Questions regarding AAMC Self-Assessments

[Len M]

Hi folks,

What's the general opinion on these self-assessments, are they an accurate representation of the types of questions that'll be asked on the true MCAT? Do they provide thorough coverage of material? I'm new here, and am finding lots of conflicting opinions on how well the various AAMC study materials reflects the actual test. I supposed that's to be expected.

Also, I don't really understand the value of rating your comfort level with each subject area before & after the assessments. Is this purely for your own benefit or is it actually tweaking the questions level difficulties based on your input? I ask because after taking the chem assessment there were far more "easy" and fewer "hard" rated questions than I would have expected.

Thanks for any input.

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[puppylatte]

bump.

 

[zenocide]

They're definitely worth it, get them if you can afford them.

 

[Oh_Gee]

me and another guy who took them agreed that the first 3/4 of the SA's were a little too easy but the the last 1/4 were definitely harder than the rest and on par with AAMC FL's. expect difficulty to increase as you go through them. only exceptions is the G chem which i felt was too easy throughout the whole thing and VR which was fairly similar to AAMC FL's in that they were medium to hard. but maybe it's because i find no VR passage to be easy lol

 

[Amateur Observer]

I'll say this: Don't take it for a subject you're absolutely confident in. I'm very comfortable in General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry (GC and OC), and found that taking the SA for OC proved to be a waste of time (2-3 hours of test taking, and another 1-3 hours of reviewing). I didn't even bother taking the one for GC.

That being said, I found that it's very good for brushing up on topics in Physics and Biology. I haven't taken the real MCAT, but the only FL/SA that is similar to a verbal-type of format (Which I heard is usually the norm) is AAMC11. That being said, it doesn't hurt revisiting the different subjects in a AAMC format.

Also, absolutely buy it for Verbal. There's 21 passages, which is ultimately designed for ideally for you to take this SA for 3 days (Like the real thing with 7 passages). Any practice is good practice for verbal, especially if it's from AAMC