Do i have enough time?

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Ari1584

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So i was originally signed up for april 18th and changed my date to the 24th bc i thought i needed just a little more time for content review. I took my first practice test (a kaplan free proctered exam) with about 1.5 months left till my exam. The next week, i took another kaplan free exam, and scored almost the same score as the prior week (first was 28 then 27). I am re-taking this exam from september, and i scored a 25 but was getting 27s and 28s for practice tests. My scores on these full lenghts scared me, so i spent the next 2 weeks going back through my berkeley review books and going back through passages, doing questions and content review. Now i have 3.5 weeks left till my exam, i have only taken two full lengths, and i have all 7 berkeley review full lengths left. I am now worried that i wont have enough time for all these, plus the AAMCs that i want to re-do. I really don't want to push back again...am i getting worried for nothing? I mean is this doable? Should i be doing practice tests every other day? I dont want to burn out..but i want to take a lot of tests to be prepared. I also thought going back through passages/questions/content was necessary to make sure i understood some concepts.

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You have plenty of time to go through the 7 BR tests. I purposefully left out the AAMC, because they aren't worth your time to retake. If you feel like you absolutely must retake them, then put them up front. You can easily space out the tests every three days and still make the 24th. So today (Monday) you'd have an AAMC FL, Thursday another AAMC, then start hitting the BR. Should you retake the AAMC, don't take the score seriously. It should be inflated. I doubt you'll burn out if you take a test every three days. The exception to this is if you're in school. If you're in school, I can't guarantee anything (well, I can't guarantee anything regardless) because I don't know about your school work.

Now whether you should or should not sit for your test is a little tougher. For now, I suggest you take a couple new FLs and see where you're at. Since you're redoing a couple AAMCs, you'll take your first new FL on the 5th. The second new FL would be on the 8th. If your score isn't where you want it, you should probably consider delaying your test. I know that's not what you want to hear, but you must do everything possible to ensure a significantly better score on your retake (30+). Going into the test with a 28 average isn't a good idea. Even if you got a 28, it wouldn't cut it for MD schools. It probably wouldn't look great for DO schools either because this is a retake.
 
You have plenty of time to go through the 7 BR tests. I purposefully left out the AAMC, because they aren't worth your time to retake. If you feel like you absolutely must retake them, then put them up front. You can easily space out the tests every three days and still make the 24th. So today (Monday) you'd have an AAMC FL, Thursday another AAMC, then start hitting the BR. Should you retake the AAMC, don't take the score seriously. It should be inflated. I doubt you'll burn out if you take a test every three days. The exception to this is if you're in school. If you're in school, I can't guarantee anything (well, I can't guarantee anything regardless) because I don't know about your school work.

Now whether you should or should not sit for your test is a little tougher. For now, I suggest you take a couple new FLs and see where you're at. Since you're redoing a couple AAMCs, you'll take your first new FL on the 5th. The second new FL would be on the 8th. If your score isn't where you want it, you should probably consider delaying your test. I know that's not what you want to hear, but you must do everything possible to ensure a significantly better score on your retake (30+). Going into the test with a 28 average isn't a good idea. Even if you got a 28, it wouldn't cut it for MD schools. It probably wouldn't look great for DO schools either because this is a retake.


Thanks sn2ed, you always give good feedback. I have another question though...when i take new exams, and if their scales are diff than aamc, should i not really use the score i get from the test prep company and instead match it up to the aamc scale? Berekely review you can get 14 wrong in the PS and make an 11, and in aamc 14 wrong is a 9. How can i be sure where my "real" score sits if all these scales/exams are so diff? thanks!
 
Test prep companies are supposed form their scale based on how people did on that particular test. So, the scale for the corresponding test should be right. I also haven't heard of BR's curve being off. Then again, I haven't actively searched for something like that either.
 
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