Roller Coaster Prep

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Hey guys,

Feeling lots of stress with my impending MCAT this summer. I've been honestly prepping "off and on" since late february. I took a Kaplan Course, and I think it was OK. What I really thought made it worth it is all of the materials provided by it (flash cards, practice tests, online q-bank)

The reason I haven't been studying consistently( one week I'll study 25 hrs, the next I'll study 5) is because of school/work, of course. The common excuse. I work 25 hours per week to support myself, and I have a hard time focusing on the MCAT if I have exams in my classes that week (finals are coming up

On my last practice test, I scored a 7,7,7. It's pretty bad, I know. However, this is strongly deflated because I make stupid errors on 5-6 questions in each science section. I know I can pull the bio section to an 11, I KNOW I can pull VR up to an 11 (I've done it before), and I'm going to try my hardest to pull PS up to at least a 10.

I know it's a lot of work, but I have no other option than to succeed with this. I'm scheduled to take the test June 21st, but will move it back to July unless my practice scores are up in the 30's. It may sound impossible to raise my score in such a short time frame, but I'm going to do my best. Once finals are over, I'm going to eat sleep and breathe MCAT like I should have done the past few months.

Wish me luck. I'll update this thread throughout my journey.

Oh and

Materials used:

Kaplan Books
EK books for reference
EK 1001 series (excluding biology)
Kaplan online materials

Which practice test did you take that you got 7,7,7?

I believe it was Kaplan FL 2.

The scores should be taken with a grain of salt. I remember the PS was like 50% circuits, one of my weak points.

I just recently took AAMC 3 a few days ago and bombed it. Like I didnt even break a 20 and that's supposed to be the easiest one. But before that I had taken a TBR and got a 25. So idk. I thought the AAMC was difficult for me because it also had a lot of topics I wasn't comfortable in. I'm not good at waves and other things like that so I did terrible. I was really depressed. You better believe Ill be eating that material for breakfast, lunch and dinner though! I need to improve. 90% of my mistakes were on content review questions. Very depressing.

Originally Posted by Wishing4MD

I just recently took AAMC 3 a few days ago and bombed it. Like I didnt even break a 20 and that's supposed to be the easiest one. But before that I had taken a TBR and got a 25. So idk. I thought the AAMC was difficult for me because it also had a lot of topics I wasn't comfortable in. I'm not good at waves and other things like that so I did terrible. I was really depressed. You better believe Ill be eating that material for breakfast, lunch and dinner though! I need to improve. 90% of my mistakes were on content review questions. Very depressing.

You'll be fine. Use the stress to keep pushing. I can't wait til finals are over so I can get back to putting up 30 hour/week studies. I have an hour round trip commute to work (3x/week) and just inherited the audio osmosis cd's. Put them on my iphone for the commute. Trying to be as efficient with my time as possible.


Review review review what you got wrong. I huge problem of mine I'm trying to defeat is that sometimes I just do things to do it. "Oh I missed 5 electrochem questions, I'm going to read that chapter again." So I read it, with no goal in mind. I'm trying to make it a goal to not put that damn book down until I understand WHY I missed those questions.

Keep plugging.

Originally Posted by zma21

Hey guys,

Feeling lots of stress with my impending MCAT this summer. I've been honestly prepping "off and on" since late february. I took a Kaplan Course, and I think it was OK. What I really thought made it worth it is all of the materials provided by it (flash cards, practice tests, online q-bank)

The reason I haven't been studying consistently( one week I'll study 25 hrs, the next I'll study 5) is because of school/work, of course. The common excuse. I work 25 hours per week to support myself, and I have a hard time focusing on the MCAT if I have exams in my classes that week (finals are coming up

On my last practice test, I scored a 7,7,7. It's pretty bad, I know. However, this is strongly deflated because I make stupid errors on 5-6 questions in each science section. I know I can pull the bio section to an 11, I KNOW I can pull VR up to an 11 (I've done it before), and I'm going to try my hardest to pull PS up to at least a 10.

I know it's a lot of work, but I have no other option than to succeed with this. I'm scheduled to take the test June 21st, but will move it back to July unless my practice scores are up in the 30's. It may sound impossible to raise my score in such a short time frame, but I'm going to do my best. Once finals are over, I'm going to eat sleep and breathe MCAT like I should have done the past few months.

Wish me luck. I'll update this thread throughout my journey.

Oh and

Materials used:

Kaplan Books
EK books for reference
EK 1001 series (excluding biology)
Kaplan online materials

You definitely gonna have to breathe and sleep MCAT to bring your score to 30+...You can do it. Good luck.

Originally Posted by zma21

Hey guys,

Feeling lots of stress with my impending MCAT this summer. I've been honestly prepping "off and on" since late february. I took a Kaplan Course, and I think it was OK. What I really thought made it worth it is all of the materials provided by it (flash cards, practice tests, online q-bank)

The reason I haven't been studying consistently( one week I'll study 25 hrs, the next I'll study 5) is because of school/work, of course. The common excuse. I work 25 hours per week to support myself, and I have a hard time focusing on the MCAT if I have exams in my classes that week (finals are coming up

On my last practice test, I scored a 7,7,7. It's pretty bad, I know. However, this is strongly deflated because I make stupid errors on 5-6 questions in each science section. I know I can pull the bio section to an 11, I KNOW I can pull VR up to an 11 (I've done it before), and I'm going to try my hardest to pull PS up to at least a 10.

I know it's a lot of work, but I have no other option than to succeed with this. I'm scheduled to take the test June 21st, but will move it back to July unless my practice scores are up in the 30's. It may sound impossible to raise my score in such a short time frame, but I'm going to do my best. Once finals are over, I'm going to eat sleep and breathe MCAT like I should have done the past few months.

Wish me luck. I'll update this thread throughout my journey.

Oh and

Materials used:

Kaplan Books
EK books for reference
EK 1001 series (excluding biology)
Kaplan online materials

I'm pretty much in the same boat, except that initially my first PS score was the lowest and has been creeping up with every test (i.e., 5, 6, 7) and now its been staggering at 7. I attribute the increase to TBR physics and chemistry. However, the most frustrating thing is my verbal has consistently been 9 on AAMC exams, while EK 101 its been 10-11 range. Anyway, all that to say, I know how you feel and you'll definitely be able to raise your score before game day. Good luck!

AAMC3-5, in my opinion, do not reflect what the newer tests are like at all. 10 and 11? Those are more representative. The better you do on them, the better off you're set. The verbal is roughly 1.5x longer, and the BS/PS is 50x harder.