Relieve me of my MCAT jitters...

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Bogart

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Hi everyone! I am writing my MCAT in about two weeks, and am a bit concerned about my scores on the practice exams. One of my friends said I need to be scoring between 128 and 132 on the practice exams (EK, Princeton, etc) in order to do well. My scores are as follows:

NS 1/2 length: 507 (2 months ago)

Princeton Diagnostic: 504 (2 months ago)

EK 1: 506 (1 month ago; converted from percent to a score using )

AAMC Sample Test: 87.7% (2 weeks ago; converts to about 517 with the above link, but that seems pretty high)

Kaplan 1: 507 (1.5 weeks ago)

Princeton 2: 507 (1 week ago)

EK 4: 509 (2 days ago, converted using the above link)

CARS Pack 1: 124 (oops; converted with above link)
CARS Pack 2: 130 (converted with above link; 48/60)

Should I be worried? I am hoping to score 515+. Thanks :)

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From what I've heard on the Kaplan and Princeton tests is that most people gain lots of points when they take the actual test compared to their FL.
But thats just what i've hear...

But, best of luck on your exam coming up!
 
To be honest, it's really important that you have a good sense of how much time you have in each section. You seem to have done a lot of practice exams so that's awesome. In my scenario, I could never get anywhere near a 10 on Verbal (old conversion) and on my test I did! So just remain calm. You've put in the time and effort in the past few months. You are gonna rock it!

Ps. when I left the exam room, I knew I did well but I had no idea exactly how well and it turned out that I beat my own expectation so don't worry at all once you are done. Just wait and see :)

Goodluck!
 
You'll have jitters up until right before your test. During the test, the anxiety disappears as you focus on whats at hand and your mind is distracted away from the fear.
 
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The test-prep practice exams tend to have a bit more test-writer trickery. They can be a shade or two over-clever. The AAMC's process filters out a lot of that because the passages get a thorough statistical work-up from their time as test passages. If the group of students that get great scores overall are missing a particular question or getting hammered in a particular passage, it gets noticed. A couple of things to remember on the real exam. Test-prep practice exams can give a person PTSD. On the real exam, though, if a question looks too easy, that's almost always because it's just easy. It looks easy because you know the material. Don't be afraid to let a question be straightforward.

Another thing is that on the real exam the overall percentage of questions missed within a passage is designed to be about the same across passages. What this means is that the more difficult a passage the easier the questions are going to be. Though you may be thrown for a loop on the subject matter, the questions are going to be about fundamental principles. This is different than test-prep exams. When you hit a really dense passage in test-prep exams, the questions are likely to be punishing as well. On the real exam, the harder the passage the easier the questions. When you hit a really dense passage, you don't need to feel anxiety. Let a wave of relief wash over you.

You can do it!
 
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