Need MCAT advice, seriously discouraged just started studying

[phixius12345]

Hey everyone, I was wondering if I could get some motivation / advice from you guys. I recently just started SN2eds schedule. I've been reading the BR chapters and when I get to the questions in the practice passages, I just have no Idea how to answer a lot of them or even approach them. Specifically for the Gchem and Physics portions. I'll see the books explanations and just feel like I would never think of approaching the problem like that on my own. I just got really discouraged. Can anyone tell me, did any of you find the problems really difficult in the beginning, like not even knowing how to approach them, and then after practicing problems get way better at them?
I just want to see if I'm the only one who feels like they just got hit in the face with a brick when attempting these problems lol Thanks guys

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[kelminak]

Have you taken the prereqs or is this the first time you've seen the information?

 

[ModyzMalak]

Hey everyone, I was wondering if I could get some motivation / advice from you guys. I recently just started SN2eds schedule. I've been reading the BR chapters and when I get to the questions in the practice passages, I just have no Idea how to answer a lot of them or even approach them. Specifically for the Gchem and Physics portions. I'll see the books explanations and just feel like I would never think of approaching the problem like that on my own. I just got really discouraged. Can anyone tell me, did any of you find the problems really difficult in the beginning, like not even knowing how to approach them, and then after practicing problems get way better at them?
I just want to see if I'm the only one who feels like they just got hit in the face with a brick when attempting these problems lol Thanks guys

i still feel that way after studying for months -_-

 

[vincy0320]

This only happens to me when I am doing verbal.

 

[phixius12345]

Have you taken the prereqs or is this the first time you've seen the information?

I've taken the prereqs. Just awhile ago. I feel like I know the basics well enough. I've just never applied the information in my prereqs like I"m supposed to for the MCAT so it's freaking me out lol

 

[vincy0320]

I've taken the prereqs. Just awhile ago. I feel like I know the basics well enough. I've just never applied the information in my prereqs like I"m supposed to for the MCAT so it's freaking me out lol

That's why you need to practice, and follow that 3 months schedule to improve yourself.

 

[kelminak]

Honestly the best thing you can do then is if you're not understanding something, go back to the section it was talked about and then figure out what you're supposed to do. I'm not sure how you'd be reading the whole section and then be completely lost on most of the problems when you get to them., but if that's the case maybe you need to slow down and make sure you understand what they're presenting to you so that you can apply it to the problems. You're not going to get every problem right, so when you mess up go back and figure out what you did wrong. If you don't have any idea of where to even start, then you should go back and review the section relevant.

 

[lumberjack89]

I've taken the prereqs. Just awhile ago. I feel like I know the basics well enough. I've just never applied the information in my prereqs like I"m supposed to for the MCAT so it's freaking me out lol

I was in the exact same situation as you when I started the SN2ed schedule: I graduated in 2011 and for various reasons delayed studying for the MCAT until mid May of this year, so it had been years since I had seen the material, and the first few weeks were absolutely brutal. I didn't remember and/or know what specific gravity was, what a mole was, what a cation was, which direction water moves in osmosis, and on and on... it was pretty rough. I also felt like they were assuming knowledge/tricks/formulas that I didn't remember, couldn't relate to the material, or whatever, and frankly I just got super depressed. One thing in particular about the BR material is that the earlier chapters actually DO reference material/equations/concepts you haven't seen in the BR book yet; don't worry, they'll cover it later. I don't know why they do that, but it freaked me out at first until I kept plowing through the chapters and realized that if something ever comes up in those books, it's GOING to be covered, just maybe not in that same section or chapter.

I honestly felt like giving up, but I just tried my best to keep up with the schedule, and even though for the first 6 weeks or so it felt like I was barely keeping my head above water, I started taking full lengths about 5 weeks ago and have scored between 31 and 35 on the AAMC tests. Just keep going! I don't know what your target scores is, but trust me: when I started studying I thought I was a hopeless cause, and now all it seems I'm doing is rescheduling time and again, chasing higher and higher scores. If I got this far after 3 years away from the material, so can you!

Stay strong mentally and physically: eat healthy food, get 8 hours of sleep, exercise regularly, pray if that's your thing, and get in a routine so that you don't have to make decisions about what comes next in your day, and don't let your social life mess with your routine. Also something that helped me de-stress was letting a day's work stretch over into the off day if you feel like that's needed. Don't compare your progress to other people if you can avoid it, just do what YOU need to do to keep going, and if that's pushing certain parts of the schedule into different days, or swapping assignments here and there, do it.


Also vodka. Vodka helps.

 

[NextStepTutor_1]

Honestly the best thing you can do then is if you're not understanding something, go back to the section it was talked about and then figure out what you're supposed to do. I'm not sure how you'd be reading the whole section and then be completely lost on most of the problems when you get to them., but if that's the case maybe you need to slow down and make sure you understand what they're presenting to you so that you can apply it to the problems. You're not going to get every problem right, so when you mess up go back and figure out what you did wrong. If you don't have any idea of where to even start, then you should go back and review the section relevant.

I would agree with this if the problem OP has when taking questions was solely due to an incomplete content review. But it seems like you understand the explanations (showing me that conent is not greatly lacked), but that the application of the info you know is challenging. That shows a lack of practice and since you just started this schedule then you shouldn't be too concerned. Make sure you completely understand the explanations and then practice more of the questions you got wrong to further help you learn how to approach these problems in the future. Think about learning a language - we learn words and then speak them as often as possible (in conversation, ideally) until they become second nature to us. The MCAT is a language on it's own, and learning how to approach problems is the first step - then you need to practice that approach with similar problems until you become fluent.

Cheers!

 

[Idrinkwater]

no offense to berkley review, but I would stay restricted to EK only if you are planning to take the current MCAT form, and only for biology. For PS, get your hands on as many MCAT simulated problems as possible by any means.

Limit content review to a month max, spend two months doing problems and testing.

 

[justadream]

Just make sure you understand the stuff in the end. Even after extensive content review, I get owned by TBR from time to time.

You just have to trust yourself that your hard work will pay off in the end. After doing TBR, you will think many of the AAMC questions are a complete joke (at least on the practice tests - the real thing is probably another story).

 

[RC4L]

I've taken the prereqs. Just awhile ago. I feel like I know the basics well enough. I've just never applied the information in my prereqs like I"m supposed to for the MCAT so it's freaking me out lol

Everyone goes through that so don't sweat it. I had to re learn a lot of PS from scratch as well when I took the MCAT and it was discouraging. Start with the subjects that gives you the most grief and learn the living hell out of them, meaning read until you understand and then practice until you know it backwards/forwards. If you spend more time practicing than reading you will learn and retain the info much more effectively and you will avoid having to backtrack. Another good thing to do is to break the end objective down into smaller goals so you feel the progress continuously rather than just looking at all your massive pile of books every day and getting pissed. You will feel much better when you lock down the content.