter topic to debate in a lot of the Reddit subs (especially), but my answer is typically no.

    A vast majority of vitamin questions you can easily answer by just knowing which vitamins are polar (Water-soluble B/C) and which are nonpolar (Fat-soluble KADE). If you can identify the polarity of the molecule, that will nearly always widdle-down answer choices enough to where there’s only one left.

    Additionally, I recommend knowing that Vitamin Bs often act as precursors for important coenzymes in the body, where as Vitamin C doesn’t. That’s another way to delineate between the water soluble vitamins.

    Finally, within Vitamin B, I recommend knowing what each of Vitamin B1-B6 are precursors to (Vitamin B4 doesn’t exist).

    • B1 is a precursor to TPP (important for the PDC)

    • B2 is a precursor to FAD (as in FADH2)

    • B3 is a precursor to NAD (as in NADH or NADPH)

    • B5 is a precursor to Coenzyme A (as in Acetyl CoA)

    • B6 is a precursor to pyridoxal phosphate (PLP)

    • Mnemonic: Tiny Friendly Neighbors Cook Pancakes

      • Vit B1- TPP

      • Vit B2- FAD

      • Vit B3- NAD

      • Vit B5- CoA

      • Vit B6- PLP

    Some people choose to, in addition to what I’ve mentioned, memorize how many rings are in each of the fat-soluble vitamins, which should make their structures easier to identify, but I have yet to hear of a question where that was needed.

    I personally wouldn’t worry about the common names of any of the Vitamins, when they’ve shown up, they’ve told you what the common name was and it wasn’t important at all for any questions.