Is 6 weeks enough to raise score 6+ points?

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txlonghorn2314

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If someone were to still have many gaps in content knowledge and dedicated 7-10 hours a day, 6 days a week for 6 weeks doing nothing but passages, FL's, and content review every night before bed, would it be feasible to gain 6 points or even more on the mcat? Oh yeah, and during any down time/on my break days I'm just reading difficult philosophy novels.

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Short answers: No.

That is a tough question, but I am going to tell you my opinion (I might be wrong). No one can study and understand content for 7 hours, better yet, only 2 hours. So, saying that you are going to do 7 hours is counter productive, but everyone is different. If you can do it, go for it. You mentioned you have gaps in your content knowledge, and you are going to go over review. You don't have that much time in 6 weeks. What you should do is more questions. See what questions you are doing bad on the FLs and review those content well enough so you don't make another mistake on them. If I was in your shoes, ill take my time.
 
No one can study and understand content for 7 hours, better yet, only 2 hours. So, saying that you are going to do 7 hours is counter productive, but everyone is different. If you can do it, go for it.

You don't know what you are talking about. If you think that no one can study for 7+ hours and learn while doing so, you will be humbly surprised once you enter medical school.
 
Short answers: No.

That is a tough question, but I am going to tell you my opinion (I might be wrong). No one can study and understand content for 7 hours, better yet, only 2 hours. So, saying that you are going to do 7 hours is counter productive, but everyone is different. If you can do it, go for it. You mentioned you have gaps in your content knowledge, and you are going to go over review. You don't have that much time in 6 weeks. What you should do is more questions. See what questions you are doing bad on the FLs and review those content well enough so you don't make another mistake on them. If I was in your shoes, ill take my time.

Well I'm done with content review there are just certain areas where there are major gaps that is was gonna review.

But by 7-10 hours a day it wouldn't all be at once I would be doing like 3hrs, hour break, 3 hours, hour break, 3hours Stuff like that. I literally have no other things to commit to during the day and right now, at least after the self assessments scored 80% on the physical science ones, 68% in bio and 68% in verbal (haven't done orgo yet)
 
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Is 6 weeks enough to move you up an entire standard deviation on one of the most difficult exams out there? If you're extremely smart and just refreshing the material, yes. If not, then no.
 
You don't know what you are talking about. If you think that no one can study for 7+ hours and learn while doing so, you will be humbly surprised once you enter medical school.

I tend to agree. Although I would say that a solid 15 minute break every hour or 90 minutes is pretty key. I say this as I'm in my 8th hour of study for the day...
 
Man...I figured getting much more solid on the concepts would at least give me 2 pts on my PS and BS And intense and active reading would give me one or two points on the verbal ... :-/
 
Is 6 weeks enough to move you up an entire standard deviation on one of the most difficult exams out there? If you're extremely smart and just refreshing the material, yes. If not, then no.


Man...I figured a month and a half of getting much more solid on the passages/concepts would at least give me 2 pts on my PS and BS And intense and active reading would give me one or two points on the verbal ... :-/
 
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Man...I figured a month and a half of getting much more solid on the concepts would at least give me 2 pts on my PS and BS And intense and active reading would give me one or two points on the verbal ... :-/
Like I said, if you're already good but just trying to refresh, it's totally possible. You aren't going to pick up and master new concepts in that short of a time period unless you're quite exceptional intellectually. It isn't impossible, it's just highly unlikely. Also, most people are lucky to bump up VR at all in 6 weeks, as it's more a score of your base reading ability that you've built over the entire rest of your life up to this point. You can't just suck at reading/not read for 21+ years then decide you're going to spend six weeks doing it and suddenly be in the top quartile of VR scores.
 
Like I said, if you're already good but just trying to refresh, it's totally possible. You aren't going to pick up and master new concepts in that short of a time period unless you're quite exceptional intellectually. It isn't impossible, it's just highly unlikely. Also, most people are lucky to bump up VR at all in 6 weeks, as it's more a score of your base reading ability that you've built over the entire rest of your life up to this point. You can't just suck at reading/not read for 21+ years then decide you're going to spend six weeks doing it and suddenly be in the top quartile of VR scores.

The thing is that after doing all the self assessments I realized that you don't have to master the concepts, they just ask basic questions about them and 85% of the other questions can be answered from the passage. A reason for a lot of my mistakes was fatigue and misreading some of the passages.

I read a lot through out my whole childhood but just haven't much in the past several years so I'm hoping I'm just rusty and that 6 weeks of intensely reading while filling in content gaps could make a large improvement. All I'm needing is a 29 or 30
 
The thing is that after doing all the self assessments I realized that you don't have to master the concepts, they just ask basic questions about them and 85% of the other questions can be answered from the passage. A reason for a lot of my mistakes was fatigue and misreading some of the passages.

I read a lot through out my whole childhood but just haven't much in the past several years so I'm hoping I'm just rusty and that 6 weeks of intensely reading while filling in content gaps could make a large improvement. All I'm needing is a 29 or 30
You might be able to do it. Going from a 24 to a 30 is way more doable than going from a 30 to a 36. Also, I highly recommend TBR if you aren't using it already- I had to study at a pretty accelerated rate, so I'd go through one TBR and one EK chapter every day until my test, along with an official AAMC practice test every 3-4 days. I did have a bit longer than you though.
 
You might be able to do it. Going from a 24 to a 30 is way more doable than going from a 30 to a 36. Also, I highly recommend TBR if you aren't using it already- I had to study at a pretty accelerated rate, so I'd go through one TBR and one EK chapter every day until my test, along with an official AAMC practice test every 3-4 days. I did have a bit longer than you though.

Thanks yeah I'm taking mini mcats consisting of 12 passages from TBR and TPRH a day and then reviewing them and spending the rest of the time just reading I was hoping 6 weeks of that could really bring me to at least a 29 but preferably a 30 or 31
 
Thanks yeah I'm taking mini mcats consisting of 12 passages from TBR and TPRH a day and then reviewing them and spending the rest of the time just reading I was hoping 6 weeks of that could really bring me to at least a 29 but preferably a 30 or 31

You really ought to do more passages/problems over passive studying, to be honest.
 
Would 6 weeks of tons of passages, problems, and FLs be enough to get 6+ points higher on the exam

If you study the right way. If you don't have that much time left, get a firmer grasp of how they ask questions/present answers. For almost every single question you can narrow it down to 2 choices, because the other two choices are irrelevant/impossible/ridiculous.
 
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If you study the right way. If you don't have that much time left, get a firmer grasp of how they ask questions/present answers. For almost every single question you can narrow it down to 2 choices, because the other two choices are irrelevant/impossible/ridiculous.


So would you say aside from TBR passages and AAMC FLs just spending my time analyzing the AAMC stuff I've already done? I just want to get the absolute MOST out of these last 42 days
 
So would you say aside from TBR passages and AAMC FLs just spending my time analyzing the AAMC stuff I've already done? I just want to get the absolute MOST out of these last 42 days
6 weeks is a lot of time, it would also help if you did more content review. I would go as far as to say read through science textbooks and lab manuals, but because the MCAT tests on random topics you won't ever really be ready. I suppose you can practice reading new content (upper level science courses) and understanding it faster, since that's probably what you'll need to do when they throw new topics at you.
 
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Man...I figured getting much more solid on the concepts would at least give me 2 pts on my PS and BS And intense and active reading would give me one or two points on the verbal ... :-/

This is the slippery slope that most test takers fall into, and probably a big reason why they don't end up doing as well. I can tell you that I went through 3 rounds of content review, and it only got me into the high 20's. As soon as I started practicing, I got a 33, then a 36...

This exam is NOT a recall exam. The MCAT is a critical thinking-based exam. And, until you learn EXACTLY how to play their word games (which will take weeks of practice), you won't be ready. I don't care HOW well you know the material.
 
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This is the slippery slope that most test takers fall into, and probably a big reason why they don't end up doing as well. I can tell you that I went through 3 rounds of content review, and it only got me into the high 20's. As soon as I started practicing, I got a 33, then a 36...

This exam is NOT a recall exam. The MCAT is a critical thinking-based exam. And, until you learn EXACTLY how to play their word games (which will take weeks of practice), you won't be ready. I don't care HOW well you know the material.

So would you say 5-6 weeks of intense practice is enough to get where I need to be?
 
So would you say 5-6 weeks of intense practice is enough to get where I need to be?

I would say that it would be highly advisable to practice and then meticulously assess all of your mistakes, yes. Because the beauty about practice is that you pick up content as you go through your missed questions.
 
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I would say that it would be highly advisable to practice and then meticulously assess all of your mistakes, yes. Because the beauty about practice is that you pick up content as you go through your missed questions.

I like to add a few lines as compliment to hers. In my own opinion, I like to invest, as a base line minimum, at least 2.5 times as many hours as actual test for post game review. I may go longer if I do see fit. Without high quality post game review, the FL test, to me, is a waste.

If the schedule is tight, I may starting post game review at least 10 hours after the FL test. Otherwise, I prefer and lean toward starting the following morning.

Hint, hint, an aspiring doctor......hope you see this post :)

The efficiency of the post game result is not measured by how many days as a "calculation" but by the quality of time invested.
 
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