Doing poorly with Biology content review MCAT 2015, need guidance

[Shreyasthegreat]

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Hi, was wondering if I could get some guidance on how I'm doing. Bio is my weakest subject, so I don't feel too confident about it.

I initially started out reading BR for biology and doing the corresponding passages (1/3 of them), but it proved to be too detailed/time consuming, so I switched to EK after 2 chapters of BR. Since then, I have read the chapters of EK and done the BR passages. For the total 10 BR chapters, I have done:

3 chapters -- read BR and do the BR passages
1 chapter -- read EK and do the BR passages

I had also done another chapter with BR but I found that I didn't really retain much.

I am also using Anki to throw in any concepts and facts I am missing and have now started putting facts from the EK material that I want to "memorize"/understand.

For some reassurance, I took the Bio/Biochem portion of the AAMC study pack that has essentially a half length Bio exam. I received 18/30. This worries me because it's only 60% correct of the questions.

Feedback? Thanks so much!

Post game analysis of my performance
Note: This is how I did on each of the portions of the half length:
Passage 1 (2/4)
-------The questions I got wrong here were due to a lack of content knowledge
-------one of the questions was from unseen content
Passage 2 (2/5)
------I was overwhelmed by the technicality of experimental design and unfamiliar molecular names and got one wrong because I didn't read carefully. Another one was unseen content. A third one was something I had seen and should have gotten right--will need to review.
Passage 3 (2/5)
------The questions I got wrong were due to incorrectly interpreting data/figures. I really need to work on this, any suggestions on where I can get practice interpreting data/figures/tables?
Passage 4 (5/5)
-------Knew all the content and am really good at graphical interpretation.
Passage 5 (2/5)
-------Same problem with interpretation. One silly mistake due to rushing near the end of the time.
Discretes (4/5)
------did these in all of 2 minutes, straight up knew most of them, the one I got wrong was because I rushed and there was only 30 seconds left.


I guess my final question is: How do I improve from here? Should I continue doing content review the way I am?

 

[El-Rami]

You can read scientific journal papers to practice analyzing data and graphs. Try to understand how you can draw the same conclusions as the authors, and if you're really up for a challenge, try to find flaws in their experimental methods and conclusions.

 

[torontopharm]

Try the TPR workbook Bio passages. I find that they have the most "experimental-based" passages out of all the prep materials. My plan is to finish EK-1001 bio first and then move on to TPR science workbook. EK-1001 Bio isn't representative of the real MCAT, but it's helping me nail down the basic concepts. Use the prep material you're the most comfortable with. Don't just use TBR because it's the most highly regarded. I gave up on TBR after a couple of weeks of torture and moved on to TPR/Kaplan. I'll know if i made the wrong decision after the MCAT

 

[Shreyasthegreat]

You can read scientific journal papers to practice analyzing data and graphs. Try to understand how you can draw the same conclusions as the authors, and if you're really up for a challenge, try to find flaws in their experimental methods and conclusions.

I was initially going to do this, but I heard a lot of times that it's not worth the time..?

Try the TPR workbook Bio passages. I find that they have the most "experimental-based" passages out of all the prep materials. My plan is to finish EK-1001 bio first and then move on to TPR science workbook. EK-1001 Bio isn't representative of the real MCAT, but it's helping me nail down the basic concepts. Use the prep material you're the most comfortable with. Don't just use TBR because it's the most highly regarded. I gave up on TBR after a couple of weeks of torture and moved on to TPR/Kaplan. I'll know if i made the wrong decision after the MCAT

@torontopharm Is this the old 2012 workbook? And I really like TBR for learning content through passages

 

[NonTrad16]

Bio is my weak spot (6 years out of undergrad, non bio major) and I struggled a lot until... I didn't. I stopped doing questions after seeing I lacked the content knowledge. Read through the entire TPR book (or rather, watched the lectures in the course). Then went through and topic by topic did more thorough notes and questions, slowly narrowing down on stuff I still didn't understand at all.

Tedious and long, possibly, but the bio passages transformed into English (rather than... Nonsense) once I had better familiarity with the content. My specific method for any subject wasn't exactly the same through the time I studied. You are the best person to assess if something is working (if you're retaining, or didn't really understand because you rushed through, etc).

Still do practice questions, but you also need to address any content deficits. My bio prelims are 72-87% (my lowest section), which I'm over the moon about, especially considering my background (physics). There is a LOT of content that they can draw from, and I couldn't even read the passages to begin with because 80% of the technical terms were foreign. With more pointed exposure I flipped to only getting a "wtf" moment on 5-10%.

 

[ElectricNoogie]

I was initially going to do this, but I heard a lot of times that it's not worth the time..?

On the old MCAT, I may have agreed with you that yes, reading peer-reviewed journal articles is overkill. On the new MCAT however, I would not go so far. A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with one of AAMC's designers of the new exam. I asked her the very same question about whether they felt reading journal articles would be worth it. Her response can be summarized as:

HER: The majority of articles will be too technical and/or have figures that are too complex for the MCAT, but every journal will have a letters to the editor section and an editorial section where you can ease into scientific analysis and figure interpretation. You could also read Psychology/Sociology journals, whose figures tend to be much less technical than the hard sciences yet still require analysis and critical thinking to grasp (esp when the AAMC removes most of the helpful descriptions before putting them in a passage). The AAMC uses peer-reviewed articles as a basis for many of their passages, so it stands to reason you should use them as a tool.

ME: Take a look at the OG exam and the AAMC practice test to get a sense for figures that are "MCAT-appropriate" You should also go to your school's library and take a look through the psych/soc articles, population studies, demographic analysis, etc...

For hard sci journals, flip through the editorial section first and then browse figures that correlate well to the AAMC materials. Khan academy has some decent ones sprinkled among their bio/biochem and chem/phys passages and their psych/soc passages are good for figures. Don't go overboard, maybe 1-2 hours a week. You will be doing lots of practice Qs during your prep so you will get better at data interpretation (and it's only 10% of your questions in each section) as you progress anyway.

For any figure, start with the axes. If nothing else at least you'll know what items are being related to each-other, which will help you identify what relationship or trend is being presented in the data. Is there a direct/inverse relationship? Did values go up/down from baseline? Did the treatment show a significant effect... You get the idea.

Good luck!

 

[Shreyasthegreat]

@ElectricNoogie That was a great response, thanks so much! I will definitely put some time into this!

 

[Sarahka74]

On the old MCAT, I may have agreed with you that yes, reading peer-reviewed journal articles is overkill. On the new MCAT however, I would not go so far. A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with one of AAMC's designers of the new exam. I asked her the very same question about whether they felt reading journal articles would be worth it. Her response can be summarized as:

HER: The majority of articles will be too technical and/or have figures that are too complex for the MCAT, but every journal will have a letters to the editor section and an editorial section where you can ease into scientific analysis and figure interpretation. You could also read Psychology/Sociology journals, whose figures tend to be much less technical than the hard sciences yet still require analysis and critical thinking to grasp (esp when the AAMC removes most of the helpful descriptions before putting them in a passage). The AAMC uses peer-reviewed articles as a basis for many of their passages, so it stands to reason you should use them as a tool.

ME: Take a look at the OG exam and the AAMC practice test to get a sense for figures that are "MCAT-appropriate" You should also go to your school's library and take a look through the psych/soc articles, population studies, demographic analysis, etc...

For hard sci journals, flip through the editorial section first and then browse figures that correlate well to the AAMC materials. Khan academy has some decent ones sprinkled among their bio/biochem and chem/phys passages and their psych/soc passages are good for figures. Don't go overboard, maybe 1-2 hours a week. You will be doing lots of practice Qs during your prep so you will get better at data interpretation (and it's only 10% of your questions in each section) as you progress anyway.

For any figure, start with the axes. If nothing else at least you'll know what items are being related to each-other, which will help you identify what relationship or trend is being presented in the data. Is there a direct/inverse relationship? Did values go up/down from baseline? Did the treatment show a significant effect... You get the idea.

Good luck!

Are there any specific biology and/or psych/sociology journals you recommend or think would be good to read?