Re: TA Problems

[John Clement <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

There is some research into how well students do on the MCAT as a function
of the type of physics course.  A "reformed" course has some interesting
effects.  On both the conventional course and the course informed by PER,
the males had comparable MCAT scores.  But the females did considerably
better after the reformed course despite the fact that it did not cover all
of the topics that were supposedly needed for the MCAT.

This was reported at an APS meeting, but only the abstract was online.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX
> Can someone point us to some 'free' examples of recent MCAT physics
> questions.  I am hearing things like Gary says below but am familiar with
> the MCATs of several years ago where the PHYSICS content was imbedded in
> short articles with a series of questions.  At that time, the emphasis was
> on being able to READ and UNDERSTAND a technical article with some physics
> content and very little on memorization or plug & chug style physics.  I
> always thought that what I was seeing in the way of questioning DID make a
> lot of sense for future doctors.  If that has drastically changed, I would
> like to know and would be the first to decry a change away from the
> 'technical reading' evaluation.
>
> Rick