*Official August 2016 MCAT Thread*

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leelee12

leelee12

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Hi everyone,

This thread is for everyone that is writing the MCAT on August 4th, 5th, 19th, 20th or on the 25th.

Slow and steady wins the race.
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I thought my first few verbal passages were some of the longest passages I ever seen. That really threw me in for a loop. Bio was either extremely hard or extremely easy as you said. Psych was fair as always. I just remember doing chem, praying that it ends asap, don't really remember much specifics about that portion. Felt like I memorized so many things for no reason, so that sucks, but w/e. lol.
 
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Hey guys! Long time lurker here and I just wanted to give you some quick thoughts for todays exam. I honestly don't remember much because I am totally blanked out from the exam.

So this was my second time taking the exam. First time was in September 2015.

C/P: Quite a bit of physics so that threw me off.

CARS: This section was a bit difficult. I literally got to the last question with 10 seconds remaining.

B/B: Just antibodies, and disease pathophys (and experiments based on them). Definitely an experimental design section, was expecting more Biochem.

Psych: CARS 2.0. Like literally. It was really frustrating. AAMC, can you guys please make up your damn mind for this section? I still believe they are doing a trial and error experiment with this section. I was expecting it to be definition based, but nope.

Overall, I felt really frustrated with this exam. I studied for a very LONG LONG LONG time, and most of the content I studied for didn't show up. But as we know, this new exam is all about interpreting/analyzing passages. I was hoping to get a fair amount of content based questions, but nope. Some of the passages were a bit convoluted. To me, the scored exam and section banks were easier.

As I said before, I don't really remember much from this exam, mainly because after I got done my brain was completely fried.

Its time for us to celebrate folks! We've studied incredibly hard for this beast and hopefully we all did great! To those that still have to take it, keep on studying and believing in yourself! I know at times it seems really difficult, but your hard work will pay off in the end.


Also, I wanna give a big shoutout to @Doctor Dream
Your flashcards were absolutely amazing! It really improved my preparation for this exam! Thank you so much! Really appreciate it!

Well I'm off to watch some Star Wars now! If you guys have any questions, feel free to ask them!
 
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a.r.202818 said:
It thought C/P was tougher than the rest of the sections. What about you guys? Verbal was fair. Bio started off ok, then the last few passages I got caught in the experimentals. Psychology was manageable too.
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This was about how I felt. C/P was super hard for me. A couple of questions I hadn't seen the topic come up anywhere in my prep. From there it made anything seem easy. The CARS passages were longer than I thought they should be but by the time I finished I realized it was probably just the font size. By P/S I was ready to get outta there. Now 34 days of waiting... I'm making tick marks on my wall..

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theonlytycrane said:
It depends. Were you able to finish all of the sections?
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Yes I finished them all, but in the middle of the CARS section my contact started to irritate me, likely I had my glasses in the locker so I was able to put them on for the final 2 sections, but not sure how much damage I did in CARS. And I felt Chem/phys was a mess.
 
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bae2017 said:
I felt like it was a weird mix of really hard and really easy questions, esp. in my b/b section. Don't really know how I feel
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YESS! so
C/P : had to guess on 10 questions :/ Ran out of time because I think overthought some questions and got caught in the calculations. Easy equations but not so easy numbers
CARS: long passages for sure but most were understandable. Similar to section bank but a little bit harder.
B/B: super long passage, acronyms, lots of graphs. Make sure you know how to analyze experimental data. Similar to section bank.
P/S: There was a mead question omg.. probably missed that. More experimental results questions not so much definitions but they help to rule out answer choices.
 
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vladnix said:
Yes I finished them all, but in the middle of the CARS section my contact started to irritate me, likely I had my glasses in the locker so I was able to put them on for the final 2 sections, but not sure how much damage I did in CARS. And I felt Chem/phys was a mess.
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Omg I had contacts problems too!! I would schedule it if you are going to continue to study and make improvement but make sure you know full refund date in case you need to cancel
 
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vladnix said:
Yes I finished them all, but in the middle of the CARS section my contact started to irritate me, likely I had my glasses in the locker so I was able to put them on for the final 2 sections, but not sure how much damage I did in CARS. And I felt Chem/phys was a mess.
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Ah- I'm sorry to hear. Give it 24 hours to think about, but I think it's reasonable if you feel you can do better on the 10th.
 
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Yeah idk guys, it's weird because I actually thought CARS wasn't too bad other than my first 2-3 passages which were just incredibly long. Also, I am going to Dominican Republic tonight to celebrate being done with the mcat but was considering maybe studying there, sounds like a terrible decision though. Lots of thoughts running through my mind. Probably going to just hope that I somehow pulled out a decent score today.
 
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vladnix said:
Yeah idk guys, it's weird because I actually thought CARS wasn't too bad other than my first 2-3 passages which were just incredibly long. Also, I am going to Dominican Republic tonight to celebrate being done with the mcat but was considering maybe studying there, sounds like a terrible decision though. Lots of thoughts running through my mind. Probably going to just hope that I somehow pulled out a decent score today.
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Yeah that makes it harder. I would lean more towards yes if you were willing to lock yourself at home until the last date. Enjoy the DR :)
 
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vladnix said:
I thought my first few verbal passages were some of the longest passages I ever seen. That really threw me in for a loop. Bio was either extremely hard or extremely easy as you said. Psych was fair as always. I just remember doing chem, praying that it ends asap, don't really remember much specifics about that portion. Felt like I memorized so many things for no reason, so that sucks, but w/e. lol.
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Exactly how it went for me for CARS then I kept reminding myself I was already running out of time and it just really messed up the whole section for me.

Can anyone comment on guessing @#$ load for CARS passages and managing to do okay from previous experience? I definitely underperformed in comparison to my scored (126) and unscored (81). I'm wondering with a lot of guesses I made, if it's possible to pull off a 124..
 
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Ah this sucks, good luck everyone, hope everyone pulls out a good score somehow.
 
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RockMcat520 said:
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B/B was going so well until I hit that passage then sht just went downhill. I mean for section bank I could at least try to make some sort of a guess, but wow that passage just threw me off and I wasn't able to calmly figure out which enzymes/genes/whatever the hell the question was referring to do was even doing. I literally just clicked a random answer for some of the q's for that passage. I never really did that for any of my practice exams. :(
 
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Frogs? lmao either I just don't remember anything, or I got a special mcat just for me lol.
 
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Wow, I seriously don't know how I did.

C/P this legit was my worst section. God, I hope I got a 125 on it because I literally feel like I did so bad in this section. But the discrete questions were pretty straight forward. Loads of biochemistry, Ochem, and G chem. I only saw a couple of physics questions.
CARS: eh, it was more difficult than I thought but I would say same difficulty and length as the NS ones.
B/B: Section started out pretty easy and fast but then the last couple of passages really got complicated and slowed me down.
P/S: okay, I studied the most for this section and yet, I barely saw anything I studied. Honestly, this seems to be the reoccurring theme for P/S. I did NS which made me feel confident in this section but of course, the real one ****s me over. I also did Khan academy practice questions for this section as well which I would recommend over anything else.

I took the MCAT in May and I honestly feel like this one was so much harder even after spending much more time studying through the summer etc.
In conclusion, I got ****ed by the MCAT, and it wasn't pleasant.
 
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Jac21 said:
Wow, I seriously don't know how I did.

C/P this legit was my worst section. God, I hope I got a 125 on it because I literally feel like I did so bad in this section. But the discrete questions were pretty straight forward. Loads of biochemistry, Ochem, and G chem. I only saw a couple of physics questions.
CARS: eh, it was more difficult than I thought but I would say same difficulty and length as the NS ones.
B/B: Section started out pretty easy and fast but then the last couple of passages really got complicated and slowed me down.
P/S: okay, I studied the most for this section and yet, I barely saw anything I studied. Honestly, this seems to be the reoccurring theme for P/S. I did NS which made me feel confident in this section but of course, the real one ****s me over. I also did Khan academy practice questions for this section as well which I would recommend over anything else.

I took the MCAT in May and I honestly feel like this one was so much harder even after spending much more time studying through the summer etc.
In conclusion, I got ****ed by the MCAT, and it wasn't pleasant.
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Thank god I'm not the only one haha. I went back and reviewed my notes and can't believe I got shook up on some simple concepts of gen chem. I guess the anxiety plays a great deal. I'm sure we all did great!
 
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a.r.202818 said:
Thank god I'm not the only one haha. I went back and reviewed my notes and can't believe I got shook up on some simple concepts of gen chem. I guess the anxiety plays a great deal. I'm sure we all did great!
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Took it today as well. I was in the same boat about letting anxiety get to me on certain concepts, especially simple general chemistry calculations. Some of the C/P passages were complex and difficult to figure out what was going on. Other questions seemed very easy, too easy. Overall feel as if I bombed that portion due to falling behind on time and having an issue understanding hard passages. This carried over to CARS where the first passage buckled me and I spent way too much time on it. This put me behind time and I was playing catch up the whole time. Had to go quicker than I had liked on final few passages. Biology started off easy and was making great time, then a long, complex passage pops up. Again, I spent too much time on the passage which put me behind on time and the passages were more complex later on but could quickly logic through some (or I think I did). First 3 sections ended up coming down to the final minute which is definitely not how I planned it to go. The psychology/sociology section was very terminology and inference based. I was concerned about this section going in. Left, feeling it was by far the easiest section, which concerns me (Either I bombed it thinking I did well, or everyone else scored high so the curve is very small). Overall leery of final score due to staying behind on time in some sections and stupid mistakes made under pressure. Hindsight, the anxiety of the test itself made simple questions turn into much more complex problems. Hopefully we all did well, and this will only be the beginning of high pressure, time constrained scenarios (I would say operating on a person or making a quick call with someone' health makes the MCAT seem like a cakewalk).
 
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lzsek said:
B/B was going so well until I hit that passage then sht just went downhill. I mean for section bank I could at least try to make some sort of a guess, but wow that passage just threw me off and I wasn't able to calmly figure out which enzymes/genes/whatever the hell the question was referring to do was even doing. I literally just clicked a random answer for some of the q's for that passage. I never really did that for any of my practice exams. :(
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Geez, I'm glad I am not the only one. This was definitely a knuckleball passage for me and is what threw my time off. Not to mention a couple of other intense passages. I had all kinds of stuff drew out trying to figure this one out. Never quite did.
 
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Anyone else feel like they curve the P/S and B/B sections more than P/S and CARS? Not sure how they curve at all but this was the impression I got from others.
 
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Palmyra said:
This was about how I felt. C/P was super hard for me. A couple of questions I hadn't seen the topic come up anywhere in my prep. From there it made anything seem easy. The CARS passages were longer than I thought they should be but by the time I finished I realized it was probably just the font size. By P/S I was ready to get outta there. Now 34 days of waiting... I'm making tick marks on my wall..

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dwgrubbs1s said:
Took it today as well. I was in the same boat about letting anxiety get to me on certain concepts, especially simple general chemistry calculations. Some of the C/P passages were complex and difficult to figure out what was going on. Other questions seemed very easy, too easy. Overall feel as if I bombed that portion due to falling behind on time and having an issue understanding hard passages. This carried over to CARS where the first passage buckled me and I spent way too much time on it. This put me behind time and I was playing catch up the whole time. Had to go quicker than I had liked on final few passages. Biology started off easy and was making great time, then a long, complex passage pops up. Again, I spent too much time on the passage which put me behind on time and the passages were more complex later on but could quickly logic through some (or I think I did). First 3 sections ended up coming down to the final minute which is definitely not how I planned it to go. The psychology/sociology section was very terminology and inference based. I was concerned about this section going in. Left, feeling it was by far the easiest section, which concerns me (Either I bombed it thinking I did well, or everyone else scored high so the curve is very small). Overall leery of final score due to staying behind on time in some sections and stupid mistakes made under pressure. Hindsight, the anxiety of the test itself made simple questions turn into much more complex problems. Hopefully we all did well, and this will only be the beginning of high pressure, time constrained scenarios (I would say operating on a person or making a quick call with someone' health makes the MCAT seem like a cakewalk).
Click to expand...
well the real question is...Can you relieve how you felt when you wrote this ?
 
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As everyone was reminded 2 pages ago on this thread, posting any exam specifics is a violation of the agreement you signed with the AAMC. Posting any exam specifics will result in a deletion of the post and a 1 week post hold for first offense.

You may discuss how you felt about the exam, but do not post anything specific about the content of the exam.

Sticky on this matter: https://forums.studentdoctor.net/th...r-false-score-availability-1-week-ban.598009/
 
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Does anyone know when the scores usually release? I know there is a schedule online but does it normally follow that or do they get released early sometimes?


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bethygean said:
Does anyone know when the scores usually release? I know there is a schedule online but does it normally follow that or do they get released early sometimes?
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I've never heard of them being released early...I don't think it would be very likely at all that they will be releasing them early. But, they generally always release them on the day they say they will, so at least there's that!
 
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Dr. Stalker said:
Sorry for any confusion I may have caused - I meant to anybody that took the MCAT on August 4 or 5, we'll find out our scores next week!
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I took it the 25th and the waiting is so hard. How did you guys make it a month?! Lol

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I had a "honey-do" list that was waiting for me. Built a bar, a shoe rack, built-in closet spaces, refinished the deck, tiled the house, completed an EMT refresher course, took the kid to some amusement parks and festivals, and put in some extra hours at work (12-20 extra hours a week). I probably should have just done the list and read some books or watched some Netflix.
 
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Marine2MD said:
I had a "honey-do" list that was waiting for me. Built a bar, a shoe rack, built-in closet spaces, refinished the deck, tiled the house, completed an EMT refresher course, took the kid to some amusement parks and festivals, and put in some extra hours at work (12-20 extra hours a week). I probably should have just done the list and read some books or watched some Netflix.
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Damn seems like a great way to keep yourself busy!

lol my plan after taking the MCAT (sep 10):
Madden 17, football, hanging out with fam/friends for a month. Good thing football starts in Sep too haha.
 
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Any 8/4, 5 test takers, did you send ur primary to any schools at this point? How did you choose which schools to submit?
 
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Marine2MD said:
I had a "honey-do" list that was waiting for me. Built a bar, a shoe rack, built-in closet spaces, refinished the deck, tiled the house, completed an EMT refresher course, took the kid to some amusement parks and festivals, and put in some extra hours at work (12-20 extra hours a week). I probably should have just done the list and read some books or watched some Netflix.
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Oh wow! I wish I was that productive lol. Keep it up!

Palmyra said:
I took it the 25th and the waiting is so hard. How did you guys make it a month?! Lol

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I finally got a chance to catch up on all of the things I put off for the summer. I've been knocking them off the list to get my life in order. Also, an expansion to my favorite video game came out and I have been wasting my life on that, it's actually been exactly what I needed. I'll probably be done with it as soon as exams start this semester. I just needed to do something mindless for a while. It has definitely kept my mind off the wait.

meddesire said:
Any 8/4, 5 test takers, did you send ur primary to any schools at this point? How did you choose which schools to submit?
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I submitted my primary to one school just to get verified. I spent the rest of the time pre-writing secondaries. This way, if my score is not so good, I only applied to one school. If my score is good, I can just quickly submit to the rest and submit the secondaries as soon as I get them. I chose the one school I submitted to by random. I am only applying to schools that I really want to go to so it made no sense to pick one over another.
 
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I take my MCAT on the 9th, less than a week away. I have heard of a strategy where students are writing out an entire page of equations during the first 10 minutes of reading the rules/how to highlight/etc. Have any of you done this or are planning to do this? For those of you who have taken it already, did it help or do you think it would have helped? I have been spending most of my time on concepts and not much time on memorizing equations since I was under the impression that they would give you most of the equations needed to answer the questions. Thoughts?
 
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RDK4MED said:
I take my MCAT on the 9th, less than a week away. I have heard of a strategy where students are writing out an entire page of equations during the first 10 minutes of reading the rules/how to highlight/etc. Have any of you done this or are planning to do this? For those of you who have taken it already, did it help or do you think it would have helped? I have been spending most of my time on concepts and not much time on memorizing equations since I was under the impression that they would give you most of the equations needed to answer the questions. Thoughts?
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I wouldn't waste your time doing that. It would have been a waste of time for me if I had done that for the MCAT I took


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bethygean said:
I wouldn't waste your time doing that. It would have been a waste of time for me if I had done that for the MCAT I took
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Second this. There were exactly zero equations needed to be memorized for my 08/20 test. There may have been one or two questions where knowing equations helped reason out the answer, but it would have been a waste of time for the test I got as well.
 
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Good luck to all of the August 4th and 5th test takers receiving their scores today! We made it through this terrible wait, just a few more hours left. I hope everyone did as well as they wanted/needed to!
 
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Panic! in my Bedroom...because the anxiety is really getting to me
 
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Good luck y'all! Be sure to update us! I've got another 20 days..

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