How We “Reverse Engineered” AAMC MCAT Exam 6

If you have ever walked out of a practice exam thinking, “Why did that feel nothing like what I have been studying?”, you are not alone. Students tell us the same story over and over: test day feels more experimental, more passage heavy and somehow “different” from the resources they used to prepare.

The frustrating part is that you never get to see your real MCAT again, so it is easy to blame yourself or assume you just “had a bad form” without ever understanding what is actually changing on the AAMC side.

That is why a brand new AAMC full length is such a big deal. Exam 6 is the first truly new one in years, and it gives us a fresh window into where the MCAT is headed for 2025 and 2026. If you want help interpreting what that means for your GPA, timeline and school list, a short Academic Advising session can turn these trends into a concrete target score and study plan.

How We Analyzed AAMC MCAT Exam 6 Without Spoilers

Before we talk about what we found, it is important to be clear about how we looked at Exam 6. We are very strict about not spoiling any AAMC materials. That means:

• We took Exam 6 under normal conditions.
• We did not copy or recreate passages or questions.
• We only tracked how questions behaved, not what they said.

Instead of “Question 7 was about this specific enzyme,” we care about things like: did this question depend heavily on the passage, did it need outside content, was it interpreting a figure, did it feel like an experiment driven question or a pure definition check?

That kind of structure level analysis is what lets us update Jack Westin materials without ever touching AAMC copyright.

If you want to feel what that looks like in practice, an easy starting point is the Daily Passages and free QBank style sets on jackwestin.com. They are built to feel like the newer AAMC style, not like an old school content quiz dressed up as MCAT. For a more structured walk through of these trends with live instruction, you can also drop into a Jack Westin Course session via a free trial.

You can also listen to our Jack Westin MCAT Podcast episode breaking down AAMC Exam 6 trends for MCAT 2026 on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

The P0–P3 Question Framework for MCAT Exam 6

The backbone of our analysis is the P0–P3 system. Every science question on Exam 6 was tagged on a simple scale.

• P0: All content, no passage required. You could cover the passage and still answer it. These are the “pseudo discretes.”
• P1: Mostly content, but you still need a small detail from the passage: a number, a variable, a condition.
• P2: Mostly passage, but you cannot answer correctly without bringing in your outside content knowledge.
• P3: Purely passage driven. With basic scientific literacy and careful reading, you could get there without much prior content.

Our content team literally sat down and did this for every question in Chemistry and Physics, Biology and Biochemistry, and Psychology and Sociology. It is not glamorous work. It is hours of, “Okay, did I really need the passage here or could I have answered from memory?” and, “Is this testing a definition, or is this forcing me to interpret experimental data using that definition?”

Once all of Exam 6 was tagged, we compared its P0–P3 patterns to Exams 1–4 and to Exam 5 (the exam that used to be called “Free Practice”). That is where the real story begins: we can actually see the MCAT evolving over time, not just “feeling different.”

Why This Exam 6 Analysis Matters for Your MCAT Prep Strategy

All of this would be pointless if it did not change how you study. The whole reason we obsess over P0s, P1s, P2s and P3s is to answer questions like:

• Is it still worth spending hours memorizing flashcards for pure recall questions?
• How much time should you spend improving passage reading versus grinding content?
• Are your third party resources actually representative of what AAMC is doing right now?

Exam 6 confirmed something we suspected from recent years: the MCAT is drifting away from “What is the definition of this term?” and toward “Can you understand this passage deeply and apply your knowledge to help dissect it?”

That is why:

• Live trial classes at Jack Westin focus on how to read and map dense passages, not just how to plug numbers into a formula.
• Video solutions show you when a question is behaving like P0, P1, P2 or P3, so you can connect your strategy to the question type instead of feeling like every question is random.
• Textbook style content is written to build understanding first, then immediately push you into application with realistic questions, especially inside JW+ and our core MCAT Courses.

If your current prep is mostly “read a chapter, memorize a list, do a couple discretes,” you are training for a version of the MCAT that AAMC is slowly retiring. A quick planning call through Academic Advising can help you redesign that plan around how Exam 6 actually behaves.

Trend for MCAT 2026: Content Alone Is Not Enough

Here is the core problem most students have right now: they still treat the MCAT like a content test.

You memorize every physics equation, every psych and soc term, every line in your notes. Your flashcards look great. Then you sit for a full length, especially something like AAMC Exam 6, and feel blindsided. The passages are full of experimental setups and figures. The questions are less “What is the definition of X?” and more “Given this experiment, what would happen if we change Y?”

You walk away thinking, “I knew the content, but I could not answer the questions.”

When we analyzed Exam 6 in detail, that feeling finally matched the data. The exam is clearly moving away from pure recall and toward integrated reasoning. If your scores are stuck within a few points of your goal, targeted Live Online Tutoring can help you turn that content knowledge into flexible problem solving.

What the Exam 6 Data Shows About MCAT Question Types

We tagged every science question on Exam 6 using the P0–P3 content versus passage scale. Compared to older AAMC exams (1–4 and Exam 5), a clear pattern shows up:

• P0 “pure recall” questions are noticeably fewer.
• P1 and P2 blended questions are more common.
• P3 pure passage questions are relatively stable.

In other words, the modern MCAT is not content only and not passage only. It is increasingly a test of whether you can combine both at the same time.

If you want to feel how that works without using up an AAMC full length, try science style sets inspired by Jack Westin QBank items or the free Daily Passages. For more volume and structure, the passage banks inside JW+ and the full Course curriculum are written to mirror these P1–P2 heavy patterns.

Is the MCAT Actually Getting Harder for 2025 and 2026?

The content blueprint has not been thrown out. You still see a stable number of questions from each official content category. What is changing is the way those topics are tested.

Exam 6 shows:

• Less reliance on straightforward “define this term” questions.
• More questions where the topic appears inside a new experiment, figure or pathway.
• Less “double dipping” where one narrow idea carries six similar questions in a row.

So you do not suddenly need obscure facts. You need a solid, broad foundation and the ability to apply that foundation in unfamiliar setups.

Content is necessary, but not sufficient. You still need to know your formulas, pathways and theories, but they now live inside noisy, data heavy passages. There is more extra information, longer question stems and more layered answer choices. Underneath that noise, the logic is still MCAT logic, but it is much harder to reach if you only trained for clean, simple recall.

If you want a program that bakes this style in from day one, explore the live and on demand options in Jack Westin Courses and the practice environment inside JW+.

How to Adjust Your MCAT Study to Match These Trends

If you translate all of this into study strategy, a few clear changes appear. You cannot rely on content alone. Endless flashcards with no serious passage work will leave you overprepared for P0 questions that are shrinking in frequency.

You also cannot rely on reading alone. Treating every science section like CARS and ignoring content gaps will backfire on blended P1 and P2 questions. Those questions expect both a clear passage map and accurate background knowledge.

What you need is integrated practice. When you work through passages, train yourself to ask two things on almost every question:

• What did the passage give me?
• What do I need to bring from my own knowledge?

You also need a repeatable way of reading passages so you are not skimming blindly. That means mapping relationships, keeping track of variables and experiments, and forming a mental structure you can return to when a question calls back to a specific part of the passage.

Jack Westin resources are built around this:

• Daily Passages and QBank style sets are written in a P1 and P2 heavy style, and the explanations walk through both the content move and the strategy move.
• Live trial classes in our Courses focus on understanding a topic deeply and then applying it immediately inside realistic passages.
• Video solutions and strategy sessions available through JW+ show how to interpret figures, map pathways and connect experimental setups to the content you already know.

Where Memorizing MCAT Content Falls Short

Here is the quiet problem a lot of MCAT students are dealing with and rarely name correctly: they are working very hard, but most of that work never turns into long term understanding.

You read a chapter, you highlight, you make flashcards, you drill a few questions and for a moment it feels great. You can answer anything about that topic right after studying it. Then a day later, or in the middle of a full length, the same idea shows up in a slightly different way and your brain goes blank because it does not have the appropriate retrieval cues.

From the way newer AAMC exams like Exam 6 are written, that situation is only going to get more common for those who stick to memorization mode. The modern MCAT is written to reward deeper understanding.

Memorization Keeps You in Short Term Mode

When you study by pure memorization, you are mostly keeping information in working memory. While you are staring at your notes, it feels like it makes sense. You might even get that little “aha” moment. But because you are only touching the material at a shallow level from a single angle, its storage into long term memory is inefficient and often ineffective for how you are tested.

A few recognizable signs you are stuck here:

• You can answer questions about a topic right after you study it, but not later in the week.
• You blame “test anxiety” any time a familiar topic looks even slightly different.
• You constantly say “I knew this, I just forgot” when you review practice exams.

On an exam like AAMC 6, which uses familiar ideas in unfamiliar ways, memorized content falls apart not because you do not have it in your brain, but because you have encoded it in a way that makes retrieval challenging.

Working with an instructor in Live Online Tutoring can help you rebuild tricky topics around understanding instead of flashcard trivia, so they hold up in noisy passages.

Exam 6 Pushes for Discernment, Not Trivia

The main trend in Exam 6 is not “harder content.” It is “deeper use of normal content.”

A few patterns stand out:

• The official AAMC content categories are still respected. You are not expected to know obscure graduate level science.
• Within those categories, there is a lot of variety. Questions are not just six small variations on the same tiny optics fact or the same named theory.
• Many questions take a topic you have probably seen before and push you to use it in a new context. Same subject, new application.

For example, in Chem/Phys you might recognize the topic immediately, but the question asks you to think about it through an unfamiliar experimental setup. In Bio/Biochem, the enzyme or pathway is familiar, but the passage layers multiple regulatory steps and expects you to map and reason through them. In Psych/Soc, classic theories show up inside more realistic experiments or survey designs rather than as pure definition checks.

If all you did was memorize the definition or the equation, that is where you get stuck. You can name the thing, but you cannot move with it. This is exactly the type of question that blended P1 and P2 tags describe. You need both the passage and the content. Neither side alone is enough.

Understanding Feels Heavier at First, but Lighter on Test Day

Truly understanding MCAT content requires more effort upfront. More active learning. You have to slow down and ask more questions:

• Why does this variable change when that one does?
• What does this graph really tell me about the relationship between these factors?
• How would this theory look in a real life example?

It feels slow compared to cruising through flashcards, but that “slow” work is what moves information out of working memory and into long term memory in a way that is easier to retrieve on test day.

You can see the difference clearly in practice:

• Memorization feels fast now and painful later, because you constantly have to relearn the same things.
• Understanding feels slower now and smoother later, because you can handle curveballs without starting from zero each time.
• Memorization collapses under stress, because it depends on everything looking familiar.
• Understanding survives stress, because you can recognize the same idea even when the passage looks completely new.

Exam 6 is full of small curveballs. Not unfair tricks, but questions that quietly ask “Do you actually get this?” instead of “Can you repeat this?”

If you want to experience what understanding based teaching feels like, free Jack Westin trial classes are a good entry point. Sessions on topics like fluids, enzymes or Psych/Soc reasoning inside our Courses are designed to build that deeper layer of understanding and then immediately apply it inside passages, not just recite formulas on a slide.

How to Study for Understanding Instead of Pure Memorization

Shifting your approach does not mean throwing everything away. It means changing how you use your time and your tools.

You can start with a few simple habits:

Use content to fuel passage work

After you review a topic, follow it with a small set of related passages instead of only discretes. Train your brain to meet that idea in different contexts, not just on pure memorization based flashcards.

Map relationships, do not just highlight

In dense Bio/Biochem or Psych/Soc passages, sketch quick diagrams or arrows for pathways, cause and effect and feedback loops. Even a small map helps you see structure instead of a wall of text.

Explain ideas in your own words

After you study something like an experiment type, a psych theory or an electrochemistry concept, try explaining it as if you were tutoring a friend. If you cannot, you probably only memorized key phrases.

Review questions for “what kind” as well as “why”

When you go through practice questions, do not just ask why the right answer is right. Also ask what kind of question it was: mostly content, mostly passage or both. That keeps you thinking in the same blended way the exam is written.

Jack Westin style resources are built to support exactly this shift. Daily Passages, QBank sets and video solutions show how to combine what the passage gives you with what you bring from your own knowledge. Textbook style content inside JW+ is structured around understanding first, then application, so you are not thrown into Exam 6 style questions with only shallow notes behind you.

Section by Section: How Exam 6 Really Feels in Chem/Phys, Bio/Biochem and Psych/Soc

A lot of students walk away from full lengths saying things like:

• “Chem/Phys felt impossible.”
• “Bio/Biochem was just walls of pathways.”
• “Psych/Soc felt like another CARS section.”

It can feel like each section is its own universe, with no clear pattern you can prepare for. Exam 6 actually tells a different story. Once you look closely, the same theme shows up in all three science sections: blended content and passage demands, plus more noise around the core idea.

Chemistry and Physics on Exam 6: Scary Looking, Not That Deep

The first impression in Chem/Phys is often panic. Long question stems, big blocks of equations, multi line answer choices. Everything looks complicated before you even start reading.

Underneath that surface:

• Many questions behave like P1. You need a detail from the passage, but the core of the question is still content driven.
• There are fewer true P3 questions. Very few items can be solved on passage reasoning alone with almost no outside knowledge.
• The passages often look more intimidating than they actually are. A lot of the time, there is one simple idea hiding inside a very busy presentation.

Typical patterns:

• A dense experiment description with lots of constants and variables, but the question only cares about one relationship.
• Answer choices that are three lines long, yet all you really need is “Is this directly or inversely proportional?”
• Figures that look complex, but only require you to recognize a basic trend.

If you do not have a clear reading and mapping strategy, this section feels brutal and unfair. If you do, the complexity drops quickly. Once you find the one relevant relationship or idea, many questions are manageable. This is where working through instructor led examples in Course sessions or Tutoring can change how Chem/Phys feels almost overnight.

Biology and Biochemistry on Exam 6: Section Bank Volume 1 Energy

Bio/Biochem on Exam 6 feels very similar to the best parts of the AAMC Section Bank, especially Volume 1.

The big themes:

• Passages are heavy on pathways and multi step regulation with inhibitors, activators, feedback loops and multiple interacting variables.
• You are expected to map relationships, not keep everything in your head. Trying to “just remember” all of it is overwhelming.
• Most questions land in the P1 or P2 range: you need both a clear understanding of the passage and a solid grasp of the underlying biology or biochemistry.

If you never map in the sciences and try to keep an entire pathway in working memory, this is where you hit a wall. If you draw quick arrows, boxes and short labels as you read, the payoff is huge.

You can train this skill using Bio/Biochem passages and walkthroughs in JW+ or by working one on one with a tutor who forces you to externalize pathways and regulation during Tutoring sessions.

Psychology and Sociology on Exam 6: More Passage Based

Psych/Soc is where a lot of students feel the biggest shift compared to older exams. Many have heard the phrase, “Psych/Soc is becoming like CARS,” and start to panic.

Exam 6 shows a more nuanced reality:

• There are far fewer pure recall P0 questions. Simple “What is the definition of this term?” items are reduced.
• There are many more P2 style questions. You must understand the passage and bring in the correct theory or term to interpret it.
• Content still matters a lot. It is not CARS. You cannot ignore vocabulary, theories and key models.

A typical Psych/Soc item on Exam 6 might give you an experiment, describe behavior or attitudes, and ask which theory, bias, type of conditioning or social concept best explains what is going on. Several answer choices can feel “kind of right,” so precise elimination and strong content really matter.

Strategy sessions on Psych/Soc inside Courses and JW+ are built specifically to train this “least wrong answer” thinking.

What All This Actually Means for Your MCAT Game Plan

Here is the big frustration many students feel but struggle to explain: they are doing more practice than ever, but their score barely moves. They finish full lengths, section banks and question packs. They feel tired, not better.

Exam 6 makes it clear what is going wrong. The problem is not just content gaps. The problem is that most people are practicing without a clear system. They are reading noisy, dense passages with no consistent way to cut through that noise. So even when they put in hours, there is no compounding effect. Every test feels like starting from scratch.

Exam 6 shows that the MCAT is not dramatically harder. It is just noisier. That is bad news if you are guessing your way through that noise, and good news if you build a real system. A good place to start is a planning conversation through Academic Advising, followed by structured reps inside a Course or JW+.

What “Noisier” Actually Means

Noisier does not mean cruel or impossible. It means there is more extra information wrapped around the idea that actually matters.

Patterns that show up again and again:

• Passages often include more experimental details than you strictly need.
• Figures and tables can have more variables than the question cares about.
• Question stems and answer choices are longer and more layered.
• Questions sometimes feel different on the surface while testing familiar logic underneath.

If you react to that noise with panic or rushing, you end up skimming, latching onto random details and overcomplicating questions that are built around one simple idea.

The Only Reliable Fix: Intention and a System

You cannot memorize your way out of noise. You cannot hope your way out of noise. You need intention and a repeatable system.

A good MCAT system has a few parts:

• A clear way of reading passages: you know what you are looking for, like relationships, cause and effect, experimental structure and key definitions.
• A standard way of marking or mapping: you know when you will draw a pathway, circle variables or note upregulation and inhibition.
• A consistent question process: you have a default way of reading the stem, scanning the passage, checking answer choices and eliminating wrong ones.
• A habit of reviewing for strategy: after practice, you ask, “Where did my process break?” not only, “What fact did I miss?”

Every passage you do without practicing a deliberate strategy is almost wasted. You are spending your best resource, your focus, without building a skill that will be there on test day.

Strategy heavy walkthroughs in Courses, self paced work inside JW+, and targeted sessions in Tutoring are all built to help you build that system, not just do more questions.

How to Cut Through MCAT Noise in Practice

You can start making your practice more strategic this week without changing your entire plan. A few concrete habits that come straight from how Exam 6 behaves:

• Treat dense science passages as layered, not impossible. First pass: find the big picture and main variables. Second pass: go back for specific numbers or experimental details as needed.
• Look for the one simple idea inside long questions. When you see a four line stem or multi line answer choices, pause and ask, “What is the single concept this is really about?”
• Assume the passage matters unless proven otherwise. Especially in Exam 6 style sections, treat the passage as important by default.
• Practice “least wrong answer” thinking. Get comfortable eliminating answers for small, precise reasons until only the least wrong option is left.

Why Strategy Needs Reps Just Like Content

Strategy is not something you can “understand once” and then automatically execute under pressure. It needs repetitions, just like content.

Many students make this mistake: they learn a strategy, nod along and think, “Yes, that makes sense,” then go back to old habits as soon as a passage looks scary.

To avoid that, treat strategy like a skill you are drilling:

• Pick one or two strategy elements to focus on for a week.
• Use them on every passage, even when it feels slower. Speed comes later.
• Use review time to check whether you actually followed your plan, not just whether you got questions right.

Jack Westin free trial classes are a good environment for this, because you see the strategy applied live, step by step, and can then copy that process into your own practice. You can join via a Free Trial Session and then follow up with related work in JW+ or a full MCAT Course.

Where to Go From Here

Exam 6 tells a clear story about the direction of the MCAT:

• Content alone is not enough.
• Memorization alone is not enough.
• Pure intuition without a system is not enough.

What works now is an intentional blend of content, passage understanding and structured strategy that can handle a noisy, slightly more sophisticated exam.

From here, a natural next step is to look at your own prep honestly and ask:

• Where am I still relying on raw memorization?
• Where am I still hoping the passage will “click” without a system?
• How often am I practicing strategy on purpose, not by accident?

Then choose one Jack Westin resource to anchor your next study block: a Daily Passage, a short targeted question set, or a single live trial class that walks you through a full passage, start to finish. If you are also thinking ahead to applications, you can pair that score strategy with Medical School Admissions Consulting so your Exam 6 style prep and your school list, essays and interviews all tell the same story.

Action step for today

• Pick one section where Exam 6 style noise scares you most.
• Commit to a simple passage reading and mapping system for that section.
• Give that system real reps this week instead of only adding more content.

If you want guided help aligning your prep with what Exam 6 is really testing, you can see that strategy live inside a Jack Westin free trial session.
Next move: book a Free Trial Session to watch an instructor model the exact reading, mapping and question process that works on modern AAMC exams. From there, you can layer in Academic Advising, Tutoring, full Courses, and JW+ as you need more support.