What’s on the MCAT: the official AAMC outline and practice

The content outline

The outline is your checklist. For each section it lists foundational concepts, content categories and the topics inside them, plus the scientific reasoning skills you’ll need.

The online version, the Content Outline Course, adds links to open textbooks and Khan Academy lessons for each topic, and 120 practice questions from the retired Official Guide.

Free official practice

• Sample Test: 230 questions, the full length of the real exam, without a score.
• Practice Exam 1: 230 questions from past exams, with a scaled score and percentile.
• Sample Question Guide: 12 questions, three from each section.
• Exam features tool: 12 example questions to learn the highlighting, strikethrough and keyboard shortcuts.

Paid official practice

The AAMC also sells Practice Exams 2 to 6, two Section Banks with 300 questions each, a CARS Question Bank with 575 questions, question packs for biology, chemistry and physics, and an Independent Question Bank. All of it comes in the Online-Only Bundle for $336.15 a year, or free with an approved Fee Assistance award.

The rules you agree to

The MCAT Essentials is the official guide to policies: registration, ID, test-day rules, scoring and limits. The AAMC calls it required reading, and you agree to it when you register. Read the version for your testing year, because it changes every year.