The current version of the MCAT, now nearing its third complete year of administration, is designed to assess several competency areas that are desirable in future physicians. One of these broad competency areas is the ability to demonstrate scientific inquiry and reasoning skills.
This stands as perhaps one of the most important skills, assessed by three of the four test sections.
[Find out how medical school admissions officials see the new MCAT.]
It is of paramount importance that prospective medical school students address any weaknesses they might have when it comes to understanding research design, interpreting experimental data, drawing conclusions and predicting both ethical and scientific factors that might hinder a particular research experiment.
As you prepare for the MCAT, you may wonder how you will be tested on scientific inquiry in the three MCAT sections — excluding the Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills section — and how you can strengthen your readiness to answer these questions. Review the three sections below and learn how you can bolster your scientific inquiry skills for each.
Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems
By the time you take the MCAT, you will have likely been exposed to the scientific method in science courses from grade school to college. The MCAT assessment of your scientific inquiry skills is largely an extension of your ability to understand and manipulate the components of the scientific method when evaluating research designs and results.
In the Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems section, for example, you may be presented with a research study’s design and data aimed at proving or disproving a particular hypothesis. The corresponding questions might ask you to identify the original hypothesis, the conclusions the data support and the relationship between variables.
[Learn to sharpen critical analysis and reasoning skills on the MCAT.]
How can you best prepare to answer such questions? Besides developing a solid understanding of the definitions of typical research study components, as well as how they function as a unit, you can become a frequent and skilled reader of scientific studies.
Each week, take it upon yourself to read a research study in a hard science discipline and challenge yourself to identify the hypothesis the paper poses, the background evidence that supports that hypothesis, the variables being tested and any conclusions you can draw from the observed data.
Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems
As anyone who has spent time conducting research will have observed, the process of scientific inquiry and the way in which that process is presented in the scientific literature varies slightly across fields. As a result, you should understand the different varieties of research designs that are present in each field tested on the MCAT.
In the Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems portion, for instance, you may be asked to identify research questions and hypotheses from given background information. You may also be asked to evaluate the validity of proposed research designs.
To strengthen these scientific inquiry skills, make a habit of attempting to think through some yet-unsolved questions in biology.
The point of this exercise is not to establish a definitive answer about how, say, scientists might correct genetics that have gone awry in tumor cells but rather to think through what kind of testable hypothesis and research setting would most likely yield information that can help you answer such a question.
[See which undergrad courses to take for MCAT success.]
Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior
This section is perhaps the most likely area in which you will be assessed on the ethical principles of research studies, your ability to identify bias in research studies and whether a particular research study can be generalized for a larger population.
As such, you may be asked to evaluate whether a proposed research design is appropriate or ethical, identify points of bias implicit or explicit to a certain experiment and predict whether the validity of given data would extend to another particular population.
You can ready yourself for the questions posed in this section by familiarizing yourself with commonly used research designs in the social sciences and by understanding each design’s pitfalls as well as learning which known studies have used such designs.
Ensure you understand the ethical problems and biases involved in famous social science experiments such as Harlow’s monkeys and the Bobo doll experiment. Ask yourself if these scientists would be allowed to repeat these experiments today, if their original study designs best prove their results and what populations are best reflected by the information that they yielded.
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Hone Scientific Inquiry Skills for MCAT Success originally appeared on usnews.com
