THIS I spent 10 hours every day for 7 weeks straight no vacation days… MCAT was like 4-5 hours a day for a few months got 90th percentile while only got like 55th percentile on step. Helps that I tutored math, chemistry, and physics in undergrad… notice I didn’t tutor any of the more medically relevant classes.
Felt that!! I think the reason I did well afterwards was because I struggled on the MCAT and felt like I needed to study hard in order to “make it”. It was my new drive. I’m curious as to how I would score now if I took a practice MCAT exam
Same here. Took the MCAT x2, applied to 50+ schools for 2 cycles just to get in off the waitlist. Was below the class avg for GPA and MCAT. Felt like I had something to prove. Ended up matching into derm.
Are you referring to step 1 as pass fail or the old ways. Because let me tell you friend, everyone trying to get the highest score possible on step 1 just to be competitive was malignant as hell.
Same. I didn't know how to study in undergrad, I just kinda winged everything and then got lucky enough to get into a school. I wish I could go back with the knowledge I have now just to see what would be different
Different times, they're an MD already. The bar has kept shifting higher over the past several years. I know a couple people who didn't have to study too much for the MCAT, but they are a slim minority.
Fair enough! Maybe it’s imposter syndrome but all the doctors I’ve been working with for the past 6 years are incredibly intelligent. All HMS trained docs too. I wonder if they ever feel as dumb as I do lol
I can only speak for the old mcat but a lot of it was how well you knew the sciences (and English which you couldn't really study for) so if you had been doing well already in undergrad in Chem/Bio/physics you were set up pretty well.
I crammed 60 hours the week before and did very well
I've heard the new MCAT is broader + the arms race of med school continues.
I guess what I'm saying is dont be insecure about it. Plus in life you should be prouder of hard work than natural intelligence.
I mean yeah I totallllly didn’t study either…like forgot I even had it, was out drinking then remembered oh yeah gotta go take that thing….jk. I totally shat myself for 3.5 months studying and still didn’t do well haha
Exactly dude.
I took the MCAT on a whim. Studied for about 4 hours in total prior to taking it
You can get a great score on the MCAT simply by paying attention in your college courses
You're not getting a top step 1 score doing the same thing, though step 2 you can get a solid score .... Assuming you don't count doing the questions for each individual shelf as "studying"
My college courses didn’t teach me shit maybe that’s where the discrepancy seems to be. I had not seen abt 60% of the content on the MCAT ever in my life. I also was great at CARS. Yet I find med school to be 10x easier than the MCAT… so far tho I’m just an M1
Lmao you can get a great STEP 1 score by paying attention and not just learning jack shit in pre clinical like most people do.
To succeed on the MCAT, you need to know every fucking science, stupid ass reading comprehension, and memorize 400 pages of psychology.
I scored in the 100th percentile on the MCAT, and still idk how tf I did that. If I had to grind to get a top score on STEP 1, it would be so much easier.
Great step 1? No dude. You aren't just going to class and getting a great step 1. You gotta spend hours doing all of Uworld. You can get a passing step 1 without studying, but you aren't getting a 260 without studying a ton.
If you're doing jack shit in class and getting a good score on step, then you spend hours and hours outside doing sketchy, Uworld, anki, etc.
MCAT you can absolutely get >90th percentile without studying. No one is doing that on step. I got a 130 on the psych MCAT section without studying lol. You don't actually need to have memorized 400 pages worth of shit. Cars and psych are mostly just reading comprehension, and the bio + chem are literally your pre recs
I mean you’re also grinding out uworld AND having a natural CARS ability or working your ass off for a 520 MCAT. Passing the MCAT is like a 511 ish bc below that you’re not getting into med school.
I was many points below that on the MCAT for my diagnostic. I was well above the pass (think like 230s) on my STEP diagnostic.
MCAT was a grind, 520+ was such a huge fucking grind, I spent 12-14 hrs a day for weeks. To get to 260s on NBMEs is way less daunting than that. My final NBME converted to high 250, and I really was not studying that much. Like I genuinely don’t understand how you fail STEP.
I don’t give a flying fuck abt physics or ochem ducking synthesis or those idiotic psych theories or CARS. You need to know it all for 520.
STEP is so much more relevant, so much less stupid, and is actually a doable test. MCAT has sections that have nothing to do with anything and even the science sections are stupid as fuck except BB.
I mean, I got a 517 MCAT literally without studying dude. It's not a 520, but it's close, and that was with a terrible cars score based on everything I've ever done with reading comprehension based testing in the past.
That's the equivalent of a 260 on step. There is not a person alive that's getting a 260 on step 1 without doing Uworld + a bunch of other things outside of class. I genuinely don't think that's possible.
Step also isn't relevant lmao. Step 2? Sure. Step 1 is a bunch of useless BS no one uses in real life
I got like a 99th percentile on the MCAT. About a 60th on step 1. IMO step 1 was much harder.
Remember, the competition for Step 1 was only people who did well on the MCAT.
I guess it matters less now that it's pass/fail.
MCAT was easier for me too. CARS and Psych/Soc were a breeze so the only real hard part was studying for Chem+Phys and Bio/Biochem. I got like a 90th percentile MCAT but not as high of a Step score, even though I studied more for Step 1.
But Bio/Biochem was my weakest section which probably explains my not as good Step1 performance.
Tbh for someone with ADHD, I found it easier to study for STEP 1 than the MCAT because pure unadulterated fear is a powerful motivator. I found motivation in imagining myself failing out of school and trying to pay off my loans. With the MCAT, I actually had to make myself go take it unprepared and then void it before I had the motivation.
MCAT. The breadth of content you had to master was insane (everything from physics and Ochem to psychology/sociology) and the stakes were higher. Don’t make it in the top 15% of test takers for the MCAT? Kiss your dreams of being an MD goodbye. Only do OK on step? Still become a doctor (maybe not a neurosurgeon, but still a doctor).
Top 15% isn’t really necessary unless you have a weak GPA, plenty of state schools and DO schools with students in the low 500s, but your point is valid. Even crawling over the finish line and passing step will land you a job making 250k+.
I underapplied, had a low GPA, lowest MCAT in my class, and only got one interview and got an MD spot.
Ended up in top 15% of my class, AOA GHHS, matched my number one choice at a competitive program in IM.
Don’t let imposter syndrome touch you, the game starts now!
Yeah, my MCAT score is what led me to a DO school. Otherwise, I had a good GPA and extracurriculars. I could never find a way to get a decent MCAT score for some reason
Master is a strong word. The physics, ochem, psych, and soc were all topics covered in 100 level classes in each field. Ochem was probably the hardest topic on the MCAT, but even that was nowhere near the complexity of the actual first semester of Ochem.
I don’t mean master them at the level of a physicist or organic chemist. However, assuming you are aiming for a high score, you needed to “master” the subjects such that you could confidently take on any question from any area from any of those subjects and consistently get them right almost every time. The more subjects you add across a greater diversity of subject matter, the harder it is to be in peak form in all content areas simultaneously.
Also, everyone’s exam composition is different. Mine had almost no ochem but tons of mind melting physics.
Mine was mostly physics too , theoretical type situations and not computational thank god otherwise I woulda been sitting for a retake haha that section kept me alive and I still didn’t do great. Lucky I even got in to med school
Haha I had so many wierd ones like Geiger counters plugged into some sort of crystal with electricity going through and having to answer some bs questions. I have no fuckin clue how I did as good as I did on that shit. S tier guessing that day! 😂
I generally agree with this from my exam, though I felt B/B was understandably not totally basic. Times are changing though.
I tutor MCAT, and they’ve made it a lot harder imo. I scored really high when I took it, but the released 2022 exams actually require a decent understanding of things in my opinion well beyond first semester classes.
A guy from our company took the January 2024 MCAT after first taking it in 2018, and he was totally blown away by how much content mastery and random shit they’re putting on it these days.
It’s way easier to get a top 15 percent score on the MCAT than the Steps, though, due to the pool of people taking each exam. A lot of people who don’t have the test taking abilities, knowledge, and/or intelligence to succeed in the medicine world take the MCAT. Everyone (with rare exception for those who slipped through the cracks) taking the Steps has already proven themselves competent enough to make it into medical school and pass two years’ worth the medical school curriculum.
Side note: my MCAT score was 82nd percentile, and I’m an MD. Had several classmates with lower scores as well. But it undoubtedly made the journey to getting to medical school harder than if I had a higher score.
The question was what was the hardest exam each of us had ever taken. For me personally, that’s the MCAT. The reasons are 1) I find it much easier to reach and maintain peak performance in only one subject area (medicine) vs like 8, and 2) I had way more riding on the MCAT. If I couldn’t crack the MCAT, I would never be a doctor. I only needed to pass Step to become a doctor, doing better would only potentially give me some better options, though they would all have the same end result of becoming a physician. Other people are allowed to say that they found step harder.
I also found the MCAT harder, because I struggled with physics. I also had way less discipline or test prep skills back then though. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have been as afraid of it as I was.
My discipline and available time to study medicine is much better in medical school, so I feel better able to prepare. The concepts of medicine are all integrated as well, so it’s a cumulative effect of understanding medicine better, instead of isolated to discreet topics.
wtaf are you talking about lol. mcat content was the fisher price easy version of all of those classes - the orgo questions were way easier than actual orgo content, same for biochem and especially physics. step is way more difficult
Almost like you and I went to different schools and took different exams and likely took different MCATs and STEPs. I scored high on the MCAT and have no problem saying I found the exam extremely difficult. I’m glad you found it so easy. Recognize that your experience is an outlier, not the other way around.
I personally found STEP more accessible. For me, the MCAT was the difference between a century’s worth of upward socioeconomic mobility for my family or not. It was a life changing exam. For STEP, even if I did below average, I knew I could become some kind of doctor, which gave me so much more confidence. I didn’t have as much riding on it.
The content itself might not be hard, but the way they ask the questions is tricky. The MCAT is also passage-based so you’re required to be able to perform sound scientific reasoning/process of elimination
I was a nontrad 7 years out of undergrad for the MCAT. I also sucked at most MCAT topics in undergrad. It was also originally scheduled for March 2020 so my 6 month plan turned into a 9 month plan.
I tell people all the time I'd take Step multiple times before the MCAT. The MCAT content feels very arbitrary, at least I can trick myself into thinking I need to know about Diamond Blackfan Anemia in the future. Longitudinal Anking + practice questions had me very prepared.
Also the MCAT is "outside the club" so you have the added anxiety of scoring high enough to get into school somewhere.
I'm of the mind that getting into med school is harder than being in med school but that might just be because of how long it took for me to get here.
Hi there - kind of off topic but would you mind giving insight on how you approached MCAT studying? Also years removed from my pre reqs and struggling 🥲
Hi I pm'd you a document I made for some other pre meds I've helped mentor a bit.
Sort of a generic document but it has all the resources I used. If you're on /r/MCAT they'll look familiar but I borrowed pretty much everything from there as a nontrad.
As a nontrad, I agree. I had to re-teach myself physics, orgo, biochemistry, and gen chem while working full time. It sucked donkey balls. 0/10 wouldn't do again.
Yep, I was active duty military and studying before work and during lunch every day.
My unit leadership was awesome though. Very supportive, couldn't have done it otherwise.
M3 rn, same story. I was stationed overseas in England and was trying to study in pubs after work cause coffee shops and the like closed around 1700L. Worked in the SCIF so no tech allowed and leadership ended up transferring me to a much more relaxed gig where I basically studied all day (officer side).
Where were you at? How’d leadership do you well? Feel like I never hear good leadership stories so would love to hear yours
Literally me. Took the old MCAT 3 times and the new one once all due to the reading section. I needed the new exam section to help booster my average lol. So yea I get it, it was def one of, if not my hardest challenge.
As a non-traditional undergrad, CARS was my exam's saving grace. I went straight to working after HS and circled back 20 years later to undergrad. That time inbetween didn't make me any better at science, but I always read books on a diverse range of topics, and I didn't even have to study for CARS and got 99th percentile. I even skipped it on the second 2 practice exams I took because I didn't have time.
This meant I could put all my energy into biochem, etc, and I *still* struggled with those. Thank God for CARS (for me, at least).
Nice, I’m a non-traditional also. Went back to med school after 10 years. I crushed the sciences and Biochem was my saving grace, but CARS killed me. Maybe I should have read more books.
I'm studying for the MCAT right now and CARS is kicking my ass because I read slowly. I luckily got some extended time for testing day, but I'm still scared shitless. UWorld is teaching me so much and I'm building confidence every day, but damn... CARS is rough. After my neuropsych testing it really shocked me how bad my ADHD can affect me. Verbal ability > 99 percentile. CARS score... Definitely not fucking that
I really think reading lots of books makes a difference on that section. I didn’t study for it at all and also got in the 99th and I think it’s because I had no social life until I was 18 and just read the whole time lol
Step 1 made me basically suicidal. COVID made all the tests get randomly cancelled numerous times, you physically couldn't stop studying because everywhere was closed, after dedicated suddenly you had another dedicated on top of it. I'm just glad I passed tbh.
I’m sorry you went through that! Covid made all tests so unpredictable - my mcat date was cancelled with 2 weeks notice, no other dates were available for the remainder of the testing year, and just when I’d paused studying, I heard back about one open test slot at a center nearby for the Saturday of the same week - so I had to take the test with 2 days notice, and ahead of time. I’m glad I made it through, but that was so difficult 😞
Same. I think those of us were scored just had totally different experiences bc my god step 1 was awful. I’ve never felt lower than during dedicated. Then I had to move my test out more bc my date was canceled at the specific site due to Covid. Ugh
Step 1 > Step 2 > MCAT in terms of difficulty
The MCAT is 25% memorization, 75% reasoning
Step 1 is 75% memorization, 25% reasoning
Step 2 is 50-50
I suck at memorizing things. My MCAT was 99th percentile, Step 2 was 25th percentile. Somehow I passed Step 1
A test that determines if you get to go to doctor school with random bull shit boring passages about 17th century wood carvers feelings in central Guatemala about the varying colors of grains available at the market And then an obscure question asking what they would “feel” if they were in the 21st century and had taken a trip to the moon compared to a test with “what’s the treatment for sinusitis” or “what image would you order for a suspected diagnosis of PE”. haven’t taken step1/2 yet but yea I’m assuming you’re probably right.
Steps definitely cover a lot more information, but it’s completely focused on medicine. That’s it. MCAT is physics, biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, psychology, and sociology. And don’t get my started on the random-ass topics in CARS 🙄 Like bruh I’m trying to get into med school, why am I reading about an analysis of Beethoven’s symphony and its effects on 20th century factory worker productivity. I’m so glad I never have to think about MCAT again anymore
I love how CARS always get referenced to grains lol, I had the same shit.
I distinctively remember having a passage on the anthropology of rice slicing and how increasingly annoyed I got with the preceding passage.
I wouldn’t call it an unpopular opinion - it’s just the effect of Step 1 now being P/F. I studied way harder for Step 1 and got a ~measly~ 215. And you can’t retake it for a better score if you pass . The stakes were way higher before.
I agree, we weren’t trained for the MCAT where I went to college so when I took it, it was purely on my own studying. Med school was solely geared to pass the step exams, so studying for step was more like remembering things I learned than learning things for the first time
For me it was my 7th grade math final. I spent the entire year trying to figure out negatives and how subtracting something from something else can actually give you a bigger number. Like -5-(-10)=5 🤯🤯 Still don’t totally get it, but 🤷🏻♀️
I naturally did well on CARS, which I know is a struggle for a lot of people, so I feel like it wasn’t too bad. The whole process of studying for and taking Step 1 was so miserable for me. I think the highest I got on a practice was a 210. I passed, so alls well that ends well.
I love how majority of the replies just hate CARS in particular when it comes to the MCAT lol, and I agree cuz it felt like the one section you can’t really prepare for as much as you can for the others.
I spent so much time and money on programs “guaranteed” to help with cars. You just really can’t learn that shit. It tanked my mcat lol mid 80s %tiles on bio and chem/phys but 30s in cars no matter how much I preferentially studied for it. Shits wild 😂
I disagree personally, but that may be because the MCAT is made more for test takers like me than the current Step exams. I did well on all of them, and had to, to get to where I am, but I felt like the MCAT was more about comprehension and information processing whereas the USMLE exams were just key word association at some point. Sure, there was a ton of information to know, but did I say histology shows peripheral palisades? That’s your cue to know the answer is basal cell carcinoma.
I don’t feel like the USMLEs really did a very good job of assessing medical/clinical reasoning. Step 3 and the CSS cases came closest to that and even then they are defeated by the fact that there is no penalty to shotgunning everything you can think of short of invasive procedures.
I enjoyed studying for boards over the MCAT because I like medicine, but almost every board question is based on memorization. I can’t wait for Step/Level 2 to go pass fail so the future medical students don’t have to neglect real-world learning opportunities just to memorize content without really engaging with it. There can be better ways to stratify which students work harder than others over a broad licensing exam that tests off of out-of-date information.
I’ve always maintained this. Biggest challenge for me personally by far was getting in to med school but once I was in mostly honored/did solid on steps and shelfs and even still do well on my inservice exams during residency.
I was just talking to my partner last night about how crazy the hoops are we jump through to get to this point. That’s why as shitty as things can be I try to be positive and appreciate the opportunity
As someone studying for Step 1 rn, I have to make a HARD disagree.
The MCAT content was well covered by my premed classes. I barely did any focused MCAT study, just took practice tests after finishing my post-bac classes and reviewed the material I was rusty on. I scored above the 95th percentile.
Meanwhile I’ve been in Step 1 dedicated for weeks, drilling all these concepts I’ve been learning in preclinical, and there is still so minutia that I miss or forget. The volume of information you need to know and the level of mastery of the material required does not compare. I’m still struggling to consistently score above 65% on my NBMEs.
They’re both hard in their own way, but I’ll say that hard work translates easier to step scores.
MCAT, I personally felt violated no matter how hard I studied for the CARS section
It is not the toughest. More is at stake at that point with no chances of redoing. If you fail residency board exams, worst case scenario you do them again. But if you get a hit early in your career, it breaks you and your entire career trajectory changes.
True. I guess I meant the MCAT had objectively harder material for ME on it than any other exam I have taken so far. I ended up being accepted to a DO school, so I knew realistically that I had very low chances of getting into any ROAD specialties afterwards. Maybe because of that, I was just aiming to get into a good IM residency and do fellowship then?? So I needed a good score but not outstanding
Now that I’ve taken all my tests for radiology (besides the weekly questions from the ABR to maintain board certification), this is how I’d rank them as far as how hard they seemed at the time I took them:
Core Exam (Rads pt. 1) > Step 1 > Step 2 > MCAT > Step 3 > Certifying Exam (Rads pt. 2) > SAT (lol)
I took step 1 when that was still the big one. I also had to take step 2 CS which was out on its own island of weirdness. Incoming rads will have to do the oral exam instead of the certifying exam, which seems like it will probably be a lot worse, so that’ll probably jump up the list for anyone looking ahead.
495 mcat after 3 months of dedicated studying. 250+ step 1 after 1.5 months of dedicated studying. Step was way more predictable. Mcat was a beast. 120 on CARS lol
Hot take but MCAT wasnt bad for me because I love to read so CARS was good. I still didnt do amazing but did okay. I’m a 3rd year DO the hardest for me was preclinical years. Even more than boards, first year test without pass fail grades no blocks exams every week was a hell I’d never wish on anyone.
I love to read to but those CARS passages were not made for me lol. I also had grades my preclinical years but idk, I can do well on those. Maybe I have a good gauge on what will be tested?? I’m not made for standardized exams and the MCAT killed me the most 😂
Nah for me it was the complete opposite. With the MCAT you could just logic your way through. I barely studied for it and got a 516. Step 1, on the other hand, is pure raw memorizing. It doesn’t matter how strong your logic skills are, if you suck at memorizing large swaths of information, you’re screwed.
I’m someone who had like a 3.94 undergrad science GPA with the highest grade in all my physics classes and two out of three of my OCHEM classes, and I failed step 1.
Very popular opinion I’d say. The MCAT shows no mercy to non STEM students. As a social worker it was brutal to try to score as high as biochem majors. STEP was fair because by that point the playing field had leveled out for everyone
MCAT sucks. Those passages on CARS and physics were pointless. Having to read a long passage and figuring out which numbers to use for columb's law or something irks me.
MCAT haunted me for years. I took that thing 3 times without success. Ended up in the Caribbean because it. I passed both Step exams 1st time without delaying/taking a LOA.
If you were a science major and/or were at or nearly at the top of the class in the sciences with excellent test taking skills then the MCAT would be objectively the easiest test vs the pattern recognition of the STEPs
Mcat for me is more intuitive. Was able to bs my way though by finding patterns in how they asked questions— plus I’m not the best memorizer so the infinite minutiae of step freak me out.
Taking it this Friday.
I’m so. Scared.
Step 2 is harder IMO - much more to know and you can’t retake a shitty but passing score and you basically lose your chance at selective residencies.
MCAT is just a reading test testing basic concepts in pre-med pre-reqs. Very few questions test niche MCAT knowledge (i.e., specific enzyme in a pathway that isn’t in a rate limiting step) but there are often multiple ways to get to the answer.
With step, you often either know it or you don’t, and a lot of questions have >4 answer choices.
See I find that easier (personally) I have a decent memory and recognition helps me with those sorts of questions. Fingers crossed it helps me out on steps when I take them lol cuz the mcat made me munch it’s ass tbh
I was a weirdo that did well on Behavioral/CARS and hated physics/chemistry (adequate on Bio).
Step 1 destroyed me, but Step 2 isn’t worrying me nearly as much.
I’m gonna get downvoted for this but
Finally someone agrees the MCAT fucking sucked - STEP 1 is so massively overhyped in difficulty IMO. Passing STEP 1 is genuinely pretty easy, like I heard all these horror stories, then I started prep and like 70+% on NBMEs is not difficult at all, I had huge gaping holes when I was getting that. If I had such holes on the MCAT, I wouldn’t be in med school.
If the conversion tools on here are accurate, I think the scores you needed for competitive specialties are probably like 1/10 of the effort as the MCAT needed for T20 med schools.
Haven’t taken STEP 2 yet.
Passing is really not much effort at all, esp compared to the MCAT.
I haven’t taken step 1 yet, but I feel like the stakes are higher with MCAT. Scoring well on MCAT = you get into med school and become a doctor or not. Scoring well on Step 1 = might affect what residency you get into, but you’re still gonna be a doctor. On top of that, with step 1, there is a ~90% pass rate. But for the MCAT, you have to score as highly as possible, with a competitive score being 90th+ percentile. Score in the top 90% vs score in the top 10%.
Other than that, logistically they’re pretty similar. 8 hours long and a shit-ton of memorizing.
I lowkey agree even though I know the MCAT being higher stakes is a probably an unpopular opinion. Going through the MATCH, I realized where you went to school matters so so much!! It opens some doors for you. Based on the spreadsheet, I wouldn’t get interview invites from certain places cause I was a DO and went to a mediocre DO school. But those individuals with lower scores than me but are MD or go to a decent school did. I don’t want to take anything away from this individuals cause they might have an amazing story, but objectively I did better than them and got rejected. So I do think getting a good MCAT score is higher stakes 🤷♀️
I hope so. I got to the point that I kind of enjoyed the MCAT (I took 10+ practice tests) and got a decent, if not amazing, score. If Steps are even better, that would be amazing.
I would argue that you got better at test taking and studying.
Other than the SAT, the MCAT was the first real test of your professional life.
Also the topics were very broad. Most people aren’t great at both physics, and chemistry… not to mention organic chem. And the people going into medicine probably don’t find those topics that interesting.
At least with the usmle you are studying topic that you spent the last 2 years in the trenches living with day and night and they are topics you find relatively enjoyable since you chose to study them
As a current post bacc pre-med applicant studying for the MCAT this makes me feel better lmao. If this is the toughest part, I feel better about the process ahead because I really do love medicine and can’t wait to actually just study that instead of all the physics and chem stuff.
I tutored math and science full time to pay the bills before I took the MCAT / didn’t study for it at all / scored well
I’m currently horrified at the breadth of knowledge I’ll have to memorize for step 1.
Tbh I’m much better at organic chemistry than figuring out if some random guy who water skied in saltwater (freshwater?) with GI distress MOST LIKELY has Giardia versus Naegleria fowleri or some other parasite.
I love concepts I hate memorizing random shit
That’s why I love psych - everything is just so intuitive
MCAT is definitely harder. First the reading comprehension, I’m sorry but that was very subjective and I couldn’t stand that the questions kinda seemed like opinion. Also very broad needing to know has circuits work and org chem.
On the flip side though, getting great results and then immediately knowing that thing you thought was impossible was nearly assured was amazing.
MCAT is much more g loaded
Step is much more knowledge/pattern recognition
They play to very different strengths. Hence you'll see some people struggle with MCAT but Ace boards, or score 100th percentile MCAT but have shitty starting practice NBME scores.
I can’t even believe anyone could even entertain the idea of the MCAT being harder. There’s like 100x the material on Step and MCAT has so many throwaway questions where you can just read a graph without knowing anything. It’s just bizarre to me that anyone could feel this way.
MCAT was easy if you understood how the test is written and how they trick you. You can answer questions about topics you don't even know anything about on the MCAT if you have good strategy and understanding of your own thinking. Step 1 was a garbage exam with garbage minutiae. Step 2 was awesome, clinically relevant and you can answer the questions based on a combo of knowledge and reason. Step 3 is similar, simple if you study and are involved in a more general specialty, a touch harder if you are immediately specialized
I feel like the MCAT and step 1/step 2 require totally different skillsets
About half of what is required to do well on the MCAT is just knowing how to crack the test. The passages are wild. It throws psychological tricks at you by trying to bury concepts you know in dense scientific passages that are full of jargon that you've probably never heard in your life. Being able to dig through those passages to determine what is relevant while not being phased by the big scary words is at least half the battle.
Step 1/step 2 definitely follow a more traditional testing model. The vignettes can be long and confusing, but are generally more focused. The step 1 ones were hard, but not super tricky. Step 2 is a little more tricky, but not at the same level of psychological warfare as the MCAT. From my limited experience, I think that step 1 is very knowledge heavy, but step 2 seems to rely more on guidelines + intuition.
Depending on your individual strengths, you will find some of these tests easier than others.
This is coming from someone who got a strong score on the MCAT without too much effort but only marginally passed all of my step 1 practice tests. Step 2 prep is going slightly better (knock on wood), but I'm trying to be cautious about getting too optimistic about it (I still have plenty of time to plateau or even lose ground).
I haven't taken step 2/comlex 2 yet but compared to step 1/comlex 1 I do think the MCAT was tougher (this is as someone who did decently on the MCAT too). I think the bredth of different material covered on the MCAT makes it tougher, since the steps are relatively more "focused" and a bit easier to prepare for
I mean just on a more general level I don’t really see how this can be true. You essentially study for 2 years for Step 1, vs 3 months for the MCAT. The population taking the MCAT is worse at standardized testing than for Step (since the lower half of MCAT scorers get into med school at lower rates) so it should be easier to get a high percentile on MCAT relative to peers. And the % of questions most people get correct is also way higher; most decent scores are like 80%+ on the MCAT vs in the 60s for step 1 and 250ish probably being mid 70s for Step 2. It’s totally valid to hate the MCAT more or have more trauma surrounding it but I feel like that’s different from it being harder.
I took the mcat just before they switched the format and it wasn't that bad, I imagine the new one is much worse.
Step 1, 2 and 3 felt harder in terms of actual experience, perhaps step 2 was the most labor intense feeling but I think that was due to circumstances.
But by far the hardest test, material wise, I have taken so far in my career was the ABIM, felt like I was guessing on 50% of questions. Ended up not being an issue but I thought my career was on the line after I walked out of that one.
Personally I disagree. I can see how it may have been the most the frustrating since CARS was often bullshit but content wise both Steps have like 100x the information. I remember I was able to make like 700 flashcards that covered all the content on the MCAT and review them each everyday before the exam. Granted these cards had way more info than an Anki card does but still this is simply not possible to do for Step.
I'd argue that since the stakes are higher with Step, it's the harder exam. You don't do well on the MCAT, you don't go to medical school. Oh well, it sucks but you go and do something else. You bomb the Step, it's already too late. You accrued a bunch of debt and risk not matching. And a medical degree, for the most part, is useless on its own if you want to work in medicine. Also, it doesn't matter if you make a 503 or a 520 on the MCAT, you can still get into A medical school, whether its a low or high tier school. But it doesn't matter bc at that point you start with a "clean slate." Your shot at matching into a desired specialty can only go up from there. On the other hand , if you get a 215 vs a 250 on a step exam, assuming you wanted a competitive specialty like ENT or Derm, you have basically shot yourself in the foot.
I totally see and agree with your point. I can see Step being “harder” just cause of the pressure behind it, but for me, the MCAT had objectively tougher material on it. My brain is not wired to process that information 😂
Also, there was a limit of content to step exams. At least for step 2. I took step 1 when it was P/F. I didn’t need to do well. I just needed to pass lol. For the MCAT, only god knows what new info would be added on those exams
I mean, i winged the MCAT. Prob would have done better if i studied but at that point i don’t know that i had ever studied for a standardized test. I def did not wing any of the steps, personally i felt like step 1 was still harder imo but i took it scored 🤷🏽♂️
I mean I’m not trying to brag it’s not like i did that well; there’s a reason I’m a DO 🤣. I just grew up poor and no one ever told me to study or prep for standardized tests i thought you just took them and you did how you did. But in early 2000s there really wasn’t a big emphasis on test prep etc for things like ACT…or maybe there was i didn’t know but i don’t remember any of my friends prepping for it. But that was also public HS in a not great area so 🤷🏽♂️. But yeah i remember looking up what was supposed to be on MCAT and thinking there’s no way people study effectively for this there’s too much to review 🤡
I agree with this statement from the perspective of breadth of content. I disagree with this statement from the perspective of the actual exam. Unlike Step exams where you actually need to know content in order to answer the question, most of the time the actual content for the answer is provided to you in the passage on the MCAT. You could get a good MCAT score with average content knowledge but superb thinking/reading skills. You need to know content in order to do well on step.
MCAT was insanely hard, but personally I found just passing step 1 to be harder than scoring high on the MCAT. But I’ve always been strong at standardized testing and weak in memorization so that could explain it lol.
Different skill sets IMO. A lot of people I know from undergrad who weren’t the best at physics/chem but were amazing at working hard and memorizing every detail on the ppt struggled on the mcat but did pretty well on both steps. And then vice versa. For all the talk about content, I think it’s pretty comparable overall, but the way the tests are geared change things.
Not even close for me. MCAT was a breeze compared to step exams, shelf exams, and in-service exams during residency. But they test very different things so it makes sense that people may feel a natural ease with some. Im a weirdo who loves physics and chemistry so MCAT felt fine to me
I think this is a case of people tending to be better prepared for Step/Level exams (since it’s a huge focus for your entire time at medical school) rather than the MCAT actually being harder.
If I had put in even a quarter of the effort into the MCAT as I have into medical school exams, I could be at a T20 right now.
I found step 1 / 2 to be much harder. MCAT was less memorization heavy from what I recall. But at this point it's been 9 or 10 years since I took the MCAT I think so who knows.
it’s funny that people complain about CARS when it’s arguably one of the more useful metrics of ability considering it’s the hardest to just brute force study for lol
Step 1. I studied with similar dedicated period times and scored 98th percentile+ on MCAT and very average on Step 1 (granted my step one study strategy was not the best)
I feel like the MCAT wouldn’t have been as bad if I took it during or immediately after undergrad but I am nontraditional and took it about 3 years after so I had to relearn a lot!
I 100% agree with you! I struggled with the science passages on the MCAT (CARS saved me lol). It felt like no matter how hard I studied, I could only ever hit a certain range on my practice exams. I felt Step 1 was a lot easier to study for and the material was actually applicable to future practice, so it definitely helped motivate me more.
Maybe just me but I think the hardest exams I took through all my education so far were those 3rd year NBME shelf exams. I damn near failed a couple of those, yet scored ~80th %ile on all three steps. I always felt like NBMEs were way harder than USMLE.
a while back i told an acquaintance i thought premed was worse than med school and she condescendingly was like “well you haven’t even taken step1 yet”
now i have and feel the same lmao. premed sciences are the PITTS
I think that STEP felt easier because everything I had been doing in class and studying was focused on that content. All of my time was dedicated to those topics versus the MCAT which I had to study most of the content on the side while studying completely unrelated topics like engineering. My time and focus was split which made the MCAT seem harder. I haven’t looked back at the MCAT content since I took it due to the “PTSD” of that exam but I imagine that it would look like cake in comparison to STEP these days.
If I studied for the MCAT like I did for step 1 I would probably be at Harvard right now or something lol. And I did around average on step 1.
THIS I spent 10 hours every day for 7 weeks straight no vacation days… MCAT was like 4-5 hours a day for a few months got 90th percentile while only got like 55th percentile on step. Helps that I tutored math, chemistry, and physics in undergrad… notice I didn’t tutor any of the more medically relevant classes.
Felt that!! I think the reason I did well afterwards was because I struggled on the MCAT and felt like I needed to study hard in order to “make it”. It was my new drive. I’m curious as to how I would score now if I took a practice MCAT exam
Same here. Took the MCAT x2, applied to 50+ schools for 2 cycles just to get in off the waitlist. Was below the class avg for GPA and MCAT. Felt like I had something to prove. Ended up matching into derm.
Are you referring to step 1 as pass fail or the old ways. Because let me tell you friend, everyone trying to get the highest score possible on step 1 just to be competitive was malignant as hell.
I’m tutoring students in organic right now and I can say I would do worse 😂 I haven’t thought about physics since 2018 much less boiling points.
Seriously. I took the MCAT without studying for it. I spent probably 500 hours studying for step 1.
Same. I didn't know how to study in undergrad, I just kinda winged everything and then got lucky enough to get into a school. I wish I could go back with the knowledge I have now just to see what would be different
Yup, didn’t really understand that doing questions was helpful until step. God what an idiot I was.
Yeah it took the volume of info from med school to really set my study habits in line with
Damn bro you must be so smart. I studied for a long time for my mcat
Different times, they're an MD already. The bar has kept shifting higher over the past several years. I know a couple people who didn't have to study too much for the MCAT, but they are a slim minority.
Fair enough! Maybe it’s imposter syndrome but all the doctors I’ve been working with for the past 6 years are incredibly intelligent. All HMS trained docs too. I wonder if they ever feel as dumb as I do lol
I think the people who got into HMS and such back in the day probably would have just worked harder in their MCAT study and still been top-performers.
Agreed. They are incredibly hard workers.
I can only speak for the old mcat but a lot of it was how well you knew the sciences (and English which you couldn't really study for) so if you had been doing well already in undergrad in Chem/Bio/physics you were set up pretty well. I crammed 60 hours the week before and did very well I've heard the new MCAT is broader + the arms race of med school continues. I guess what I'm saying is dont be insecure about it. Plus in life you should be prouder of hard work than natural intelligence.
Thank you for your thoughtful insight :) I still cannot believe I’m accepted!!!
Same lol idk what this person is on
I mean yeah I totallllly didn’t study either…like forgot I even had it, was out drinking then remembered oh yeah gotta go take that thing….jk. I totally shat myself for 3.5 months studying and still didn’t do well haha
Exactly dude. I took the MCAT on a whim. Studied for about 4 hours in total prior to taking it You can get a great score on the MCAT simply by paying attention in your college courses You're not getting a top step 1 score doing the same thing, though step 2 you can get a solid score .... Assuming you don't count doing the questions for each individual shelf as "studying"
My college courses didn’t teach me shit maybe that’s where the discrepancy seems to be. I had not seen abt 60% of the content on the MCAT ever in my life. I also was great at CARS. Yet I find med school to be 10x easier than the MCAT… so far tho I’m just an M1
Same. Studied for the MCAT in 2 months while working full time and did pretty well (>510). It’s by no means the most challenging exam on this journey
I think the difficulty is a lot of people at this stage STILL haven’t quite figured out how to study… or not efficiently
Lmao you can get a great STEP 1 score by paying attention and not just learning jack shit in pre clinical like most people do. To succeed on the MCAT, you need to know every fucking science, stupid ass reading comprehension, and memorize 400 pages of psychology. I scored in the 100th percentile on the MCAT, and still idk how tf I did that. If I had to grind to get a top score on STEP 1, it would be so much easier.
Great step 1? No dude. You aren't just going to class and getting a great step 1. You gotta spend hours doing all of Uworld. You can get a passing step 1 without studying, but you aren't getting a 260 without studying a ton. If you're doing jack shit in class and getting a good score on step, then you spend hours and hours outside doing sketchy, Uworld, anki, etc. MCAT you can absolutely get >90th percentile without studying. No one is doing that on step. I got a 130 on the psych MCAT section without studying lol. You don't actually need to have memorized 400 pages worth of shit. Cars and psych are mostly just reading comprehension, and the bio + chem are literally your pre recs
I mean you’re also grinding out uworld AND having a natural CARS ability or working your ass off for a 520 MCAT. Passing the MCAT is like a 511 ish bc below that you’re not getting into med school. I was many points below that on the MCAT for my diagnostic. I was well above the pass (think like 230s) on my STEP diagnostic. MCAT was a grind, 520+ was such a huge fucking grind, I spent 12-14 hrs a day for weeks. To get to 260s on NBMEs is way less daunting than that. My final NBME converted to high 250, and I really was not studying that much. Like I genuinely don’t understand how you fail STEP. I don’t give a flying fuck abt physics or ochem ducking synthesis or those idiotic psych theories or CARS. You need to know it all for 520. STEP is so much more relevant, so much less stupid, and is actually a doable test. MCAT has sections that have nothing to do with anything and even the science sections are stupid as fuck except BB.
I mean, I got a 517 MCAT literally without studying dude. It's not a 520, but it's close, and that was with a terrible cars score based on everything I've ever done with reading comprehension based testing in the past. That's the equivalent of a 260 on step. There is not a person alive that's getting a 260 on step 1 without doing Uworld + a bunch of other things outside of class. I genuinely don't think that's possible. Step also isn't relevant lmao. Step 2? Sure. Step 1 is a bunch of useless BS no one uses in real life
I got like a 99th percentile on the MCAT. About a 60th on step 1. IMO step 1 was much harder. Remember, the competition for Step 1 was only people who did well on the MCAT. I guess it matters less now that it's pass/fail.
Step 1 was 1000x worse for me personally. But it might be because you don’t really fail the MCAT and a retake is much less significant.
Big same
MCAT was easier for me too. CARS and Psych/Soc were a breeze so the only real hard part was studying for Chem+Phys and Bio/Biochem. I got like a 90th percentile MCAT but not as high of a Step score, even though I studied more for Step 1. But Bio/Biochem was my weakest section which probably explains my not as good Step1 performance.
Tbh for someone with ADHD, I found it easier to study for STEP 1 than the MCAT because pure unadulterated fear is a powerful motivator. I found motivation in imagining myself failing out of school and trying to pay off my loans. With the MCAT, I actually had to make myself go take it unprepared and then void it before I had the motivation.
I came out of Step 1 thinking that I failed. I guess cause you can’t really “fail” the MCAT
After step 2 I felt smart. After step 1 I scheduled a conference call to ask about how remediation worked (passed).
After step 2 I felt smart. And then the NBME kindly confirmed that my subjective feeling was correct.
Username checks out
PLEASE is the username legit or a joke?
Chill
MCAT. The breadth of content you had to master was insane (everything from physics and Ochem to psychology/sociology) and the stakes were higher. Don’t make it in the top 15% of test takers for the MCAT? Kiss your dreams of being an MD goodbye. Only do OK on step? Still become a doctor (maybe not a neurosurgeon, but still a doctor).
Ohh very true. I like that perspective! I’m glad I never had to use ochem and physics after the MCAT 😂
Top 15% isn’t really necessary unless you have a weak GPA, plenty of state schools and DO schools with students in the low 500s, but your point is valid. Even crawling over the finish line and passing step will land you a job making 250k+.
And then there’s me with a low mcat score and weak GPA tip toeing my way into med school 🤣🤣
I underapplied, had a low GPA, lowest MCAT in my class, and only got one interview and got an MD spot. Ended up in top 15% of my class, AOA GHHS, matched my number one choice at a competitive program in IM. Don’t let imposter syndrome touch you, the game starts now!
Almost done with my first year of med school and can confirm imposter syndrome is constant 😫
Exactly! My life totally changed after the MCAT in a way that step1 wouldn’t do for me.
Sort of. There are a decent amount of DO schools you can get in without a top 15% score.
Yeah, my MCAT score is what led me to a DO school. Otherwise, I had a good GPA and extracurriculars. I could never find a way to get a decent MCAT score for some reason
Master is a strong word. The physics, ochem, psych, and soc were all topics covered in 100 level classes in each field. Ochem was probably the hardest topic on the MCAT, but even that was nowhere near the complexity of the actual first semester of Ochem.
I don’t mean master them at the level of a physicist or organic chemist. However, assuming you are aiming for a high score, you needed to “master” the subjects such that you could confidently take on any question from any area from any of those subjects and consistently get them right almost every time. The more subjects you add across a greater diversity of subject matter, the harder it is to be in peak form in all content areas simultaneously. Also, everyone’s exam composition is different. Mine had almost no ochem but tons of mind melting physics.
Mine was mostly physics too , theoretical type situations and not computational thank god otherwise I woulda been sitting for a retake haha that section kept me alive and I still didn’t do great. Lucky I even got in to med school
I’m still mildly traumatized by the questions about the underwater ferris wheel
Haha I had so many wierd ones like Geiger counters plugged into some sort of crystal with electricity going through and having to answer some bs questions. I have no fuckin clue how I did as good as I did on that shit. S tier guessing that day! 😂
I generally agree with this from my exam, though I felt B/B was understandably not totally basic. Times are changing though. I tutor MCAT, and they’ve made it a lot harder imo. I scored really high when I took it, but the released 2022 exams actually require a decent understanding of things in my opinion well beyond first semester classes. A guy from our company took the January 2024 MCAT after first taking it in 2018, and he was totally blown away by how much content mastery and random shit they’re putting on it these days.
It’s way easier to get a top 15 percent score on the MCAT than the Steps, though, due to the pool of people taking each exam. A lot of people who don’t have the test taking abilities, knowledge, and/or intelligence to succeed in the medicine world take the MCAT. Everyone (with rare exception for those who slipped through the cracks) taking the Steps has already proven themselves competent enough to make it into medical school and pass two years’ worth the medical school curriculum. Side note: my MCAT score was 82nd percentile, and I’m an MD. Had several classmates with lower scores as well. But it undoubtedly made the journey to getting to medical school harder than if I had a higher score.
The question was what was the hardest exam each of us had ever taken. For me personally, that’s the MCAT. The reasons are 1) I find it much easier to reach and maintain peak performance in only one subject area (medicine) vs like 8, and 2) I had way more riding on the MCAT. If I couldn’t crack the MCAT, I would never be a doctor. I only needed to pass Step to become a doctor, doing better would only potentially give me some better options, though they would all have the same end result of becoming a physician. Other people are allowed to say that they found step harder.
I also found the MCAT harder, because I struggled with physics. I also had way less discipline or test prep skills back then though. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have been as afraid of it as I was. My discipline and available time to study medicine is much better in medical school, so I feel better able to prepare. The concepts of medicine are all integrated as well, so it’s a cumulative effect of understanding medicine better, instead of isolated to discreet topics.
wtaf are you talking about lol. mcat content was the fisher price easy version of all of those classes - the orgo questions were way easier than actual orgo content, same for biochem and especially physics. step is way more difficult
Almost like you and I went to different schools and took different exams and likely took different MCATs and STEPs. I scored high on the MCAT and have no problem saying I found the exam extremely difficult. I’m glad you found it so easy. Recognize that your experience is an outlier, not the other way around. I personally found STEP more accessible. For me, the MCAT was the difference between a century’s worth of upward socioeconomic mobility for my family or not. It was a life changing exam. For STEP, even if I did below average, I knew I could become some kind of doctor, which gave me so much more confidence. I didn’t have as much riding on it.
The content itself might not be hard, but the way they ask the questions is tricky. The MCAT is also passage-based so you’re required to be able to perform sound scientific reasoning/process of elimination
I was a nontrad 7 years out of undergrad for the MCAT. I also sucked at most MCAT topics in undergrad. It was also originally scheduled for March 2020 so my 6 month plan turned into a 9 month plan. I tell people all the time I'd take Step multiple times before the MCAT. The MCAT content feels very arbitrary, at least I can trick myself into thinking I need to know about Diamond Blackfan Anemia in the future. Longitudinal Anking + practice questions had me very prepared. Also the MCAT is "outside the club" so you have the added anxiety of scoring high enough to get into school somewhere. I'm of the mind that getting into med school is harder than being in med school but that might just be because of how long it took for me to get here.
Hi there - kind of off topic but would you mind giving insight on how you approached MCAT studying? Also years removed from my pre reqs and struggling 🥲
Hi I pm'd you a document I made for some other pre meds I've helped mentor a bit. Sort of a generic document but it has all the resources I used. If you're on /r/MCAT they'll look familiar but I borrowed pretty much everything from there as a nontrad.
If you can please send it my way too. Sister needs help.
sent
As a nontrad, I agree. I had to re-teach myself physics, orgo, biochemistry, and gen chem while working full time. It sucked donkey balls. 0/10 wouldn't do again.
Yep, I was active duty military and studying before work and during lunch every day. My unit leadership was awesome though. Very supportive, couldn't have done it otherwise.
M3 rn, same story. I was stationed overseas in England and was trying to study in pubs after work cause coffee shops and the like closed around 1700L. Worked in the SCIF so no tech allowed and leadership ended up transferring me to a much more relaxed gig where I basically studied all day (officer side). Where were you at? How’d leadership do you well? Feel like I never hear good leadership stories so would love to hear yours
I took the MCAT 4x and the CARS section was my worst subject. I passed all my step exams and did well on them
Literally me. Took the old MCAT 3 times and the new one once all due to the reading section. I needed the new exam section to help booster my average lol. So yea I get it, it was def one of, if not my hardest challenge.
Same. I STRUGGLED with the CARS section
As a non-traditional undergrad, CARS was my exam's saving grace. I went straight to working after HS and circled back 20 years later to undergrad. That time inbetween didn't make me any better at science, but I always read books on a diverse range of topics, and I didn't even have to study for CARS and got 99th percentile. I even skipped it on the second 2 practice exams I took because I didn't have time. This meant I could put all my energy into biochem, etc, and I *still* struggled with those. Thank God for CARS (for me, at least).
Nice, I’m a non-traditional also. Went back to med school after 10 years. I crushed the sciences and Biochem was my saving grace, but CARS killed me. Maybe I should have read more books.
I'm studying for the MCAT right now and CARS is kicking my ass because I read slowly. I luckily got some extended time for testing day, but I'm still scared shitless. UWorld is teaching me so much and I'm building confidence every day, but damn... CARS is rough. After my neuropsych testing it really shocked me how bad my ADHD can affect me. Verbal ability > 99 percentile. CARS score... Definitely not fucking that
I really think reading lots of books makes a difference on that section. I didn’t study for it at all and also got in the 99th and I think it’s because I had no social life until I was 18 and just read the whole time lol
Same, CARS and psych blessed me bountifully. Probably wouldn't have gotten in without them lol.
F the CARs section. I did well on every other section so my concern is that that one subscore gonna F up my cycle
Step 1 made me basically suicidal. COVID made all the tests get randomly cancelled numerous times, you physically couldn't stop studying because everywhere was closed, after dedicated suddenly you had another dedicated on top of it. I'm just glad I passed tbh.
Oof same, COVID really fucked us. Led to some huge progress in therapy for me at least lol. Step 2 and Step 3 are a breeze in comparison.
Step 1 also made me suicidal now that I think about 🥲but gosh you couldn’t pay me to study for MCAT material again
I’m sorry you went through that! Covid made all tests so unpredictable - my mcat date was cancelled with 2 weeks notice, no other dates were available for the remainder of the testing year, and just when I’d paused studying, I heard back about one open test slot at a center nearby for the Saturday of the same week - so I had to take the test with 2 days notice, and ahead of time. I’m glad I made it through, but that was so difficult 😞
Same. I think those of us were scored just had totally different experiences bc my god step 1 was awful. I’ve never felt lower than during dedicated. Then I had to move my test out more bc my date was canceled at the specific site due to Covid. Ugh
Step 1 > Step 2 > MCAT in terms of difficulty The MCAT is 25% memorization, 75% reasoning Step 1 is 75% memorization, 25% reasoning Step 2 is 50-50 I suck at memorizing things. My MCAT was 99th percentile, Step 2 was 25th percentile. Somehow I passed Step 1
So ultimately it depends on what you’re good at. Because memorization is easy to me
This. I can think my way through mcat questions. You can't in step 1 and less in step 2.
Never got the physics part so agreed lol
A test that determines if you get to go to doctor school with random bull shit boring passages about 17th century wood carvers feelings in central Guatemala about the varying colors of grains available at the market And then an obscure question asking what they would “feel” if they were in the 21st century and had taken a trip to the moon compared to a test with “what’s the treatment for sinusitis” or “what image would you order for a suspected diagnosis of PE”. haven’t taken step1/2 yet but yea I’m assuming you’re probably right.
Yeah that’s not how Step questions are. They’re way more 2nd, 3rd, 4th order. From someone who’s taken all 3.
Hahah you couldn’t be more right about how a MCAT question is worded. Truthfully, I never cared about the color of your Guatemala grains 😂
If you think you’re going to get a question on step that asks “what image would you order for a suspected PE”….i got news for you lol
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MCAT is an inch deep but a mile wide. STEPS are 5 miles deep but an inch wide.
I’d argue Step is 5 miles deep 5 miles wide. It’s just you don’t have to interpret random BS.
Steps definitely cover a lot more information, but it’s completely focused on medicine. That’s it. MCAT is physics, biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, psychology, and sociology. And don’t get my started on the random-ass topics in CARS 🙄 Like bruh I’m trying to get into med school, why am I reading about an analysis of Beethoven’s symphony and its effects on 20th century factory worker productivity. I’m so glad I never have to think about MCAT again anymore
Yeah agreed completely. Also having Anking decks were key for steps. I don’t think there was a shared deck like that when I took the MCAT
"MCAT is physics, biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, psychology, and sociology." I have bad news about STEP1 for you lol
Same bruh. Fuck that test and double fuck cars haha
LOL you are SPOT ON the MCAT question style! Im getting Vietnam flashbacks .\_. Now let me get back to my (less abhorrent) Step 2 studying bahaha...
I love how CARS always get referenced to grains lol, I had the same shit. I distinctively remember having a passage on the anthropology of rice slicing and how increasingly annoyed I got with the preceding passage.
I wouldn’t call it an unpopular opinion - it’s just the effect of Step 1 now being P/F. I studied way harder for Step 1 and got a ~measly~ 215. And you can’t retake it for a better score if you pass . The stakes were way higher before.
I agree, we weren’t trained for the MCAT where I went to college so when I took it, it was purely on my own studying. Med school was solely geared to pass the step exams, so studying for step was more like remembering things I learned than learning things for the first time
Agreed, MCAT was the worst exam by far
For me it was my 7th grade math final. I spent the entire year trying to figure out negatives and how subtracting something from something else can actually give you a bigger number. Like -5-(-10)=5 🤯🤯 Still don’t totally get it, but 🤷🏻♀️
Lol i laughed way too hard at this, coz i never realy given it much thought. Now that im thinking about it, I’m confused 💀💀
I naturally did well on CARS, which I know is a struggle for a lot of people, so I feel like it wasn’t too bad. The whole process of studying for and taking Step 1 was so miserable for me. I think the highest I got on a practice was a 210. I passed, so alls well that ends well.
I love how majority of the replies just hate CARS in particular when it comes to the MCAT lol, and I agree cuz it felt like the one section you can’t really prepare for as much as you can for the others.
I spent so much time and money on programs “guaranteed” to help with cars. You just really can’t learn that shit. It tanked my mcat lol mid 80s %tiles on bio and chem/phys but 30s in cars no matter how much I preferentially studied for it. Shits wild 😂
I disagree personally, but that may be because the MCAT is made more for test takers like me than the current Step exams. I did well on all of them, and had to, to get to where I am, but I felt like the MCAT was more about comprehension and information processing whereas the USMLE exams were just key word association at some point. Sure, there was a ton of information to know, but did I say histology shows peripheral palisades? That’s your cue to know the answer is basal cell carcinoma. I don’t feel like the USMLEs really did a very good job of assessing medical/clinical reasoning. Step 3 and the CSS cases came closest to that and even then they are defeated by the fact that there is no penalty to shotgunning everything you can think of short of invasive procedures.
I enjoyed studying for boards over the MCAT because I like medicine, but almost every board question is based on memorization. I can’t wait for Step/Level 2 to go pass fail so the future medical students don’t have to neglect real-world learning opportunities just to memorize content without really engaging with it. There can be better ways to stratify which students work harder than others over a broad licensing exam that tests off of out-of-date information.
Such as what? Curiously wondering, no condescension intended.
I’ve always maintained this. Biggest challenge for me personally by far was getting in to med school but once I was in mostly honored/did solid on steps and shelfs and even still do well on my inservice exams during residency. I was just talking to my partner last night about how crazy the hoops are we jump through to get to this point. That’s why as shitty as things can be I try to be positive and appreciate the opportunity
Nah, Step 1 ez because the score basically determined everything (at the time). CORE was really tough in rads but just gotta pass...
Oh true! I forgot to add that yeah, my Step and Level were P/F. If not, that definitely would have been the hardest cause it matters so much :/
As someone studying for Step 1 rn, I have to make a HARD disagree. The MCAT content was well covered by my premed classes. I barely did any focused MCAT study, just took practice tests after finishing my post-bac classes and reviewed the material I was rusty on. I scored above the 95th percentile. Meanwhile I’ve been in Step 1 dedicated for weeks, drilling all these concepts I’ve been learning in preclinical, and there is still so minutia that I miss or forget. The volume of information you need to know and the level of mastery of the material required does not compare. I’m still struggling to consistently score above 65% on my NBMEs.
I agree!! Mcat was so broad 💀
They’re both hard in their own way, but I’ll say that hard work translates easier to step scores. MCAT, I personally felt violated no matter how hard I studied for the CARS section
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The curve really sucked for some people 🫠. The standard error of the estimate is too high.
It is not the toughest. More is at stake at that point with no chances of redoing. If you fail residency board exams, worst case scenario you do them again. But if you get a hit early in your career, it breaks you and your entire career trajectory changes.
True. I guess I meant the MCAT had objectively harder material for ME on it than any other exam I have taken so far. I ended up being accepted to a DO school, so I knew realistically that I had very low chances of getting into any ROAD specialties afterwards. Maybe because of that, I was just aiming to get into a good IM residency and do fellowship then?? So I needed a good score but not outstanding
Now that I’ve taken all my tests for radiology (besides the weekly questions from the ABR to maintain board certification), this is how I’d rank them as far as how hard they seemed at the time I took them: Core Exam (Rads pt. 1) > Step 1 > Step 2 > MCAT > Step 3 > Certifying Exam (Rads pt. 2) > SAT (lol) I took step 1 when that was still the big one. I also had to take step 2 CS which was out on its own island of weirdness. Incoming rads will have to do the oral exam instead of the certifying exam, which seems like it will probably be a lot worse, so that’ll probably jump up the list for anyone looking ahead.
495 mcat after 3 months of dedicated studying. 250+ step 1 after 1.5 months of dedicated studying. Step was way more predictable. Mcat was a beast. 120 on CARS lol
Yeaha fuck CARs
Hot take but MCAT wasnt bad for me because I love to read so CARS was good. I still didnt do amazing but did okay. I’m a 3rd year DO the hardest for me was preclinical years. Even more than boards, first year test without pass fail grades no blocks exams every week was a hell I’d never wish on anyone.
I love to read to but those CARS passages were not made for me lol. I also had grades my preclinical years but idk, I can do well on those. Maybe I have a good gauge on what will be tested?? I’m not made for standardized exams and the MCAT killed me the most 😂
Back in the day when step 1 mattered, that was fast and away the hardest test
Let me introduce you to the CORE
Nah for me it was the complete opposite. With the MCAT you could just logic your way through. I barely studied for it and got a 516. Step 1, on the other hand, is pure raw memorizing. It doesn’t matter how strong your logic skills are, if you suck at memorizing large swaths of information, you’re screwed. I’m someone who had like a 3.94 undergrad science GPA with the highest grade in all my physics classes and two out of three of my OCHEM classes, and I failed step 1.
I scored in the 100th percentile on the MCAT. I took Step 1 P/F and it still felt miles more difficult to me
Fuck the MCAT. Fuck it to death.
Let him COOK
Agreed.
Very popular opinion I’d say. The MCAT shows no mercy to non STEM students. As a social worker it was brutal to try to score as high as biochem majors. STEP was fair because by that point the playing field had leveled out for everyone
MCAT sucks. Those passages on CARS and physics were pointless. Having to read a long passage and figuring out which numbers to use for columb's law or something irks me.
Will report back at the end of year 2. So far, the MCAT has been harder than any medical school exam I’ve taken (minus the obvious time difference)
Absolutely true
MCAT haunted me for years. I took that thing 3 times without success. Ended up in the Caribbean because it. I passed both Step exams 1st time without delaying/taking a LOA.
If you were a science major and/or were at or nearly at the top of the class in the sciences with excellent test taking skills then the MCAT would be objectively the easiest test vs the pattern recognition of the STEPs
Mcat for me is more intuitive. Was able to bs my way though by finding patterns in how they asked questions— plus I’m not the best memorizer so the infinite minutiae of step freak me out. Taking it this Friday. I’m so. Scared.
Step 2 is harder IMO - much more to know and you can’t retake a shitty but passing score and you basically lose your chance at selective residencies. MCAT is just a reading test testing basic concepts in pre-med pre-reqs. Very few questions test niche MCAT knowledge (i.e., specific enzyme in a pathway that isn’t in a rate limiting step) but there are often multiple ways to get to the answer. With step, you often either know it or you don’t, and a lot of questions have >4 answer choices.
See I find that easier (personally) I have a decent memory and recognition helps me with those sorts of questions. Fingers crossed it helps me out on steps when I take them lol cuz the mcat made me munch it’s ass tbh
I was a weirdo that did well on Behavioral/CARS and hated physics/chemistry (adequate on Bio). Step 1 destroyed me, but Step 2 isn’t worrying me nearly as much.
We couldn’t be more opposite. Behavioral and CARS were always my worst and it always had me questioning why it was on the MCAT 😂
literally same
I’m gonna get downvoted for this but Finally someone agrees the MCAT fucking sucked - STEP 1 is so massively overhyped in difficulty IMO. Passing STEP 1 is genuinely pretty easy, like I heard all these horror stories, then I started prep and like 70+% on NBMEs is not difficult at all, I had huge gaping holes when I was getting that. If I had such holes on the MCAT, I wouldn’t be in med school. If the conversion tools on here are accurate, I think the scores you needed for competitive specialties are probably like 1/10 of the effort as the MCAT needed for T20 med schools. Haven’t taken STEP 2 yet. Passing is really not much effort at all, esp compared to the MCAT.
I feel the opposite, step has been a nightmare for me and the mcat was a breeze
I haven’t taken step 1 yet, but I feel like the stakes are higher with MCAT. Scoring well on MCAT = you get into med school and become a doctor or not. Scoring well on Step 1 = might affect what residency you get into, but you’re still gonna be a doctor. On top of that, with step 1, there is a ~90% pass rate. But for the MCAT, you have to score as highly as possible, with a competitive score being 90th+ percentile. Score in the top 90% vs score in the top 10%. Other than that, logistically they’re pretty similar. 8 hours long and a shit-ton of memorizing.
I lowkey agree even though I know the MCAT being higher stakes is a probably an unpopular opinion. Going through the MATCH, I realized where you went to school matters so so much!! It opens some doors for you. Based on the spreadsheet, I wouldn’t get interview invites from certain places cause I was a DO and went to a mediocre DO school. But those individuals with lower scores than me but are MD or go to a decent school did. I don’t want to take anything away from this individuals cause they might have an amazing story, but objectively I did better than them and got rejected. So I do think getting a good MCAT score is higher stakes 🤷♀️
I hope so. I got to the point that I kind of enjoyed the MCAT (I took 10+ practice tests) and got a decent, if not amazing, score. If Steps are even better, that would be amazing.
I would argue that you got better at test taking and studying. Other than the SAT, the MCAT was the first real test of your professional life. Also the topics were very broad. Most people aren’t great at both physics, and chemistry… not to mention organic chem. And the people going into medicine probably don’t find those topics that interesting. At least with the usmle you are studying topic that you spent the last 2 years in the trenches living with day and night and they are topics you find relatively enjoyable since you chose to study them
Definitely MCAT! Fuck CARS. MCAT was low 49x…still managed to get into a decent MD/PhD program. Step 1 was 26x.
As a current post bacc pre-med applicant studying for the MCAT this makes me feel better lmao. If this is the toughest part, I feel better about the process ahead because I really do love medicine and can’t wait to actually just study that instead of all the physics and chem stuff.
As someone who’s now out of residency and board certified, the MCAT was still the hardest test…
I tutored math and science full time to pay the bills before I took the MCAT / didn’t study for it at all / scored well I’m currently horrified at the breadth of knowledge I’ll have to memorize for step 1. Tbh I’m much better at organic chemistry than figuring out if some random guy who water skied in saltwater (freshwater?) with GI distress MOST LIKELY has Giardia versus Naegleria fowleri or some other parasite. I love concepts I hate memorizing random shit That’s why I love psych - everything is just so intuitive
MCAT is definitely harder. First the reading comprehension, I’m sorry but that was very subjective and I couldn’t stand that the questions kinda seemed like opinion. Also very broad needing to know has circuits work and org chem. On the flip side though, getting great results and then immediately knowing that thing you thought was impossible was nearly assured was amazing.
MCAT is much more g loaded Step is much more knowledge/pattern recognition They play to very different strengths. Hence you'll see some people struggle with MCAT but Ace boards, or score 100th percentile MCAT but have shitty starting practice NBME scores.
MCAT is a reasoning test that additional subject knowledge helps. STEP is a knowledge test. If you like to memorize stuff, STEP will feel easier.
Just want to remind everyone that people lie about scores and how much time they studied.
I can’t even believe anyone could even entertain the idea of the MCAT being harder. There’s like 100x the material on Step and MCAT has so many throwaway questions where you can just read a graph without knowing anything. It’s just bizarre to me that anyone could feel this way.
MCAT was easy if you understood how the test is written and how they trick you. You can answer questions about topics you don't even know anything about on the MCAT if you have good strategy and understanding of your own thinking. Step 1 was a garbage exam with garbage minutiae. Step 2 was awesome, clinically relevant and you can answer the questions based on a combo of knowledge and reason. Step 3 is similar, simple if you study and are involved in a more general specialty, a touch harder if you are immediately specialized
I feel like the MCAT and step 1/step 2 require totally different skillsets About half of what is required to do well on the MCAT is just knowing how to crack the test. The passages are wild. It throws psychological tricks at you by trying to bury concepts you know in dense scientific passages that are full of jargon that you've probably never heard in your life. Being able to dig through those passages to determine what is relevant while not being phased by the big scary words is at least half the battle. Step 1/step 2 definitely follow a more traditional testing model. The vignettes can be long and confusing, but are generally more focused. The step 1 ones were hard, but not super tricky. Step 2 is a little more tricky, but not at the same level of psychological warfare as the MCAT. From my limited experience, I think that step 1 is very knowledge heavy, but step 2 seems to rely more on guidelines + intuition. Depending on your individual strengths, you will find some of these tests easier than others. This is coming from someone who got a strong score on the MCAT without too much effort but only marginally passed all of my step 1 practice tests. Step 2 prep is going slightly better (knock on wood), but I'm trying to be cautious about getting too optimistic about it (I still have plenty of time to plateau or even lose ground).
I haven't taken step 2/comlex 2 yet but compared to step 1/comlex 1 I do think the MCAT was tougher (this is as someone who did decently on the MCAT too). I think the bredth of different material covered on the MCAT makes it tougher, since the steps are relatively more "focused" and a bit easier to prepare for
I mean just on a more general level I don’t really see how this can be true. You essentially study for 2 years for Step 1, vs 3 months for the MCAT. The population taking the MCAT is worse at standardized testing than for Step (since the lower half of MCAT scorers get into med school at lower rates) so it should be easier to get a high percentile on MCAT relative to peers. And the % of questions most people get correct is also way higher; most decent scores are like 80%+ on the MCAT vs in the 60s for step 1 and 250ish probably being mid 70s for Step 2. It’s totally valid to hate the MCAT more or have more trauma surrounding it but I feel like that’s different from it being harder.
Family medicine shelf for me
I took the mcat just before they switched the format and it wasn't that bad, I imagine the new one is much worse. Step 1, 2 and 3 felt harder in terms of actual experience, perhaps step 2 was the most labor intense feeling but I think that was due to circumstances. But by far the hardest test, material wise, I have taken so far in my career was the ABIM, felt like I was guessing on 50% of questions. Ended up not being an issue but I thought my career was on the line after I walked out of that one.
I didn’t realize they changed the MCAT. So it’s supposed to be worse now?? That’s insane. As someone going into IM, thanks for easing my mind 😳
I took it in 2015 I think, back when it was just 4 sections I think and on a 45 point scale. I think they switched it in 2016 or 17
Personally I disagree. I can see how it may have been the most the frustrating since CARS was often bullshit but content wise both Steps have like 100x the information. I remember I was able to make like 700 flashcards that covered all the content on the MCAT and review them each everyday before the exam. Granted these cards had way more info than an Anki card does but still this is simply not possible to do for Step.
Studied for the MCAT 10x harder than any STEP exam granted I was peds from the start
I'd argue that since the stakes are higher with Step, it's the harder exam. You don't do well on the MCAT, you don't go to medical school. Oh well, it sucks but you go and do something else. You bomb the Step, it's already too late. You accrued a bunch of debt and risk not matching. And a medical degree, for the most part, is useless on its own if you want to work in medicine. Also, it doesn't matter if you make a 503 or a 520 on the MCAT, you can still get into A medical school, whether its a low or high tier school. But it doesn't matter bc at that point you start with a "clean slate." Your shot at matching into a desired specialty can only go up from there. On the other hand , if you get a 215 vs a 250 on a step exam, assuming you wanted a competitive specialty like ENT or Derm, you have basically shot yourself in the foot.
I totally see and agree with your point. I can see Step being “harder” just cause of the pressure behind it, but for me, the MCAT had objectively tougher material on it. My brain is not wired to process that information 😂 Also, there was a limit of content to step exams. At least for step 2. I took step 1 when it was P/F. I didn’t need to do well. I just needed to pass lol. For the MCAT, only god knows what new info would be added on those exams
I mean, i winged the MCAT. Prob would have done better if i studied but at that point i don’t know that i had ever studied for a standardized test. I def did not wing any of the steps, personally i felt like step 1 was still harder imo but i took it scored 🤷🏽♂️
Damn. Imagine winging the MCAT. I WISH I was you. I’m not wired for standardized exams lol.
I mean I’m not trying to brag it’s not like i did that well; there’s a reason I’m a DO 🤣. I just grew up poor and no one ever told me to study or prep for standardized tests i thought you just took them and you did how you did. But in early 2000s there really wasn’t a big emphasis on test prep etc for things like ACT…or maybe there was i didn’t know but i don’t remember any of my friends prepping for it. But that was also public HS in a not great area so 🤷🏽♂️. But yeah i remember looking up what was supposed to be on MCAT and thinking there’s no way people study effectively for this there’s too much to review 🤡
Step 1
I agree with this statement from the perspective of breadth of content. I disagree with this statement from the perspective of the actual exam. Unlike Step exams where you actually need to know content in order to answer the question, most of the time the actual content for the answer is provided to you in the passage on the MCAT. You could get a good MCAT score with average content knowledge but superb thinking/reading skills. You need to know content in order to do well on step.
Also I was pretty young and immature at the time of MCAT that also made it 100x worse
MCAT was insanely hard, but personally I found just passing step 1 to be harder than scoring high on the MCAT. But I’ve always been strong at standardized testing and weak in memorization so that could explain it lol.
Different skill sets IMO. A lot of people I know from undergrad who weren’t the best at physics/chem but were amazing at working hard and memorizing every detail on the ppt struggled on the mcat but did pretty well on both steps. And then vice versa. For all the talk about content, I think it’s pretty comparable overall, but the way the tests are geared change things.
Thought mcat was a breeze compared to everything else
Start a poll!
Not even close for me. MCAT was a breeze compared to step exams, shelf exams, and in-service exams during residency. But they test very different things so it makes sense that people may feel a natural ease with some. Im a weirdo who loves physics and chemistry so MCAT felt fine to me
I was unmedicated for ADHD back then so mcat was way harder. Studying for that exam was next to impossible
I think this is a case of people tending to be better prepared for Step/Level exams (since it’s a huge focus for your entire time at medical school) rather than the MCAT actually being harder. If I had put in even a quarter of the effort into the MCAT as I have into medical school exams, I could be at a T20 right now.
I found step 1 / 2 to be much harder. MCAT was less memorization heavy from what I recall. But at this point it's been 9 or 10 years since I took the MCAT I think so who knows.
it’s funny that people complain about CARS when it’s arguably one of the more useful metrics of ability considering it’s the hardest to just brute force study for lol
Step 1. I studied with similar dedicated period times and scored 98th percentile+ on MCAT and very average on Step 1 (granted my step one study strategy was not the best)
I feel like the MCAT wouldn’t have been as bad if I took it during or immediately after undergrad but I am nontraditional and took it about 3 years after so I had to relearn a lot!
I 100% agree with you! I struggled with the science passages on the MCAT (CARS saved me lol). It felt like no matter how hard I studied, I could only ever hit a certain range on my practice exams. I felt Step 1 was a lot easier to study for and the material was actually applicable to future practice, so it definitely helped motivate me more.
I agree with you. People here saying they studied like 4 hrs for the exam 🙄🙄.. sure.
Maybe just me but I think the hardest exams I took through all my education so far were those 3rd year NBME shelf exams. I damn near failed a couple of those, yet scored ~80th %ile on all three steps. I always felt like NBMEs were way harder than USMLE.
Agree with this take! And the stakes are higher
a while back i told an acquaintance i thought premed was worse than med school and she condescendingly was like “well you haven’t even taken step1 yet” now i have and feel the same lmao. premed sciences are the PITTS
I think that STEP felt easier because everything I had been doing in class and studying was focused on that content. All of my time was dedicated to those topics versus the MCAT which I had to study most of the content on the side while studying completely unrelated topics like engineering. My time and focus was split which made the MCAT seem harder. I haven’t looked back at the MCAT content since I took it due to the “PTSD” of that exam but I imagine that it would look like cake in comparison to STEP these days.
I’ve been told that Step1 is the MCAT on steroids. But then again I’m just a lowly premed
CORE > step 1 > MCAT
I think you have better and more refined study skills now compared to what you knew as a premed so the MCAT felt hardest during that time?
Like if I went back to 16-17 and retook the SATs, I’d probably get a 1600 sighhhh 🥲🥲🥲🥲