Going to preface this by saying you cannot use the tests of any of these dates to be representative of what might be seen on later January tests. That's just the nature of the beast. But I hope some 11/7ers can chime in with some advice along with me!
1. In the hardest science passages, were they hard because they were: hard to understand, long, about alien concepts, or what?
11/7's test had a lot of convoluted **** in my opinion that had nothing to do with what they were asking you. The 11/7 PS section wanted you to cut through the crap and look at the basic science concepts that were being tested. Chances are if you come across a question you have no idea how to answer, you're either missing pertinent info from the passage, or you've misinterpreted the question to be far more difficult than it is. Of course, there are always a few exceptions to this rule, but most of the time on the 11/7 MCAT and even in my studying, I found that the hardest questions were "aha" moments for me once I figured them out. Figure out what concept the question is testing, and if you've studied hard enough, you WILL know the answer. The hard part is, I think, figuring out what they're testing because they will mask it with some really convoluted stuff to trip you up and see if you know your stuff. I did decently well on AAMC 11 BS and I found that the ebola passage required minute knowledge of the passage. I noticed this on the 11/7 BS as well. Get the main idea of the passage if it's even NECESSARY, and run with it. A lot of 11/7 PS didn't even require a lot of the passage, outside of one weird passage, in my opinion.
2. Were the questions: pertaining to things deeply buried within the passage, difficult to understand/rephrase, required extremely specific content knowledge, or what? Especially the content aspect: was it specific stuff you needed to know/understand or did it require straightforward knowledge?
This is where I have beef with Berkeley Review. They prep you for the one crazy discrete you may or may not get that's very specific. I found that all of my MCAT required decently basic information for PS, at least. For BS I struggled with discretes because it was biochemistry knowledge (at the level of general bio, though) and my BS content knowledge in general was weaker than others. Really though, go to mcat-review and print out the topic outlines for all of the sections. If you know those you'll be fine. No need to memorize random crazy equations (although I had one question on PS with one that was rather specific...but it's ONE question). Your time is much better spent learning the basic sciences and knowing how they could be manipulated. Good practice for this is other test sources. The subjects I knew extremely well, I felt comfortable answering questions on in whatever form they were given. Subjects I did not feel this comfortable with, I struggled with, and ultimately I know I missed those questions, not because they were convoluted, but because I was missing basic understanding of basic concepts.
3. Were these hardest passages MOST representative of: TBR sciences, Kaplan sciences, TPR sciences, AAMCs?
Not TBR.
AAMCs are good source material for the way questions with be phrased.
Kaplan is good source material for content as well as convoluted passages.
TPRSW is good practice for drilling content.
4. Lastly, upon looking back, what is a good strategy in your opinion for breaking apart these tough passages: Kaplan-type mapping (which includes studying the figures, summarizing each paragraph, identifying purpose of experiment), just skim it, not read at all, or what?
PS: Look at the questions, see if they look like they require a passage. I also follow the Kaplan method of mapping out each section of my test to see if it's physics heavy or whatever. But understanding if a PS passage is more verbal-ey and conceptual will save you time in terms of trying to do the questions without a passage, and if you notice you have a PS section that literally is asking you straightforward math questions, you can save your time mapping the passage and simply skim.
VR: I would love to see someone do VR without reading the passage
BS: Same as PS, but ALWAYS LOOK AT THE GRAPHS. Always understand the graphs. Even if you don't get the passage, understand the graph.
5. (edit) Also, is it worth it to read the abstract/intro and graphs/figures of bio journal articles? Is that recommended for PS as well?
I wouldn't say this applies as much for PS, but BS will generally introduce some sort of concept that is being tested in the experiment, and you can probably gauge an idea of how the experiment will turn out depending on your knowledge of the biological sciences in general. Then decipher the graph. Ask yourself wtf the graph is saying. If you can get that, you are golden for passage-based BS questions.
I overall struggled with BS content (discretes), and the vast amount of knowledge you are required to understand for PS. Overall, just know the concept outlines like the back of your hand. Map the physiological systems for BS, understand basic biochemistry principles (cellular respiration), etc. There's no weird specific ****. They really aren't trying to trick you. They are trying to figure out whether you can apply basic science concepts in unusual situations, which frankly is a key component of being a physician so I can see the point of convoluted passages. If you view the MCAT as a friend that you have the knowledge to conquer, rather than a foe, despite how fluffy that sounds, I guarantee your experience will be better.
My test was completely doable. I had hyped up the MCAT so hard in my head as *the test*, and in going over the questions after I took the test, I know exactly what I missed and it was either lack of content knowledge, second guessing myself due to weakness in content knowledge, or misinterpreting the passage. All of these things could have been easily fixed prior to test day, it's not as difficult as brain surgery or anything. That comes later in our careers
It's really half mental. If you hit something convoluted, you have to keep a level head, because you WILL hit something on this test you don't know at first glance. The difference between beating your average and getting lower than your average is how you approach those questions. If you truly believe that you can figure out the answer based on your knowledge and what is given to you on the test, you can kill it, because you will be able to think through the tough questions with a level head rather than panic stricken "ohmygodIhavenoideawhatthisisaskingme."
That was the best advice given to me while studying; all the answers are there, you just have to find them.
Best of luck!