How hard is the MCAT?
The MCAT is one of the hardest admissions tests, mostly because of its length and breadth, not because single questions are impossible. It takes about 7.5 hours in the seat, covers biology, biochemistry, general and organic chemistry, physics, psychology and sociology, and most questions sit in passages you must read under time pressure. Recent test takers average about 501 out of 528.
There are four sections, each scored from 118 to 132, for a total of 472 to 528. Chemical and Physical Foundations has 59 questions in 95 minutes, Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills (CARS) 53 questions in 90 minutes, Biological and Biochemical Foundations 59 questions in 95 minutes, and Psychological, Social and Biological Foundations of Behavior 59 questions in 95 minutes. That adds up to 6 hours 15 minutes of testing, plus optional breaks.
The test is not curved. AAMC scales and equates each form, so your score does not depend on who tested with you. Exams from 2023 to 2025 averaged about 500.6, and the 2025 entering class of US medical schools averaged 512.1. Attempts are limited: three in one testing year, four over two consecutive years and seven in a lifetime, and a voided test or a no-show counts as an attempt.
| Reason | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Length | About 7.5 hours seated, and focus drops in the last sections |
| Breadth | Content from many intro and upper-level science courses at once |
| Passages | Most questions make you read an experiment, a graph or data first |
| CARS | Humanities and social science passages, pure reading and reasoning |
| Time | About 1.6 minutes per science question and 1.7 per CARS question |
- 1Take a full-length official practice exam early to see your baseline and your weakest sections.
- 2Plan 3 to 6 months, depending on the gap to your target and how fresh your coursework is.
- 3Review content by topic and turn the facts you keep forgetting into flashcards you review daily.
- 4Do CARS passages most days from the start, because that skill improves slowly.
- 5Move to timed passage sets, then a full-length exam every week or two in the last two months.
- 6Review every full exam for at least as long as it took, and log each miss by topic and reason.