The Medical College Admission Test, more commonly known as the MCAT, and the Graduate Management Admission Test, or the GMAT, will undergo changes in the future, with the GMAT changes going into effect this year.
The GMAT, an exam for graduate business school admission, will change on June 5 of this year, according to Andrew Mitchell, Kaplan Test Prep’s director of Pre-business programs . He said that if a person is interested in a business management degree, taking the GMAT is the first step.
Starting in June, a new “integrated reasoning” section will be introduced to the exam, in addition to the already existing writing, quantitative and verbal sections. There are currently two writing sections at the beginning of the GMAT, but one will be cut to make room for the integrated reasoning section, Mitchell said.
The point of the integrated reasoning section, Mitchell said, is to work with multiple sources of information to answer questions.
Mitchell added that while most people will not take the GMAT until a few years after they have graduated college and are already in the work place, there are benefits to taking it as soon as possible.
“A few benefits of taking it in senior year is that the score is good for five years,” Mitchell said.
If a person were to take it before June, they would not have to prepare for the integrated reasoning section, he said.
Mitchell did warn that it takes about 100 hours of preparation to prepare for the GMAT and the June test is quickly approaching. He added that if students were to take a preparation course for the exam, Kaplan has accounted for both exams in their course offerings.
The MCAT will also undergo significant changes in the next few years, according to Dr. Jeff Koetje, Kaplan’s director of pre-health programs. This will be just the fifth time the MCAT has been reviewed and altered since it was first administered in 1928, he said. The last time it was reviewed was in 1991.
Koetje said the reason for its review was because of the many advances in molecular biology and genetics that are now being used in the medical field. He also said there was a need to switch to a “more holistic view of patients,” taking into account economic situations and culture to better help them.
These changes, Koetje said, would include the removal of the writing sample section for the 2013 exam and the addition of questions on a broader range of subjects for the 2015 exam. These questions include the addition of upper-level biology content to the biological science section and a new section on behavioral and social sciences, he said.
The upper-level biological content will include mostly biochemistry questions, but there will also be some molecular biology and genetics material added, Koetje said. He added the new behavioral and social sciences section would feature introductory psychology and sociology questions.
Overall, the addition of these subject areas would increase the amount of multiple choice questions from 144 questions to more than 250 questions, he said.
Koetje also said these changes would also change the amount of time the exam would take. Even with the removal of the two writing samples, the exam, which now takes five and a half hours, would take seven hours once the changes were implemented.
Each of these changes — the addition of questions, the new behavioral and social sciences section, the removal of the writing sample and the global timing change — were all approved by the board of directors at the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Koetje said all of these changes were new developments and encouraged students to stay up-to-date in the event anything was to change.
Penn State U. senior AJ Foister said he plans to take the MCAT next spring or fall, thereby avoiding the 2015 changes. And while he believes the removal of the writing section will make it easier, the addition of the new sections will make the MCAT tougher.
“Some people are thinking that [the MCAT] will be easier with the new sections since there are more questions,” Foister said. He said it makes sense to make the exam more difficult because you only want the smartest students going into medical school.