I was wondering how important orgo and English are for the MCATs. I hear the verbal reasoning part is the worst so I was thinking that taking an English course would help me with that. I'm planning on taking an MCAT course in the summer of my second year and taking my first MCAT at the end of that summer. Right now I'm debating between taking both orgos in my second year and English for summer school, or both orgos second year and English third year, or one orgo and English in second year and then second orgo in the summer. But I've been hearing people say that you should try to avoid all other responsibilities (summer school, jobs, volunteering etc.) while you're studying for the MCATs because it is a lot to study.

Any suggestions?

Everything I've heard and all the advice I've been given is that if you don't need orgo, don't take it. The orgo on the MCAT is only semi related to the orgo you take anyway, so it really doesn't help you much. If you want to take orgo go for, but if it's just for the MCAT either don't bother OR I know a lot of people who took it in summer school the year before they wrote their MCAT.

As for English, if you think it'll help go for it. I personally find verbal reasoning the easiest section of the MCAT (I'm studying to write mine currently lol) and I never took English in uni ( though I did take English AP when I was in grade 12 (3 years ago) and I find VR to be almost exactly the same as the work I was doing in that). So if English is something you struggle with, then it would probably help. Keep in mind I've heard it's very difficult to do well in university English, so again if you're only taking it for the sake of the MCAT it might not be your best option.

I've also been told that you probably don't want to do too much else the summer you take the MCAT.

Well I want to take orgo because of the MCATs and because some universities require it for admission. As for English, I took IB English during my high school and I did fairly well so I'm hoping verbal reasoning won't be too hard. I guess my plan now is to take orgo during the school year and maybe take English in 3rd year summer if I don't do well in the VR section of my MCATs next year.

Try this-go to the AAMC website. They have a free practice MCAT, but you can just try the VR part of it. If you don't score to well, then take English or figure something out, but if you don't find it too hard then you should be fine

There is no correlation between how well you do in english and how well you do in VR.

For VR all you have to do is read regularly. Read things like the Economist, Time, Washington Post etc.

What are the topics of the VR section usually? And what about the writing section then? I'd think English would be beneficial to that section.

Originally Posted by Bernard

What are the topics of the VR section usually? And what about the writing section then? I'd think English would be beneficial to that section.

I doubt anyone really cares about the writing section.

VR - social sciences, humanities, arts, basically anything not covered by the rest of the exam is fair game. The topics are kind of irrelevant, the entire point of VR is that you should be able to analyze any passage regardless of prior knowledge. In fact, prior knowledge may not even lead you to correct answers because you should still be able to get every single answer right without prior knowledge.