A new version of the Medical College Admission Test will be administered across the nation beginning April 17, posing potential challenges for students applying to medical schools.

Compared to the old exam, the new MCAT aims to reflect recent changes to science and medicine, and will test more content and skills over a longer period of time. The new exam will take seven and a half hours to complete, an increase of nearly two and a half hours from the previous version. New sections on psychology and sociology as well as questions on biochemistry will now be part of the test. In addition, the writing section of the MCAT will be removed and the exam will be scored on a new 528-point scale.

“Periodic review and updates of standardized tests are considered a best practice, especially in fields with rapidly-changing knowledge bases like medicine,” Karen Mitchell, senior director of AAMC admissions testing service, wrote in an email Feb. 11.

To cover the new material, the Office of Health Professions Advising is recommending that pre-med students take one semester of biochemistry and one of either introductory psychology or sociology, in addition to the already recommended chemistry, organic chemistry, biology, physics and math classes.

The new psychology and sociology content will only be tested at a fundamental level. As a result, students can choose to take online classes or other alternatives, said Daniel Scheirer, associate dean of Trinity College and director of Health Professions Advising.

April’s new MCAT will also be noticeably longer – seven and a half hours, compared to the old exam’s approximately five hours. Junior Emma Zhao decided to take the old MCAT in January during one of its last testing dates.

"I knew the new one would be really long, and I didn't want to deal with that," Zhao said.

Changes to the scoring system present other challenges in this transitional period between the old and new MCAT.

Previously, the highest possible score on the overall exam was 45. Scheirer explained Duke students who were getting accepted into medical school received average MCAT scores of about 33. The new system, however, assigns an individual score per section of up to 132, for a total possible score of 528.

“There’s a little bit of uncertainty with how medical schools will look at the new scoring system,” Scheirer said. “They have to ask, 'How does the new scoring system compare?' We used to have a definite idea of what a score like a 33 meant, but we’re not sure with this new system.”

Students also have expressed qualms about the scoring differences in the new MCAT.

"I had a feeling that a new batch of tests with not much precedent was going to make it hard to know how to compare ourselves, and probably the same can be said for the medical school admission boards," Zhao said. "I don’t want to be a victim of circumstance just because this is the first time a test has been done."

To help normalize the bell-shaped curve during this first year of the new MCAT’S administration, the AAMC will release percentiles to medical schools in addition to individual raw scores. This will allow medical schools to do statistical analyses of the scores and to evaluate where their applicants fall on the bell-shaped curve, Scheirer said.

The AAMC will also be offering $150 Amazon gift cards to each student who takes the MCAT during one of the two April testing dates, to ensure they have enough scores for an accurate scoring process. The new MCAT faces other problems, including a reduction in the number of testing dates which may lead to a shortage of seats available per examination day.

“All pre-health advisors across the country, including medical school admissions people, are in this transition, and we’re just waiting to see how this plays out,” Scheirer said. “We’re sort of crossing our fingers and hoping for the best. This is a major revision, and a major milestone for students wanting to go to medical school.”

The Association of American Medical Colleges approved these changes to the test in 2011 after an advisory committee surveyed more than 1,000 medical school faculty and medical students to determine what content was most important for success in medical school.

This marks the fifth major revision of the MCAT in its 87-year history, and the latest one since 1991. The new section titled “Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior” will test students’ knowledge of socio-cultural and behavioral determinants of health. Questions in the section will attempt to asses students' understanding of societal and cultural factors that could impact health. Another new section will test critical analysis and reasoning skills on topics related to social science and humanities.

“Our nation is growing, aging and becoming increasingly diverse, so physicians of the future must be more culturally competent,” Mitchell wrote. “The exam is changing because the health system of tomorrow will require a different kind of physician.”