May 22, 2015 MCAT Most Difficult Section

[stonyalltheway]

May 22, 2015 Test Takers...What did you find to be the most difficult section on the May 22, 2015 MCAT?

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[Dreamstoo]

Mine was definitely (from hardest to easiest) Chem/Phys >>> Bio/Biochem > Psych/Soc > CARS.

Were the Chem/Phys on par with the TPR tests? I feel those are quite difficult.

 

[allanMED15]

Were the Chem/Phys on par with the TPR tests? I feel those are quite difficult.

I felt that the TPR tests were much more difficult. Especially in the Chem/Phys section.

 

[AngelsFan]

Because scaring future test takers into thinking the passages will be significantly longer than the practice exam isn't helpful nor accurate. Also the entire topic is subjective to begin with. The hardest section? Whichever you studied the least for or have the worst understanding of.

Yeah, but letting people know that CARS may take a bit longer than the practice exam is not scaring people, its being realistic. Yes, if it is longer for you then it is also longer for the competition. However, maybe your competition isn't prepared for it and stressed out. We are just letting people know to not plan on it being as easy as the practice exam. I mean most people should already have prepared that way anyways, but it is still worth mentioning. I am a somewhat slow reader. The extra 45 seconds to a minute that 6 of the passages took me to read ended up taking about 5 minutes off my timing. I felt great about 8 of the passages, but had to do the last passage in 5 minutes. I had already practiced what TPR calls the 5-minute drill though and so at no point panicked and felt solid about 3 of the 6 Q's on that passage and guessed on the other 3. Being prepared to do that is called being smart not scared. I would say if you are a quick reader then you probably did not have a problem getting through the section.

 

[Dreamstoo]

I felt that the TPR tests were much more difficult. Especially in the Chem/Phys section.

Thanks, that seems to be the general consensus about TPR exams on the old exam. Wasn't sure if everyone felt the same about the new ones.

 

[Dreamstoo]

Yeah, but letting people know that CARS may take a bit longer than the practice exam is not scaring people, its being realistic. Yes, if it is longer for you then it is also longer for the competition. However, maybe your competition isn't prepared for it and stressed out. We are just letting people know to not plan on it being as easy as the practice exam. I mean most people should already have prepared that way anyways, but it is still worth mentioning. I am a somewhat slow reader. The extra 45 seconds to a minute that 6 of the passages took me to read ended up taking about 5 minutes off my timing. I felt great about 8 of the passages, but had to do the last passage in 5 minutes. I had already practiced what TPR calls the 5-minute drill though and so at no point panicked and felt solid about 3 of the 6 Q's on that passage and guessed on the other 3. Being prepared to do that is called being smart not scared. I would say if you are a quick reader then you probably did not have a problem getting through the section.

VR on the old exam from what I have heard and experienced does feel longer than any practice test AAMC offers. Test takers SHOULD expect it.

CARS on my last TPR FL had ridiculously long passages. I doubt the AAMC would make them that long but it's great practice.

5 minute rule is great if you know how to properly choose the passages you know you can do well on (this takes a lot of practice IMO, sometimes I do very well on passages I initially thought were harder).

 

[UCD82]

To me the BIO had the most difficult passages to understand. One in particular had a paragraph that seemed to contradict itself to me, and made answering one question particularly difficult. However I will be better able to answer this question come June 30th

 

[jaf208]

I took the 5/22 exam and will be retaking on 6/2 due to technical difficulties at my testing center (my screen kept freezing up, I kept losing time which was particularly frustrating on CARS) but I can offer my insight into test.

PS- usually this is my worst section by far but I didn't think it was too difficult this time around. I actually finished with about 5 minutes left. Was shocked at how little orgo was on it (I honestly don't remember having a single question, at least not on any reactions....if it was there it was in context of biochem). That being said, tons of biochem. Aminos acids, fatty acids, enzymes, study a lot of biochem and know it well because a lot of the info is tested in the form of biochem, even if it is technically gen chem or even physics.

CARS- usually my best section by far but I DIDN'T EVEN FINISH! I usually have 2-3 minutes left to review CARS but I wasn't even able to fill in an answer and guess for all the questions on test day. I'm sure some of this had to do with computer screen messing up but these passages also sucked. Long and boring, but questions themselves weren't too bad. I was shocked about this section but I think things would've been different if my computer screen wasn't messing up.

BIO/BIOCHEM- Toughest passages by far. I think this might've been the hardest section for me actually. Some of the KHAN passages are great practice for here, especially getting used to the language of the passages. Questions were also tough...idk, just a lot of material for this section. I feel like you literally can't overstudy the biology/biochemistry on this exam.

PSYCH/SOC- I think I did fine here? Definitely did a lot of guessing...but you could reason your way through a lot of the passages. Lots of research /data analysis in this section, like in the bio section, but passages and questions are much less convoluted and easier to figure out. We'll see how I did but I will say there were no surprises. I used kaplan/khan to study and none of the terms or names were totally unfamiliar to me.

 

[FutureBenCarson]

CARS without a doubt. Bio would probably be second but it's still a long way behind CARS.

Agree 100%, psych which I thought would be hard was mad easy on mine

 

[Alkaidius]

I thought CARS...got NOTHING out of Frankenstein. So it was a surprise that it was one of my best sections, and Psych, which I had done well on all the time, my worst. But then, I attribute my issues with Psych to exhaustion. I think I freaked my testing center out when I just sorta took a 5 minute nap in my cubicle during Psych, cause my brain just stopped working.

 

[Levrone]

originally said bio for some reason, changing to cars after seeing my score

 

[Lannister]

Thought bio was difficult and all the other sections were easy. Ended up doing well on bio and totally bombing chem/phys. Sooo I'll be changing my vote now.

 

[raiderette]

I had been stressing about mt weaknesses in biology so much I was so happy I had almost nothing on systems. I thought CARS was okay but it was my weakest section.

 

[El-Rami]

Did you feel CARS was disproportionately harder compared to the sample test, question bundle, and official guide questions?

 

[raiderette]

The official guide was harder to me and I has Frankenstein.

 

[FutureBenCarson]

Did you feel CARS was disproportionately harder compared to the sample test, question bundle, and official guide questions?

Absolutely, it was more similar to the kaplan CARS stuff

 

[rocklobstr]

CARS: I definitely felt like CARS was harder than many practice passages I took (EK, TPR, and AAMC). I didn't think the other sections were that hard. I actually felt really good about the other 3 sections. CARS, on the other hand, I was persistently paranoid about failing. I seriously felt like I guessed on at least 60% of the questions. I also felt like the practice passages were shorter. I could finish EK passages in 8.5 minutes with 80-90% accuracy. I was rushed with the 10 minutes on the actual test.

BS: Adding biochemistry to the MCAT really helped me overall. I took biochem while I was studying for the MCAT, and my professor was awesome, so I felt super prepared. Many biochem questions that weren't covered in prep material I knew solely because biochem was fresh in my mind.

PS: My PS section was basically all biochemistry (thank god). I think I had used 1 or 2 physics formulas, and there was almost no physics passages. Most of mine where biochem passages that asked about some physics in regards to the biochem. But mostly, it was just biochem.
It was waaay easier than the TPR practice passages/exams. In retrospect, the TRP physics/math book is 400 pages of useless. Could have been condensed to 100-200 pages easily.

Psych/Soc: I thought Psych was the easiest. I finished with almost 20 minutes left and said F-it and left. But I was a psych major. I also had an awesome sociology teacher who drilled definitions to death.

TL; DR
CARS>>>PS>BS>Psych/Soc

 

[rocklobstr]

.

 

[EverStriving]

I felt CARS was the hardest. Harder than AAMC FL but still manageable. Frankenstein was the only one that had a couple questions I had to guess on; man some of those questions were obscure...

Bio and Psych both were fairly easy and very comparable to the AAMC FL. I had plenty of time to check back over my answers and felt comfortable on the vast majority; maybe 3-4 per section that were 50/50 guess.

Chem/Phys I honestly don't really remember heh, but I guess that means it couldn't have been too bad.

 

[Sarahka74]

Chem/Phys was probably the hardest for me. There was a lot more physics on it than I would have preferred. The biology section was like the practice out there so it wasn't terrible. CARS was a little more on the difficult side just because the passages were so long and many times the answer choices had a subtle point that made it wrong so had to do a lot of reasoning when approaching the choices. Psych/Soc probably my favorite session. Enjoyed reading the articles and it was pretty much stuff I had seen on practice. Currently deciding if i want to go through the stress of taking it again on the retest day since my test location was having a lot of technical problems and we had a 20 second lag after each question. Definitely felt rushed for bio and verbal as a result. Decisions decisions

What did you use to practice for psych?

 

[BugzBunnyDoc]

What did you use to practice for psych?

I used the Kaplan 2015 books for everything. I am a psych major and neuroscience minor though and the classes I took definitely helped me as well. I remember sitting during the mcat and seeing things not covered in the books but remembering them from classes.