Book excerpt: Beginning in January’07, students applying for admission to medical schools must take the computer-based MCAT. The pencil-and-paper version of the Medical College Admission Test will no longer be given. Barron’s new eleventh edition of the MCAT manual prepares applicants with four full-length practice tests modeled after the brand-new computer-based tests. Each practice MCAT consists of 144 questions—the same number to be found on the new MCAT—with all questions answered and explained. Every test question in the manual closely reflects those on the computer-based test in length and degree of difficulty. Also presented are subject reviews that cover all test topics. They include: A detailed MCAT science review in biology, chemistry, and physics A math review Verbal reasoning test-taking strategies Advice on answering the MCAT writing sample Test takers will also value this book’s handy reference tables, which include logarithms and exponents, a table of common logarithms, the periodic table of the elements, a list of the elements with their symbols, and a chemistry reference table.