The Official 04/13/2012 MCAT Thread

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Originally Posted by eagledaughter

To me, PS and verbal seemed pretty similar the the AAMC practice tests, but BS was awful for me. Normally i have 10 minutes remaining when I finish, but this time I didn't even get to read 3 of the passages. I'm really upset the I'm going to probably have to take it again; the orgo killed me.

How many orgo passages and discretes were there?

Wow, I usually get 13-14 on BS, but now I'm hoping for like an 11. I thought BS was ridiculously hard while the other sections were similar to the practice tests.

Verbal was easy. PS was easier than BS, but still hard. Was running out of time for PS, so didn't think as carefully on the last passage as the others. There was more orgo than I expected too.

oh wow orgo heavy? how many orgo passages/discretes? now im scurred

how many ochem passages/discretes?

edit: strong delay..

^^

wiard

Well, I guess I should have stayed away from a "friday the 13th" test day. Showed up on time at 7:30 ready to take the test. They were having problems with all the computers/mcat registration and everything else and I didn't start my test until 8:45. Awesome way to start.

PS wasn't too bad, lots of calculations,
Verbal I thought was surprisingly good. Interesting articles which is the biggest indicator of how well I do. There were any articles where I felt like smacking my head.
BS was full of OChem, pretty tough I thought.

I'm not sure if all monitors are the same, but I found it rather annoying on one of the passages with lots of mechanisms scrolling back and forth comparing them etc.

Also, so I accidentally took a water bottle back to my seat during the BS section. The guy in charge said he had to document it. He told me he explained that he saw nothing unusual from me or on the bottle, but I'm not sure how far that goes. I had it through my writing section and half of bs before he noticed. I never drank it or else I would have realized I shouldn't have brought it with me. It's lame though because they had us store the food/drinks in the front of the classroom so if there was anything on it, the person at the computer 2 ft away from all the food/drinks piled up would the same benefit. Hoping nothing major comes from it, has anyone heard of anything happening from it?
I have taken the mcat at another facility and it wasn't even an option because before I went in I had to show my pockets, fingerprint and then they would say I could go. There wasn't a possibility of entering with something like that. Where I took it today, there were just a couple of papers put out on a table where I would find my name and sign it. zero interaction between the proctor.

Originally Posted by jevo

how many ochem passages/discretes?

edit: strong delay..

^^

wiard

I don't know how much I'm allowed to say, but I'd say about 30% of it was orgo based.

I am deeply regretting that I had the test scored..

PS: the difficulty seemed to be the same difficulty as the practices, not too calculation heavy but my brain froze for the first two passages so ran out of time.. and scrambled. none of my answers I felt like I knew

the effects continued...

Verbal: a little long but very interesting, understandable passages

Bio: was couple lengthy passages but not bad. Orgo heavy

i might have screwed myself..they say everyone feels bad after it but I know it...

Originally Posted by Class1P

I don't know how much I'm allowed to say, but I'd say about 30% of it was orgo based.

im 99% sure you can say how many passages and discretes..you just can't discuss the questions or topics they were on

Originally Posted by MrNeuro

im 99% sure you can say how many passages and discretes..you just can't discuss the questions or topics they were on

At least 2 passages and probably 3 or 4 discretes. It seemed like a lot. There was some bio stuff that was surprisingly difficult as well.

Talk about the 13, the computer shut down on me while I was in the writing section. Turns out, I accidentally kicked the power cord off the computer

It did not affect the timing though, just another incident to freak me out

I know everyone says they feel bad after the test, but I really feel awful. I am hoping I didn't completely mess it up as I don't want to take it again, but it could really go either way. The next month is going to be painful.

Originally Posted by duepeak

I know everyone says they feel bad after the test, but I really feel awful. I am hoping I didn't completely mess it up as I don't want to take it again, but it could really go either way. The next month is going to be painful.

I know!! why do they bother making the practice tests so much easier? It doesn't help us at all... it's almost as if they want us to take it repeatedly and spend hundreds upon hundreds of dollars

2nd time taking the test here

PS- Had the most trouble with this section. I think most of that can be attributed to freezing on some of the questions and then being rushed. It was pretty fair though from a content stand point.

V- Thought it was easier than most verbal full lengths I've taken. However, I got a little cocky towards the end and didn't keep track of the clock ..didn't get to finish the last question The passages were not hard to understand, even the philosophical BS ones.

BS- I'm a bio major graduating this May and I thought the section was a breeze on the biology end of things. Orgo was a little tough, but doable.I focused on studying orgo this go round since I neglected it last time. The large passage seemed intimidating at first but after getting over the initial "..wtf?" it wasn't bad.

It seems like the bio passages are almost like another verbal reasoning section. Reading primary articles and being more familiar with lab techniques has gone a long way for me improving in this section from first time I took the test.

Thought the test today was pretty tough in comparison to practice tests.

PS - went okay, not too bad. similar to practice tests
Verbal - long passages, but easy to understand. nearly ran out of time with the last passage and didn't spend as much time as I would have liked on it
BS - difficult. the amount of ochem killed me, and i thought some of the bio questions were pretty confusing as well.

Oh well, let's see how we do in a month!

Wooooooo!!!! So I went into this thinking the worst, since I looked through some of the previous tests takers threads were they all claimed theirs was a lot harder than the practice AAMCs. Anyway, here's my breakdown:

PS: I thought was ok. More genChem than physics. It wasnt too calculation heavy, but what you had to do was weird. I didn't think it was overly difficult, but I'm sure made careless mistakes.

VR: So, I suck at verbal, and I actually liked it. What the others are saying about are true, the passages are a bit longer, but for some reason, I found them all pleasant to read, which I think factored in.

BS: BS is my strongest section and I felt I got steamrolled. Having to scroll through some long ass ochem passage sucked. That thing was way more complex than any of the stuff I have ever seen on any practice. In retrospect, it was ochem heavy and whatever bio was on was experimental in nature. I hope everyone had as much trouble as me and sets for a generous curve.

I don't remember needing to use much of the stuff that I thought was going to be on there. Makes it seem like memorizing all those equations is pointless.

Let the waiting game begin!!!

Good Lord...I feel pretty bad after doing the BS section.

PS was similar to AAMC's...definitely some difficult questions that I had to guess on but also some freebies.

Verbal is usually my strong suit, so no big complaints there. A few ambiguous questions that left me scratching my head though.

BS. There was a long orgo passage that I pretty much guessed on, several difficult discretes, and some of the bio passages were really confusing. I felt numb about doing this section...I'm just hoping for a 10, although I feel like I bombed it.

Shoot, and after googling one of the questions on BS, I found out I got it wrong. Sh**************t.

i'm glad i'm not the only one who thought the BS was unusually difficult

yeah it's good to know we all failed terribly.. haha

Seriously though the BS section was abnormally difficult. Some of that stuff I never would have expected to see.

Sigh, I think I blacked out during the MCAT, I remember entering at 7:30am and leaving at 12:15pm. That is it.

Verbal wasn't too bad. Bio was SOOO hard. I am really worried, on my practices I was scoring 9-11 in Bio, I am a bio major and it is my strong suit. But the bio on the exam was brutal. Molecular, crazy genetics and micro. That was ridiculous. I usually end practice bio 5-10 min early, but this exam I had to guess on the last 2.

PS wasnt too bad, but I thought the Gen Chem party was VERY difficult.

it's like the past few months of studying BS didn't even matter

I had to take educated guesses on A LOT of the bio questions.

Originally Posted by psychkub

I hope everyone had as much trouble as me and sets for a generous curve.

How other people did in your test center on anyone else today does not matter!!!

You are measured against a previously established scale (and not against the group of examinees with whom you tested)

Not a big deal, just saying--it's nice to know b/c there's no need to feel you compete with anyone on that day. Your "competitors" (if that's how some consider it) are in the past.

BS was not fun at all. It is usually my strong section, but not on this test. But i felt Verbal and PS were not bad.

But congrats to everyone that finished and I hope you get the scored you want. And now, time to crack open this Maker's Mark

I thought the test was more difficult than AAMC practice full lengths

PS: I didn't find it to be calculation heavy, just a lot of concepts and very convoluted questions unlike those in practice tests.

Verbal was alright, but I cannot be optimistic about it. This is my weakest area and I never got above a 12 in this section on a practice exam, usually getting a 10 or eleven and in some tests an 8!

BS: This section was hard for me. Lots of reading and detective work, felt more verbal than BS. Full of O-chem passages and discretes. I 50/50 guessed on a lot of questions and had to rush through the last passage. Just to compare, I finished most AAMC practice BS sections with more than 5 minutes to spare, in some case over 10 minutes.

Folks, there is a sunshine at the end of the rainbow. I thought WS prompts were very easy and I nailed both of them. I actually enjoyed writing them and it gave me a huge boost of energy for the BS sections. Of course it might have been the dove dark chocolate bar I ate during the break.

I am hoping for something higher than 30. Averaged about 36-37 on AAMC full lengths.


P.S. To my surprise some discretes felt "familiar..."



EDIT: Just checked and I got two questions wrong. Looks like I am going to sign up for a MAY exam.

So out of BR's shortcuts what should we be looking at? Seriously

A little bit of a relief to see that others were having trouble as well, though I find it a bit disheartening that we aren't scored against each other and rather we're scored against previous test takers. Hopefully the scores are a little lenient!

I'm surprised some of you remember exact questions, that test was a blurr to me. As for there being no curve, that bites, I don't see how previous takers of a different test should set the standard for the one we took today. Whatever, it's over, and there's no use in ruminating over that.

I'm interested in hearing about what will motivate some of you to retake. Like, will you wait for your scores, or are you just going to sign up without waiting.

Anyone else feel like memorizing all those hormones and other countless random bio facts were pretty useless? I felt the same way after the last time I took the mcat...and if I had to give anyone else advice it would be know your orgo and read scientific literature.

Originally Posted by Catalino21

Anyone else feel like memorizing all those hormones and other countless random bio facts were pretty useless? I felt the same way after the last time I took the mcat...and if I had to give anyone else advice it would be know your orgo and read scientific literature.

I agree, heh.

Originally Posted by Catalino21

Anyone else feel like memorizing all those hormones and other countless random bio facts were pretty useless? I felt the same way after the last time I took the mcat...and if I had to give anyone else advice it would be know your orgo and read scientific literature.

yes, I hardly studied Bio and scored in the 12s and 13s on the practice tests and I actually do research for a living. I felt like I did poorly on bio just due to the strange questions. I knew all my hormones which only helped on only 1 question.

Anyone know some good websites to find scientific literature to use to practice for the BS section? My test is in a month

Originally Posted by mmckuin

Anyone know some good websites to find scientific literature to use to practice for the BS section? My test is in a month

Pubmed or Google scholar have free articles. I'd start with topics you're kinda familiar with or reviews just so you don't have to google every 4th word you read.

Honestly,

-The PS was harder than the aamc tests but was doable.
-The VR was very long.... I was able to finish the aamc practice tests, but this was simply to long.
- The BS? thats what that section was... total bs! definitely did OK on it approx 8 or 9.
I've written this exam before and its interesting because this was a Harder than average test which is very unfortunate! But hopefully the scaling will reflect this.

oh and the ws was a joke!

Definitely another re-write thank aamc for giving me a break on a friday the 13th!

Originally Posted by endowed

it's like the past few months of studying BS didn't even matter

SERIOUSLY!!!!! Memorizing all the hormones, kidney cr*p, etc etc etc. Useless. Might as well have taken the bio section blind because nothing in the past months or years would have ever helped in that BS section. I was averaging 12 on the AAMC's and I swear I got a 5. FML.

Originally Posted by mg1985

- The BS? thats what that section was... total bs!

That's a nice way of putting it. Definitely the toughest section IMO

Originally Posted by gocalbears2010

SERIOUSLY!!!!! Memorizing all the hormones, kidney cr*p, etc etc etc. Useless. Might as well have taken the bio section blind because nothing in the past months or years would have ever helped in that BS section. I was averaging 12 on the AAMC's and I swear I got a 5. FML.

Haha for real

April 5 test had hard PS,
April 13 test - hard BS,

Which is next? VR or WS

Originally Posted by mg1985

...The VR was very long.... I was able to finish the aamc practice tests, but this was simply to long.

I could not judge the length of VR texts because the screen size and resolution on the test center's monitor were much smaller than my home monitor.

Taking AAMC practice exams I noticed that VR section length increased with the test number .

Also, one WS prompt was exactly the same as one of on this list: https://www.aamc.org/students/applyi...mpleitems.html

Originally Posted by Samchik

April 5 test had hard PS,
April 13 test - hard BS,

Which is next? VR or WS

Hard WS please.

Originally Posted by Voevoda

Also, one WS prompt was exactly the same as one of on this list: https://www.aamc.org/students/applyi...mpleitems.html

"Topics selected for use in MCAT exams will be similar or identical to those in this list."

Originally Posted by Samchik

"Topics selected for use in MCAT exams will be similar or identical to those in this list."

I see, and here I thought I was being a hero.

Originally Posted by Voevoda

I see, and here I thought I was being a hero.

You're a hero in my book. Writing practice has shown me I need to put some work in this section... this is a great piece of info for me, and a great resource I didn't realize was out there!

Thanks

Seriously guys what kinds of calculations are we looking at here, how in depth?!

Originally Posted by Samchik

April 5 test had hard PS,
April 13 test - hard BS,

Which is next? VR or WS

lol, on my exam last summer, BS was super ultra mega ridiculously hard. this BS was a piece of cake compared to that, not even joking.

Originally Posted by gocalbears2010

SERIOUSLY!!!!! Memorizing all the hormones, kidney cr*p, etc etc etc. Useless. Might as well have taken the bio section blind because nothing in the past months or years would have ever helped in that BS section. I was averaging 12 on the AAMC's and I swear I got a 5. FML.

yea, i spent less than 2 days doing content this time around (last 2 days only did content). did more practice, and read books (not science journals, actual novels)--it seemed to help a lot, for the sciences and the verbal section.

Originally Posted by psychkub

I'm surprised some of you remember exact questions, that test was a blurr to me. As for there being no curve, that bites, I don't see how previous takers of a different test should set the standard for the one we took today. Whatever, it's over, and there's no use in ruminating over that.

I'm interested in hearing about what will motivate some of you to retake. Like, will you wait for your scores, or are you just going to sign up without waiting.

Originally Posted by Catalino21

Anyone else feel like memorizing all those hormones and other countless random bio facts were pretty useless? I felt the same way after the last time I took the mcat...and if I had to give anyone else advice it would be know your orgo and read scientific literature.

i dont think im going to take it again. last summer i waited til scores and then only focused on my apps, i think thats worth it more than worrying about retaking it soon as getting scores back.

Originally Posted by virtuoso735

I had to take educated guesses on A LOT of the bio questions.

same!

Originally Posted by Class1P

At least 2 passages and probably 3 or 4 discretes. It seemed like a lot. There was some bio stuff that was surprisingly difficult as well.

yup

Originally Posted by Medicalbound10

Talk about the 13, the computer shut down on me while I was in the writing section. Turns out, I accidentally kicked the power cord off the computer

It did not affect the timing though, just another incident to freak me out

LOL not as bad as mine, it happened during my verbal section, computer screen just shut off don't know how or why, took around 2-3 min to figure out how to get it back on by proctor, time was still going down and just sped up.

the BS was hard for sure, but the orgo passages werent that bad (only 2)--just very very time consuming in having to look thru it all and scroll and figure out what is going on

for difficulty:
BS: today >>>>>>>> AAMCs, today >>>> TPRH
VR: today >>> AAMCs, today >> TPRH
PS: today >>>> AAMCs, today >>>TPRH

Originally Posted by Melomare17

the BS was hard for sure, but the orgo passages werent that bad (only 2)--just very very time consuming in having to look thru it all and scroll and figure out what is going on

Yeah they didn't address zooming in that survey at the end.

Mann i am a MSc Med Sci student and even i thought bio was kinda difficult, definetely chem heavy.
and combine that with the fact that i got only 3 hrs of sleep and whole stress about the confusion about rescheduling the exam location at 5pm on thursday... one heck of an experience is all i got to say. definetely not one of my best efforts went into taking that test.... totallly blanked out for PS.
Verbal was relatively doable but lets see... its all in the system now loll

Ps: felt a lot easier than the practices.. I was actually very surprised by how narrow the subjects covered. There were 2 passages that looked really similar to some Berk review I did before.
Vr: easy to understand the purpose of passages. 2 passages were very similar to the examcracker101 book
Bs: long ochem part. Many bs questions felt more like discretes. A little tripped up on this section because I was getting impatient and wanted to leave haha.

Hardest part of the test was that questions were presented simply but I felt that answer choices for certain questions looked very similar so it was one of those tests where silly mistakes can happen frequently.

Hope we all do well when scores come out in a month!

I had a quick question regarding the screen format of the test. It was little different from the aamc screen format. There were a total of 7 pages and all the 7 passages and discrete questions were included in the 7 pages, is this correct? i am not sure if i forgot to do the last page.