Welcome to The Study Clinic MCAT Guide

This guide is your companion to the full 164-page Study Clinic MCAT PDF. Use it as a digital reference — search for concepts, review formulas, and reinforce what you're studying in the tracker.

How to use this hub

The Study Clinic MCAT Hub is designed around one idea: everything you need in one clean system. Study from the guide, log your sessions in the planner, track your mastery topic by topic, and review every wrong question so it never trips you up again.

The students who improve fastest are not the ones who study the most — they're the ones who review their mistakes and close their knowledge gaps systematically. This system is built for that.

C/P — Chemistry & Physics

The Chemical and Physical Foundations section tests your ability to apply chemistry and physics concepts to biological systems. It's 59 questions in 95 minutes — approximately 44 passage-based and 15 discrete.

Acids, bases & buffers

The Henderson-Hasselbalch equation is the backbone of buffer questions: pH = pKa + log([A⁻]/[HA]). Know it cold. At pH = pKa, the solution is at maximum buffering capacity. For titration curves, the equivalence point and half-equivalence point must be distinguishable immediately.

Thermodynamics

ΔG = ΔH − TΔS. Negative ΔG means spontaneous. When ΔH is negative and ΔS is positive, the reaction is always spontaneous. The MCAT loves testing edge cases: what happens when signs conflict, and how temperature resolves the question.

Fluids

Bernoulli's principle: as fluid speed increases, pressure decreases. Archimedes' principle: buoyant force equals the weight of displaced fluid. These show up in passage contexts involving blood flow, pipettes, and hydraulic systems.

CARS — Critical Analysis and Reasoning

CARS is 53 questions across 9 passages in 90 minutes. No prior content knowledge is tested — only your ability to read, interpret, and reason from the text alone.

The four question types

Main Idea questions ask what the passage is primarily about — not a detail, the central claim. Inference questions require conclusions the passage supports but doesn't state directly. Strengthen/Weaken questions ask how new information would affect the author's argument. Application questions ask you to extend the author's logic to new scenarios.

Timing strategy

Ten minutes per passage is the target: 3–4 minutes reading, 6–7 minutes on questions. Flag and move on if you're stuck. Coming back to a question with fresh eyes often resolves it. Never leave a question blank — there's no penalty.

B/B — Biology & Biochemistry

The Biological and Biochemical Foundations section is 59 questions in 95 minutes. It covers molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, and genetics.

Enzyme kinetics

Michaelis-Menten kinetics: Km is the substrate concentration at half Vmax. Low Km = high affinity. Competitive inhibition raises apparent Km without changing Vmax. Non-competitive inhibition lowers Vmax without changing Km. Uncompetitive inhibition lowers both. These distinctions appear as graph interpretation questions.

Metabolism

Glycolysis produces 2 net ATP, 2 NADH, and 2 pyruvate per glucose. The TCA cycle produces 2 GTP, 6 NADH, and 2 FADH2 per glucose. Oxidative phosphorylation produces approximately 32–34 ATP. The electron transport chain uses O2 as the terminal electron acceptor — without it, cells must use fermentation.

Genetics

DNA replication is semi-conservative: each daughter strand contains one original strand. Know the three DNA repair mechanisms tested: mismatch repair, nucleotide excision repair, and base excision repair. For pedigrees: autosomal dominant, autosomal recessive, X-linked dominant, and X-linked recessive patterns must be distinguishable by visual inspection.

P/S — Psychology & Sociology

Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior: 59 questions in 95 minutes. Tests psychology, sociology, and their biological bases.

Developmental theory

Piaget's four stages: Sensorimotor (0–2), Preoperational (2–7), Concrete Operational (7–11), Formal Operational (12+). Object permanence develops in sensorimotor. Conservation develops in concrete operational. Erikson's eight stages map crises to age ranges — know Trust vs Mistrust (infancy) through Integrity vs Despair (late adulthood).

Social influence

Conformity (Asch), obedience (Milgram), and bystander effect (Darley & Latané) are the three most-tested social psychology experiments. Diffusion of responsibility explains why larger groups are less likely to help. Fundamental attribution error: we overestimate dispositional factors and underestimate situational factors when judging others' behavior.

Formula Index

The highest-yield formulas across all sections. Know these cold — they appear in passage contexts and discrete questions alike.

Test Strategy

The day before

Do nothing hard. Light review of formulas, early dinner, no new content. Sleep 8 hours — your MCAT score is partly a function of how rested your prefrontal cortex is. The work is already done.

During the exam

Flag and move. If a question takes more than 90 seconds, mark it and continue. You can always return. Unanswered questions cost the same as wrong answers — zero. Never leave a question blank. On CARS, eliminate answers that go beyond what the passage says. On science sections, eliminate answers that violate fundamental principles.

Managing your mental state

Anxiety constricts working memory. If you feel panic during the exam: three slow breaths, read the question again, eliminate one wrong answer to build momentum. Progress, even small, breaks the anxiety loop.