Hey Everyone!
I want to start off by thanking everybody that ever posted anything about the MCAT (past and present versions), how they found it, how they studied and etc.. etc.. I honestly felt that reading all of your thoughts and comments made it a bit easier to study, so I realized that I should make a post when I finish mine!
I'll comment on how I found the test, and then later what I did to study and some of my test scores and stuff,
So.. The MCAT 2015.. FIRST off, from what I can remember even though its only been 4 hours since I finished, my overall emotion is that IT WASN'T AS BAD AS I THOUGHT..
Now.. Im not at all saying it was easy.. or a walk in the park.. but it wasn't a nightmare and I actually felt like the AAMC gave out a fair test and if you knew your concepts (like literally every little random thing, even magnetic field stuff). So,
CHEM/PHYSICS: This has always been my best (not by much), but I'm also doing a Joint Honours in Chemistry and Physics, so it should be.. But I found this section to be a little worse then expected. There was 2 - 3 physics passages on it so honestly you should definitely make sure you understand all concepts of electric and magnetic fields and waves / lenses. Also, there was only a small amount of organic with minimum terminology, just some basic reaction changes and the like. Only a couple amino acid questions, less then I wanted because I studied a lot for them
There was also a lot of easy stand alone questions and the section as a whole wasn't terrible, but a little harder then the practice AAMC test.
CARS: I had nightmares about what CARS section I was going to get.. Was I going to have to dip back into the 17th century art historian culture, or try read complicated papers with words I have never seen before.. ? But it was actually not nearly as bad as some of the practice passages (*Cough.. Way easier then NextStep.. Cough*) and generally about concepts that most people would be able to follow! Also I didn't really mean to bash on NextStep's CARS passages, I actually felt like doing them, even thought they were harder, probably helped me a decent bit. The MAJOR problem I had with this section was the LENGTH OF THE PASSAGES!. They aren't ridiculously longer then the practice test, BUT, in general I would say they're about a paragraph longer then the practice test.. So I felt like I had to read rather quick and I still didn't have a lot of time at the end (~7 minutes) for the last passage and Q's, which sucked..
BIO: I also had A LOT of trouble with bio sections on practice tests (as you will see below), not because I didn't know the topics, despite my major I have actually done quit a bit of bio and biochem courses, but because the passages were always so F***ing confusing.. Anyway, I felt like for this section if you expected there to be 3-4 passages that made you write down exactly what was going to follow and expected that it was going to be difficult, you'd realize it isn't as bad as some other test. Now also saying that I could have just been wanting it to be ok so bad that it was.. BUT for anybody that really has trouble with these sections I would say to stay positive, expect it to be hard, and practice a lot of hard passages. By that last point I mean if you do a practice test or questions, and theres a hard bio passage with some crazy random ass antagonists flying out of every which ****ing whole of an enzyme, do this and that to like 30 different variants of the same gene, and you obviously don't 110% know whats up, then when you're finished that test just go back and read through all of the passage, untimed, and don't stop until you actually know what you're doing! Write down what all the enzymes and genes are doing/coding for and figure it out, I found that helped over time with the real stuff.
So overall for the bio there AGAIN was only like 3 or 4 amino acid questions and not a whole lot of biochem stuff (but some Km/Vmax curves) and a couple things from all other sections like the nervous system, endocrine etc. etc.. So basically just know all your bio, like we already know we have too, and practice your passage reading/understanding.
PSYCH/SOC: So I personally found this the hardest one of the day, particularly because almost every term they gave had a very similar meaning to ANOTHER term option for the same question, so there was basically A LOT of questions that I had to "educatedly guess". Also, there were some terms and definitions that I had never seen before and I used EK psych, some khan psych, and a list of psychologists that I found on spark notes. I've heard this from other people as well and I kind of prepared myself for not understanding some things, which you should too. Just answer it the best you can from what the word sounds like/question says and MOVE ON! Those can be a big time waster .. especially because if you don't know it you'll still probably not do much better if you blindly answered or took 4 minutes worrying.. BUT on the plus side, most of the questions I had included terms that were common knowledge (bolded in my study books), so it was mostly just figuring which concept they were going for in the term/theory, which is basically what psych is anyway..
MY STUDY HABITS
So i'm someone who honestly needs to study a lot to get things and to succeed. I started studying at the beginning of May and I wrote the exam September 23rd. But I also worked from May to the end of July in a lab 9-5! Basically what I did, was study all the material from all the books and do some CARS practice up until the end of July, then start banging out FL's and practice Q's. I honestly spent too much time reviewing, because I had done courses in almost all of the material anyway, and not enough on practice questions in my opinion! I was always a nay-sayer when I heard people say things like "FOCUS ON QUESTIONS" or "QUESTIONS WILL MAKE YOU LEARN THE MATERIAL", but honestly I found that coming close to the exam I should have done some more.. oh well.
The material I used was the full EK book set, which I really liked because of the way the pages were printed/laid out and the practice questions at the end of each section (that were pretty hard). I also bought the NextStep CARS and Psych FL passage question sets (each had 4 x 53 or 59,respectively, questions) and I found the CARS was hard and long (which kind of helps to practice I must say, but is annoying when you always get a ~123..) and the psych was somewhat similar and indicative to other psych sections, so I would recommend both if someone really wanted extra practice. I barely looked at Khan videos, only for some concepts I forgot/couldn't grasp, and I didn't like the question format that was on his website.
The Following are the FL's I did, the date, and the score:
NextStep Diagnostic- July 17th- C/P:123, CARS: 122, Bio:124, Psych:123,
AAMC practice test-August 9th- C/P:71%, CARS: 66%, Bio: 49%, Psych 53%
McGraw Hill Practice Test 1 - August 12th - C/P: 57%, CARS: 72%, Bio: 71%, Psych: 62%
TPR Demo Test 1 - August 18th - C/P 122, CARS: 123, Bio: 122, Psych: 126
AAMC Guid 120 Q's - August 22nd - C/P: 73%, CARS: 66%, Bio: 50%, Psych: 63%
TPR Test 1 (after DEMO) - August 24th - C/P: 123, CARS: 123, Bio: 124, Psych 123
EK Test 1 - August 27th - C/P: 56%, CARS: 55%, Bio: 39%, Psych 58%
AAMC practice questions test** - August 31st - C/P 71%, CARS: 33% (lol), Bio: 61%
EK Test 4 - September 9th - C/P: 66%, Bio: 42%, Psych 58%, (did CARS from an old AAMC test, forget what I received)
AAMC Practice Questions Test** - C/P: 81%, CARS: 51%, Bio: 56%, NS Psych: 53%
AAMC Practice Test (AGAIN) - September 16th - C/P 68%, CARS: 74%, Bio: 54%, Psych: 64% (slim improvement...)
(** means that I used questions from AAMC's question pack they sold (-$120) and I did 40 chem, 20 physics, 60 bio and 53 CARS, and then I did a NextStep Psych section with that)
So as you can see my FL scores are pretty bad.. I was continuously discouraged with them throughout the past month, but you HAVE TO KEEP MOVING!! This means reviewing EVERYTHING (but I only review the CARS from AAMC..) and I kept a binder full of all of my corrections from each test and hand written notes that I would randomly go through.. and this seemed to be helpful! But honestly doing all of these FL's really helped with the length of the test because I found that I was barely fatigued when doing the actual thing!
OVERALL, I think that the test is hard, long, but definitely doable if you work at it. The questions weren't all that hard but you literally have to memorize / understand every concept in the books... please don't skip out on any because imagine if you did and said "**** it they won't test this" and you see a full PASSAGE about it! Sucks..
ALSO, I would like to mention some things I ate that day.. which is pretty important. I had 2 bananas and 2 apples (sugars), I brought a thermos of coffee + my morning coffee and a small sugar free redbull that I only drank half of because they make me feel kind of weird.. and some rice with chicken breast, a cheese roll, ham sandwich and Gaterade/water! I tried to focus on lots of simple carbs, some good lean protein and not too much fat due to the slow digestion! I also don't really / drink sugar so I didn't want to randomly have a lot because I wasn't sure what my body would do with it.. lol
I should get my scores back October 27th, Im honestly not expecting the greatest score because of my FL scores above and how I know of some questions that I got wrong when I shouldn't of and the psych section and so on and so on.. But Im completely ok with re-doing it if I have too! Think about how much easier it'll be to study all of the material that you just spent months learning (even if you pick it up a year or so later) and know how many practice tests / questions you have to do and etc.. etc.. AND how the AAMC should HOPEFULLY have more material out by next summer!
Anyways BEST OF LUCK to everyone else who is writing and studying! You'll do fine if you devote yourself to it and realize/understand the difficulty that it will be on test day (don't get psyched out.. just MOVE ON!)
I want to start off by thanking everybody that ever posted anything about the MCAT (past and present versions), how they found it, how they studied and etc.. etc.. I honestly felt that reading all of your thoughts and comments made it a bit easier to study, so I realized that I should make a post when I finish mine!
I'll comment on how I found the test, and then later what I did to study and some of my test scores and stuff,
So.. The MCAT 2015.. FIRST off, from what I can remember even though its only been 4 hours since I finished, my overall emotion is that IT WASN'T AS BAD AS I THOUGHT..
Now.. Im not at all saying it was easy.. or a walk in the park.. but it wasn't a nightmare and I actually felt like the AAMC gave out a fair test and if you knew your concepts (like literally every little random thing, even magnetic field stuff). So,
CHEM/PHYSICS: This has always been my best (not by much), but I'm also doing a Joint Honours in Chemistry and Physics, so it should be.. But I found this section to be a little worse then expected. There was 2 - 3 physics passages on it so honestly you should definitely make sure you understand all concepts of electric and magnetic fields and waves / lenses. Also, there was only a small amount of organic with minimum terminology, just some basic reaction changes and the like. Only a couple amino acid questions, less then I wanted because I studied a lot for them
There was also a lot of easy stand alone questions and the section as a whole wasn't terrible, but a little harder then the practice AAMC test. CARS: I had nightmares about what CARS section I was going to get.. Was I going to have to dip back into the 17th century art historian culture, or try read complicated papers with words I have never seen before.. ? But it was actually not nearly as bad as some of the practice passages (*Cough.. Way easier then NextStep.. Cough*) and generally about concepts that most people would be able to follow! Also I didn't really mean to bash on NextStep's CARS passages, I actually felt like doing them, even thought they were harder, probably helped me a decent bit. The MAJOR problem I had with this section was the LENGTH OF THE PASSAGES!. They aren't ridiculously longer then the practice test, BUT, in general I would say they're about a paragraph longer then the practice test.. So I felt like I had to read rather quick and I still didn't have a lot of time at the end (~7 minutes) for the last passage and Q's, which sucked..
BIO: I also had A LOT of trouble with bio sections on practice tests (as you will see below), not because I didn't know the topics, despite my major I have actually done quit a bit of bio and biochem courses, but because the passages were always so F***ing confusing.. Anyway, I felt like for this section if you expected there to be 3-4 passages that made you write down exactly what was going to follow and expected that it was going to be difficult, you'd realize it isn't as bad as some other test. Now also saying that I could have just been wanting it to be ok so bad that it was.. BUT for anybody that really has trouble with these sections I would say to stay positive, expect it to be hard, and practice a lot of hard passages. By that last point I mean if you do a practice test or questions, and theres a hard bio passage with some crazy random ass antagonists flying out of every which ****ing whole of an enzyme, do this and that to like 30 different variants of the same gene, and you obviously don't 110% know whats up, then when you're finished that test just go back and read through all of the passage, untimed, and don't stop until you actually know what you're doing! Write down what all the enzymes and genes are doing/coding for and figure it out, I found that helped over time with the real stuff.
So overall for the bio there AGAIN was only like 3 or 4 amino acid questions and not a whole lot of biochem stuff (but some Km/Vmax curves) and a couple things from all other sections like the nervous system, endocrine etc. etc.. So basically just know all your bio, like we already know we have too, and practice your passage reading/understanding.
PSYCH/SOC: So I personally found this the hardest one of the day, particularly because almost every term they gave had a very similar meaning to ANOTHER term option for the same question, so there was basically A LOT of questions that I had to "educatedly guess". Also, there were some terms and definitions that I had never seen before and I used EK psych, some khan psych, and a list of psychologists that I found on spark notes. I've heard this from other people as well and I kind of prepared myself for not understanding some things, which you should too. Just answer it the best you can from what the word sounds like/question says and MOVE ON! Those can be a big time waster .. especially because if you don't know it you'll still probably not do much better if you blindly answered or took 4 minutes worrying.. BUT on the plus side, most of the questions I had included terms that were common knowledge (bolded in my study books), so it was mostly just figuring which concept they were going for in the term/theory, which is basically what psych is anyway..
MY STUDY HABITS
So i'm someone who honestly needs to study a lot to get things and to succeed. I started studying at the beginning of May and I wrote the exam September 23rd. But I also worked from May to the end of July in a lab 9-5! Basically what I did, was study all the material from all the books and do some CARS practice up until the end of July, then start banging out FL's and practice Q's. I honestly spent too much time reviewing, because I had done courses in almost all of the material anyway, and not enough on practice questions in my opinion! I was always a nay-sayer when I heard people say things like "FOCUS ON QUESTIONS" or "QUESTIONS WILL MAKE YOU LEARN THE MATERIAL", but honestly I found that coming close to the exam I should have done some more.. oh well.
The material I used was the full EK book set, which I really liked because of the way the pages were printed/laid out and the practice questions at the end of each section (that were pretty hard). I also bought the NextStep CARS and Psych FL passage question sets (each had 4 x 53 or 59,respectively, questions) and I found the CARS was hard and long (which kind of helps to practice I must say, but is annoying when you always get a ~123..) and the psych was somewhat similar and indicative to other psych sections, so I would recommend both if someone really wanted extra practice. I barely looked at Khan videos, only for some concepts I forgot/couldn't grasp, and I didn't like the question format that was on his website.
The Following are the FL's I did, the date, and the score:
NextStep Diagnostic- July 17th- C/P:123, CARS: 122, Bio:124, Psych:123,
AAMC practice test-August 9th- C/P:71%, CARS: 66%, Bio: 49%, Psych 53%
McGraw Hill Practice Test 1 - August 12th - C/P: 57%, CARS: 72%, Bio: 71%, Psych: 62%
TPR Demo Test 1 - August 18th - C/P 122, CARS: 123, Bio: 122, Psych: 126
AAMC Guid 120 Q's - August 22nd - C/P: 73%, CARS: 66%, Bio: 50%, Psych: 63%
TPR Test 1 (after DEMO) - August 24th - C/P: 123, CARS: 123, Bio: 124, Psych 123
EK Test 1 - August 27th - C/P: 56%, CARS: 55%, Bio: 39%, Psych 58%
AAMC practice questions test** - August 31st - C/P 71%, CARS: 33% (lol), Bio: 61%
EK Test 4 - September 9th - C/P: 66%, Bio: 42%, Psych 58%, (did CARS from an old AAMC test, forget what I received)
AAMC Practice Questions Test** - C/P: 81%, CARS: 51%, Bio: 56%, NS Psych: 53%
AAMC Practice Test (AGAIN) - September 16th - C/P 68%, CARS: 74%, Bio: 54%, Psych: 64% (slim improvement...)
(** means that I used questions from AAMC's question pack they sold (-$120) and I did 40 chem, 20 physics, 60 bio and 53 CARS, and then I did a NextStep Psych section with that)
So as you can see my FL scores are pretty bad.. I was continuously discouraged with them throughout the past month, but you HAVE TO KEEP MOVING!! This means reviewing EVERYTHING (but I only review the CARS from AAMC..) and I kept a binder full of all of my corrections from each test and hand written notes that I would randomly go through.. and this seemed to be helpful! But honestly doing all of these FL's really helped with the length of the test because I found that I was barely fatigued when doing the actual thing!
OVERALL, I think that the test is hard, long, but definitely doable if you work at it. The questions weren't all that hard but you literally have to memorize / understand every concept in the books... please don't skip out on any because imagine if you did and said "**** it they won't test this" and you see a full PASSAGE about it! Sucks..
ALSO, I would like to mention some things I ate that day.. which is pretty important. I had 2 bananas and 2 apples (sugars), I brought a thermos of coffee + my morning coffee and a small sugar free redbull that I only drank half of because they make me feel kind of weird.. and some rice with chicken breast, a cheese roll, ham sandwich and Gaterade/water! I tried to focus on lots of simple carbs, some good lean protein and not too much fat due to the slow digestion! I also don't really / drink sugar so I didn't want to randomly have a lot because I wasn't sure what my body would do with it.. lol
I should get my scores back October 27th, Im honestly not expecting the greatest score because of my FL scores above and how I know of some questions that I got wrong when I shouldn't of and the psych section and so on and so on.. But Im completely ok with re-doing it if I have too! Think about how much easier it'll be to study all of the material that you just spent months learning (even if you pick it up a year or so later) and know how many practice tests / questions you have to do and etc.. etc.. AND how the AAMC should HOPEFULLY have more material out by next summer!
Anyways BEST OF LUCK to everyone else who is writing and studying! You'll do fine if you devote yourself to it and realize/understand the difficulty that it will be on test day (don't get psyched out.. just MOVE ON!)
