MCAT Organic Chemistry Review 2019-2020
Genres: Chemistry
Book Preface
And now it starts: your long, yet fruitful journey toward wearing a white coat. Proudly wearing that white coat, though, is hopefully only part of your motivation. You are reading this book because you want to be a healer.
If you’re serious about going to medical school, then you are likely already familiar with the importance of the MCAT in medical school admissions. While the holistic review process puts additional weight on your experiences, extracurricular activities, and personal attributes, the fact remains: along with your GPA, your MCAT score remains one of the two most important components of your application portfolio—at least early in the admissions process. Each additional point you score on the MCAT pushes you in front of thousands of other students and makes you an even more attractive applicant. But the MCAT is not simply an obstacle to overcome; it is an opportunity to show schools that you will be a strong student and a future leader in medicine.
We at Kaplan take our jobs very seriously and aim to help students see success not only on the MCAT, but as future physicians. We work with our learning science experts to ensure that we’re using the most up-to-date teaching techniques in our resources. Multiple members of our team hold advanced degrees in medicine or associated biomedical sciences, and are committed to the highest level of medical education. Kaplan has been working with the MCAT for over 50 years and our commitment to premed students is unflagging; in fact, Stanley Kaplan created this company when he had difficulty being accepted to medical school due to unfair quota systems that existed at the time.
We stand now at the beginning of a new era in medical education. As citizens of this 21st-century world of healthcare, we are charged with creating a patient-oriented, culturally competent, cost-conscious, universally available, technically advanced, and research-focused healthcare system, run by compassionate providers. Suffice it to say, this is no easy task. Problem-based learning, integrated curricula, and classes in interpersonal skills are some of the responses to this demand for an excellent workforce—a workforce of which you’ll soon be a part.
We’re thrilled that you’ve chosen us to help you on this journey. Please reach out to us to share your challenges, concerns, and successes. Together, we will shape the future of medicine in the United States and abroad; we look forward to helping you become the doctor you deserve to be.
Good luck!
Alexander Stone Macnow, MD
Editor-in-Chief
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
BA, Musicology—Boston University, 2008
MD—Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, 2013
How This Book Was Created
The Kaplan MCAT Review project began shortly after the release of the Preview Guide for the MCAT 2015 Exam, 2nd edition. Through thorough analysis by our staff psychometricians, we were able to analyze the relative yield of the different topics on the MCAT, and we began constructing tables of contents for the books of the Kaplan MCAT Review series. A dedicated staff of 30 writers, 7 editors, and 32 proofreaders worked over 5,000 combined hours to produce these books. The format of the books was heavily influenced by weekly meetings with Kaplan’s learning science team.
In the years since this book was created, a number of opportunities for expansion and improvement have occurred. The current edition represents the culmination of the wisdom accumulated during that time frame, and it also includes several new features designed to improve the reading and learning experience in these texts.
Using This Book
Kaplan MCAT Organic Chemistry Review, and the other six books in the Kaplan MCAT Review series, bring the Kaplan classroom experience to you—right in your home, at your convenience. This book offers the same Kaplan content review, strategies, and practice that make Kaplan the #1 choice for MCAT prep.
This book is designed to help you review the organic chemistry topics covered on the MCAT. Please understand that content review—no matter how thorough—is not sufficient preparation for the MCAT! The MCAT tests not only your science knowledge but also your critical reading, reasoning, and problem-solving skills. Do not assume that simply memorizing the contents of this book will earn you high scores on Test Day; to maximize your scores, you must also improve your reading and test-taking skills through MCAT-style questions and practice tests.
Learning Goals
At the beginning of each section, you’ll find a short list of objectives describing the skills covered within that section. Learning goals for these texts were developed in conjunction with Kaplan’s learning science team, and have been designed specifically to focus your attention on tasks and concepts that are likely to show up on your MCAT. These learning goals will function as a means to guide your study, and indicate what information and relationships you should be focused on within each section. Before starting each section, read these learning goals carefully. They will not only allow you to assess your existing familiarity with the content, but also provide a goal-oriented focus for your studying experience of the section.
MCAT Concept Checks
At the end of each section, you’ll find a few open-ended questions that you can use to assess your mastery of the material. These MCAT Concept Checks were introduced after numerous conversations with Kaplan’s learning science team. Research has demonstrated repeatedly that introspection and self-analysis improve mastery, retention, and recall of material. Complete these MCAT Concept Checks to ensure that you’ve got the key points from each section before moving on!
Practice Questions
At the end of each chapter, you’ll find 15 MCAT-style practice questions. These are designed to help you assess your understanding of the chapter you just read. Most of these questions focus on the first of the Scientific Inquiry and Reasoning Skills (Knowledge of Scientific Concepts and Principles), although there are occasional questions that fall into the second or fourth SIRS (Scientific Reasoning and Problem-Solving, and Data-Based and Statistical Reasoning, respectively).
Sidebars
The following is a guide to the five types of sidebars you’ll find in Kaplan MCAT Organic Chemistry Review:
- Bridge: These sidebars create connections between science topics that appear in multiple chapters throughout the Kaplan MCAT Review series.
- Key Concept: These sidebars draw attention to the most important takeaways in a given topic, and they sometimes offer synopses or overviews of complex information. If you understand nothing else, make sure you grasp the Key Concepts for any given subject.
- MCAT Expertise: These sidebars point out how information may be tested on the MCAT or offer key strategy points and test-taking tips that you should apply on Test Day.
- Mnemonic: These sidebars present memory devices to help recall certain facts.
- Real World: These sidebars illustrate how a concept in the text relates to the practice of medicine or the world at large. While this is not information you need to know for Test Day, many of the topics in Real World sidebars are excellent examples of how a concept may appear in a passage or discrete (stand-alone) question on the MCAT.
WHAT THIS BOOK COVERS
The information presented in the Kaplan MCAT Review series covers everything listed on the official MCAT content lists. Every topic in these lists is covered in the same level of detail as is common to the undergraduate and postbaccalaureate classes that are considered prerequisites for the MCAT. Note that your premedical classes may include topics not discussed in these books, or they may go into more depth than these books do. Additional exposure to science content is never a bad thing, but all of the content knowledge you are expected to have walking in on Test Day is covered in these books.
Chapter profiles, on the first page of each chapter, represent a holistic look at the content within the chapter, and will include a pie chart as well as text information. The pie chart analysis is based directly on data released by the AAMC, and will give a rough estimate of the importance of the chapter in relation to the book as a whole. Further, the text portion of the Chapter Profiles includes which AAMC content categories are covered within the chapter. These are referenced directly from the AAMC MCAT exam content listing, available on the testmaker’s website.
You’ll also see new High-Yield badges scattered throughout the sections of this book:
| Download Ebook | Read Now | File Type | Upload Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Download here
|
Read Now | Epub | October 29, 2020 |
How to Read and Open File Type for PC ?
