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Updated On: Apr 24, 2024
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| Name: | Medical College Admission Test: Verbal Reasoning, Biological Sciences, Physical Sciences, Writing Sample |
| Exam Code: | MCAT |
| Certification: | Test Prep Certifications |
| Vendor: | Test Prep |
| Total Questions: | 815 |
| Last Updated: | Apr 24, 2024 |
Page: 1
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Question 1
The atomic size of an atom is:
Section: Physical Sciences
Answer: B
Question 2
Gauguin's attitude toward art marked a break from the past and a beginning to modern art. Like all PostImpressionist artists, he passed through an Impressionist phase but became quickly dissatisfied with the
limitations of the style, and went on to discover a new style that had the directness and universality of a symbol
and that concentrated on impressions, ideas and experiences. The beginning of his modern tradition lay in his
rejection of Impressionism. He considered naturalism an error to be avoided. He was preoccupied with
suggestion rather than description, seeking to portray not the exterior, but the essence of things in their purest,
simplest, and most primitive form, which could only be achieved through simplification of the form. He firmly
believed throughout his life that “art is an abstraction” and that “this abstraction [must be derived] from nature
while dreaming before it.” One must think of the creation that will result rather than the model, and not try to
render the model exactly as one sees it. This was the birth of “Synthetism” or rather Synthetist-Symbolic, as
Gauguin referred to it, using the term “symbolic” to indicate that the forms and patterns in his pictures were
meant to suggest mental images or ideas and not simply to record visual experience.
Symbolism flourished around the period of 1885 to 1910 and can be defined as the rejection of direct, literal
representation in favor of evocation and suggestion. Painters tried to give a visual expression to emotional
experiences, and therefore the movement was a reaction against the naturalistic aims of Impressionism.
Satisfying the need for a more spiritual or emotional approach in art, Symbolism is characterized by the desire
to seek refuge in a dreamworld of beauty and the belief that color and line in themselves could express ideas.
Stylistically, the tendency was towards flattened forms and broad areas of color, and features of the movement
were an intense religious feeling and an interest in subjects of death, disease, and sin.
Similarly, “Synthetism” involved the simplification of forms into large-scale patterns and the expressive
purification of colors. Form and color had to be simplified for the sake of expression. This style reacted against
the “formlessness” of Impressionism and favored painting subjectively and expressing one's ideas rather than
relying on external objects as subject matters. It was characterized by areas of pure colors, very defined
contours, an emphasis on pattern and decorative qualities, and a relative absence of shadows.
Gauguin's new art form merged these two movements and succeeded in freeing color, form, and line, bringing
it to express the artists' emotions, sensibilities, and personal experiences of the world around them. His style
created a break with the old tradition of descriptive naturalism and favored the synthesis of observation and
imagination. Gauguin sustained that forms are not discovered in nature but in one's wild imagination, and it was
in himself that he searched rather than in his surroundings. For this reason, he scorned the Impressionists for
their lack of imagination and their mere scientific reasoning. Furthermore, Gauguin used color unnaturalistically
for its decorative or emotional effect and reintroduced emphatic outlines. “Synthetism” signified for him that the
forms of his pictures were constructed from symbolic patterns of color and linear rhythms and were not mere
scientific reproductions of what is seen by the eye.
Dempsey, A., & Dempsey, A. (2010). Styles, Schools and Movements: The Essential Encyclopaedic Guide to
Modern Art. London: Thames & Hudson.
According to the passage, Gauguin rejected Impressionism for a number of reasons. Which of the following
reasons CANNOT be inferred to have been a motive of this rejection?
Section: Verbal Reasoning
Answer: C
Question 3
Although nihilism is commonly defined as a form of extremist political thought, the term has a broader meaning.
Nihilism is in fact a complex intellectual stance with venerable roots in the history of ideas, which forms the
theoretical basis for many positive assertions of modern thought. Its essence is the systematic negation of all
perceptual orders and assumptions. A complete view must account for the influence of two historical
crosscurrents: philosophical skepticism about the ultimacy of any truth, and the mystical quest for that same
pure truth. These are united by their categorical rejection of the “known”.
The outstanding representative of the former current, David Hume (1711-1776), maintained that external reality
is unknowable, since sense impressions are actually part of the contents of the mind. Their presumed
correspondence to external “things” cannot be verified, since it can be checked only by other sense
impressions. Hume further asserts that all abstract conceptions turn out, on examination, to be generalizations
from sense impressions. He concludes that even such an apparently objective phenomenon as a cause-andeffect relationship between events may be no more than a subjective fabrication of the observer. Stanley Rosen
notes: “Hume terminates in skepticism because he finds nothing within the subject but individual impressions
and ideas.”
For mystics of every faith, the “experience of nothingness” is the goal of spiritual practice. Buddhist meditation
techniques involve the systematic negation of all spiritual and intellectual constructs to make way for the
apprehension of pure truth. St. John of the Cross similarly rejected every physical and mental symbolization of
God as illusory. St. John’s spiritual legacy is, as Michael Novak puts it, “the constant return to inner solitude, an
unbroken awareness of the emptiness at the heart of consciousness. It is a harsh refusal to allow idols to be
placed in the sanctuary. It requires also a scorching gaze upon all the bureaucracies, institutions, manipulators,
and hucksters who employ technology and its supposed realities to bewitch and bedazzle the psyche.”
Novak’s interpretation points to the way these philosophical and mystical traditions prepared the ground for the
political nihilism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The rejection of existing social institutions and their
claims to authority is in the most basic sense made possible by Humean skepticism. The political nihilism of the
Russian intelligentsia combined this radical skepticism with a near mystical faith in the power of a new
beginning. Hence, their desire to destroy becomes a revolutionary affirmation; in the words of Stanley Rosen,
“Nihilism is an attempt to overcome or repudiate the past on behalf of an unknown and unknowable, yet hopedfor, future.” This fusion of skepticism and mystical re-creation can be traced in contemporary thought, for
example as an element in the counterculture of the 1960s.
The passage implies that the two strands of nihilist thought
Section: Verbal Reasoning
Answer: A
Question 4
Synthetic dyes constitute a commercially significant area of organic chemistry. The color producing properties
of these compounds are the result of highly delocalized electron systems giving rise to electronic transitions
whose absorptions occur in the visible region. Most commercially useful dyes can be classified as one of three
types – anthraquinones, azo dyes, or triarylmethyl salts. Examples of each type are illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1
In order for a dye to be useful in the fabric industry, it must have sufficient affinity for the polymeric fibers of
which the material is composed; the dye must not only impart a color to the fabric, but must also do so in a
relatively permanent manner (color fastness). Proper design of synthetic polymers requires the placement of
acidic or basic side chains along the polymer backbone such that binding sites are available for dying. Similarly,
dyes must be produced not only with the appropriate color-producing structure, but also with an affinity for the
fabric in question. The structural units of several common synthetic fibers are shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2
Dacron belongs to which of the following general classifications?
Section: Biological Sciences
Answer: B
Question 5
…From a geological point of view, the Mediterranean is a tectonically mobile land-enclosed depression – small
(about 3,000,000 square kilometers) in comparison to the major world oceans…Immediately obvious on all
charts is the highly variable topography and relief of both the seafloor and adjacent borderland. The coastline is
highly irregular and continental shelves, though generally narrow, are well developed off the major river deltas
(Nile, Rhone, Po, and Ebro). Moreover, the deep-sea basins and trenches have distinctive relief, with basin
plains ranging in depth from less than 1,000 meters to more than 4,000…Observation that rocks dredged
offshore are similar to those on land raised a fundamental concept – the key to understanding Mediterranean
history lies in the adjacent emerged land masses, and vice-versa…
…Early paleographic reconstructions showed that the once-open communication with the Atlantic deteriorated
during the upper Miocene. Water-mass exchange continued for a while in the Rif Strait, but then ceased
completely prior to the beginning of the Pliocene…
…High relief near what is now the Strait of Gibraltar served as a barrier to the exchange of waters with the
Atlantic. Exposed to a hot and dry climate, water evaporated and the then-dry basin elicited comparison with a
gigantic Death Valley…Microfossil studies suggested that the depth of the Mediterranean basin at these times
had been “deep.” Estimates suggested a dry seafloor as far as 2,000 meters below ocean level… As a
response to suddenly lowered sea level, rivers feeding the Mediterranean and canyons on the now-dry seafloor
began a geologically dramatic phase of erosion. Deep, Grand Canyon-like gorges of the Nile and Rhone rivers,
presently buried on land, were apparently cut during a great drawdown of water – when the Mediterranean floor
lay exposed 1,000 meters or more below its present level…The sudden flooding through a gigantic waterfall at
Gibraltar drowned the exposed basin floor. These falls would have been 1,000 times bigger than Niagara
Falls…This flooding event is recorded by the Miocene Pliocene boundary, a time when open marine faunal
assemblages were suddenly reintroduced from the Atlantic…
…Geological theories usually fall at a glacial pace into a sea of controversy, and this one is no exception. Today
– charging that proof for the theory is lacking – many scientists believe that the Med always contained saltwater,
with only the depth of the seafloor and the water being in question… Some of the tenets on which the theory
was formulated are, if not defective, very seriously in question. To interpret their findings, a respectable number
of geologists studying the surrounding emerged borderland as well as subsea sections indicate that alternative,
more comprehensive concepts must be envisioned…
…It is not realistic to envision the Mediterranean seafloor of about 5 million years ago as a desert at 3,000
meters below present ocean level. Several years ago…the Mediterranean [was compared] to a complex
picture-puzzle that comprises numerous intricate pieces, many of which are already in place. A general image
is emerging, although gaps in some areas of the picture remain fuzzy and indistinct.
It can be inferred from the passage that geological theories tend to:
Section: Verbal Reasoning
Answer: D
Page: 1
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Total 815 Questions |
Updated On: Apr 24, 2024
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