Official Guide BS passages suck :-/

[txlonghorn2314]

I definitely have gotten rocked by several of these hard experimental passages. Unfortunately I hear they are like the real thing more than anything else. Would going over these experiments with a study partner really help get me in touch with these experiments better? Idk, definitely would like to improve, as the BS section has consistently been my lowest:

Kaplan1: 9/8/7
AAMC3: 11/10/9
AAMC4: 12/11/10


Any advice would help. I'm writing in two weeks and would really like to improve in my experimental skills? I might end up voiding due to some personal issues, but would still like to get better at these! Thanks

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[benjaminl1nus]

I feel your pain. when i saw the official guide BS questions for the first time, i freaked out. They seemed so much harder and different than what I expected. Instead testing straight up memory, these questions were making me 1) recall important concepts, 2) do mental gymnastics, and 3) use logic to locate the correct answer.

I will admit I did poorly on these questions. But I revisited them, every month. I even bought a brand new official guide because the previous one I had was written in.

When I tested in April, I had completely learned every topic on the aamc content outline for BS. I ended up with a 15 on that section. So, my advice is...don't get too bogged down on those questions. they are of a unique flavor, for sure. but if you can learn from your mistakes, you are that much more advantaged. It took me so many attempts to fully figure out those BS questions in the official guide, but I feel that had I not been so obsessive about learning from my mistakes, I would not have done as well.

Cheers, and good luck!

 

[Shipley231]

Can I assume by Official guide you mean 'The Official Guide to the MCAT Exam' by Deborah L. Finkel? Haven't heard of this resource and am interested in getting my hands on good material.

 

[ldiaz29]

Can I assume by Official guide you mean 'The Official Guide to the MCAT Exam' by Deborah L. Finkel? Haven't heard of this resource and am interested in getting my hands on good material.

No, I believe the book is written by Satan.

 

[Heplayer92]

http://www.amazon.com/Official-Guide-MCAT-Exam-Edition/dp/1577541170

If you have Amazon Prime, I would encourage you to purchase it from Amazon for the free 2-day shipping!

 

[brood910]

Those passages are very representative of the real thing.

 

[txlonghorn2314]

Those passages are very representative of the real thing.

How do you suggest I get better at them? Like stuff like the the cancer/mice experimental type passages? Half the time my reasoning is good, half the time I'm way off. Whenever I see the answer I don't look at the explanation and just see if I can find out for myself why that's the answer, and even when I do find out I'm like "woah, there's no way I could've put that together in ~30 seconds"

 

[txlonghorn2314]

I will admit I did poorly on these questions. But I revisited them, every month. I even bought a brand new official guide because the previous one I had was written in.

When I tested in April, I had completely learned every topic on the aamc content outline for BS. I ended up with a 15 on that section. So, my advice is...don't get too bogged down on those questions. they are of a unique flavor, for sure. but if you can learn from your mistakes, you are that much more advantaged. It took me so many attempts to fully figure out those BS questions in the official guide, but I feel that had I not been so obsessive about learning from my mistakes, I would not have done as well.

Cheers, and good luck!

Thanks! 2 weeks out do you suggest I just continue to get stronger in my understanding if all the cell/human/medical phys and keep reviewing over and discussing the official guide passages (in between AAMC FLs) ? Bios definitely my weakest and I'm consistently at 9s and 10s and would love to bump that to consistent 11s or maybe even a 12 if possible

 

[TheAnonymous]

Good to know! I will be taking AAMC 10 tomorrow and decided to spend 2 days doing all the questions in the official guide and then take AAMC 11 the next day.

Would 2 days be enough? Hmh are all of them challenging or just Bio? **** now I'm thinking maybe 2 days not enough for all those...

 

[txlonghorn2314]

Good to know! I will be taking AAMC 10 tomorrow and decided to spend 2 days doing all the questions in the official guide and then take AAMC 11 the next day.

Would 2 days be enough? Hmh are all of them challenging or just Bio? **** now I'm thinking maybe 2 days not enough for all those...

To me the PS and Verbal were reasonable, but the bio and orgo sucked (easy discretes though)

 

[TheAnonymous]

To me the PS and Verbal were reasonable, but the bio and orgo sucked (easy discretes though)

Do you think I can go through all of them in 2days?

 

[txlonghorn2314]

Do you think I can go through all of them in 2days?

Definitely, they're really short (each section is like 5 passages) And the fact that its not on the computer makes it less exhausting to go through IMO lol

 

[TheAnonymous]

Definitely, they're really short (each section is like 5 passages) And the fact that its not on the computer makes it less exhausting to go through IMO lol

Thanks man!