Next Step FL 1-4 Scores / How to improve?

[Orlandoc]

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[bears1992]

I've taken Next Step FL's once a week for the past 4 weeks and here's how I've done:

FL1: 124/126/126/126 - 502

FL2: 125/128/124/125 - 502

FL3: 125/126/126/127 - 504

FL4: 125/126/125/127 - 503

It's kind of frustrating to not see any real improvement. After each exam, I go through each question thoroughly til the next practice exam. I haven't taken practice tests from any other companies yet, and I started with Next Step because I've heard they're the most challenging. I've also heard that most people tend to score higher on the real thing.

Based on your experiences, with my current scoring, how do you think I'd fare on the real deal? How'd you do on Next Step exams vs. the actual test? And what other methods did you use to boost scores between practice test attempts?

(Taking MCAT March 31st)

Next step is actually supposed to be easier than most practice tests. I think the average increase between NS and the real MCAT is 5 points which was the lowest between TBR, TPR and Kaplan. Iv heard EK and NS are as close to the real thing as you can get besides the AAMC tests. I've taken Kaplan, TPR and NS1. NS1 was much more about deriving info from passages and TBR and Kaplan were much more about using content you already knew. I scored a 495 on TPR diagnostic and a 506 on NS1 two weeks later. I think I would give an extra day or two between your tests and study content. Your weak spots seem to be from content (your CARS and Phy/Soc don't seem to be lacking it's your problem solving skills and bio). I would study bio/biochem content and do chemistry/physics practice problems.

Based on how others have scored, if you took the test tomorrow you would get a 508. That's not bad considering you still have a month and a half left.

 

[Orlandoc]

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[bears1992]

Yeah I agree, CARS has been pretty good to me, and my Psy/Soc score has been going up due to simple content memorization. Guess I'll tackle all those AAMC question banks I have for Bio/Biochem and Chem/Phys.

Thanks for the advice!

Also, I'm not 100% sure on this but if NS scores are based on percentiles of other students who took that test, a consistent score as you go from NS1 to NS4 would actually be an improvement. I would assume that most students that are taking NS4 have improved since NS1 meaning the pool of test takers is better. I've always thought the reason that practice tests show lower scores than the actual test is because practice scores put you into a percentile with students that are taking practice tests. I imagine on the real MCAT, the bottom 25% are not taking practice tests and therefor give you less competition when you go for the real MCAT.

This of course assumes NS is scoring you in comparison to the other NS scores for that test. Maybe try an EK1 test and see if you get a significantly higher score.

As for the content review, when I took my practice tests, I wrote down the topic of every question which I didn't have the knowledge to solve (I'm weak on amino acids so I wrote that topic down when I hit a question which required the recall of the AA structures). Then study those topics and take the next test when you have them down. This obviously doesn't work for CARS but you don't seem to be having trouble in that area.

 

[Ezra Redden]

Haven't taken the actual MCAT yet but I took the NextStep FL #1 so far and got 503
ChemPhys: 126
CARS: 123
BioBiochem: 126
PsySoc: 128
This is after weeks of content review and about 11 other practice tests from other companies. I'd say you can easily eke out 1-2 points in each section over the next month, but if you are short on time, that PsychoSocio section is gonna have to be your main focus for improvement. I can see you getting a 130 on that section if you put your mind to it over the next month. After PsySoc, ChemPhys should be your priority, then followed by BioBiochem if you have spare time.
I'm taking my exam on April 28th.

 

[Ezra Redden]

Could you enlighten me on your CARS strategy by any chance?

 

[bears1992]

Could you enlighten me on your CARS strategy by any chance?

The CARS section is not my strong area, im only scoring 125-127. I just read through the passage in 4-5 minutes and then answer the questions in order. I typically reread a paragraph if a question specifically asks about it. I think the general concensous for CARS improvement is just practice reading passages every day. CARS is the hardest section to improve on.

 

[Orlandoc]

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[DoctorCrush]

What I did to improve on CARS is doing atleast 1-2 passages everyday and reviewing them right away that day. And every other day I take a full length CARS section consisting of 53 questions 90 minutes style and reviewing them the next day. Next step has the 108 CARS practice book which is great because it breaks up into 12 sections for you. I went from practice within 121 to roughly 124 or 125 right now in my rest practice.

 

[tj123]

Next step is actually supposed to be easier than most practice tests. I think the average increase between NS and the real MCAT is 5 points which was the lowest between TBR, TPR and Kaplan. Iv heard EK and NS are as close to the real thing as you can get besides the AAMC tests. I've taken Kaplan, TPR and NS1. NS1 was much more about deriving info from passages and TBR and Kaplan were much more about using content you already knew. I scored a 495 on TPR diagnostic and a 506 on NS1 two weeks later. I think I would give an extra day or two between your tests and study content. Your weak spots seem to be from content (your CARS and Phy/Soc don't seem to be lacking it's your problem solving skills and bio). I would study bio/biochem content and do chemistry/physics practice problems.

Based on how others have scored, if you took the test tomorrow you would get a 508. That's not bad considering you still have a month and a half left.

How did you do on your Kaplan full lengths? I'm hitting 497 right now with 2 months left to study. Do you recommend going through the test and correcting it? That's what I've been doing, which has also been helping me with content, but I don't want to over do it if there's not actually this much content on the real thing.

 

[WizzyWatkins]

I am currently taking NS FL 3 and my oh my that CARS was brutal.

The chem was a little easier than FL 2 (I've not taken B/B or P/S parts of FL 3).

Did anyone else feel the same way?

 

[Ottobot]

I am currently taking NS FL 3 and my oh my that CARS was brutal.

The chem was a little easier than FL 2 (I've not taken B/B or P/S parts of FL 3).

Did anyone else feel the same way?

Just did FL3 today, and absolutely agree that CARS was insane! From the percentiles that NS provides it seems like many people were in the same boat.

 

[WizzyWatkins]

I seem to be stuck. My scores are not getting any better they are getting a tiny bit worse (1-2 points below on my total score) but the exams seem to be getting harder. What really frustrates me is that I narrow a question down to only 2 answers (1 wrong one and the correct 1) and 90% of the time choose incorrect answer. If I got even half of my 50-50s correct that I got wrong, I would be averaging about a 506 on my FL scores, instead I'm stuck at ~500. I have NEVER eliminated the wrong answer in any of the FLs. I have taken 4 so far.