A Novel Approach to Preparing Students for the Medical College Admission Test: Passage-Centered Learning (PCL)

This article was migrated. The article was not marked as recommended. With the United States facing a severe deficit of physicians, it is imperative that as many students as possible be placed into the "physician pipeline". Current teaching methods are not entirely adequate for preparing college students for the rigors of the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), the gateway to medical school. To resolve this issue, we propose a new teaching method called Passage-centered Learning (PCL). This method enhances the ability of students to perform well on the passage-heavy MCAT by promoting critical thinking and application of concepts through the extensive use of passages during the learning process. This method could also be used to prepare students for several other entrance examinations required by various professional schools.