Foundational concept 3 is the final portion of the Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems section of the 2015 MCAT exam. This concept section covers how the complex systems of tissues and organs sense both the internal and external environments of multicellular organisms. It also covers how these tissues and organs maintain a stable internal environment despite a constantly changing external environment through integrated functioning.
Content Categories Within Foundational Concept 3
Shorter than the previous two foundational concepts, foundational concept 3 includes only two content categories. Via the Association of American Medical Colleges, the content categories review the following information:
With this information, students will be better prepared to learn how the coordinated interactions of organ systems explain how the body works both in sickness and in health. Students will also be better prepared to learn about how the principles of feedback control explain homeostatic and reproductive systems’ maintenance of one’s internal environment. It also gets students ready to learn about how perturbations in the aforementioned systems may lead to disease, as well as how homeostasis can be changed by illness and disease.
Foundational concept 3 will be comprised of questions that are both passage-based and discrete. In all, students will be required to answer 59 questions as part of Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems sections, but the total number of questions found in foundational concept 3 may vary from test to test.
There is not a specific time allotted to complete foundational concept 3, but test takers will be given a total of 95 minutes to finish the Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems section of the new 2015 MCAT exam.