Retaking the Exam: How do I know I'm ready?

[Snoopy528]

One thing that I have been really frustrated with and confused about is how I will know I am ready when I retake the MCAT. After speaking with several of my friends (we all took a Kaplan course online and used their full lengths), I discovered that we were all seeing little improvement over the 8+ full lengths that we took. My friends and I also all scored 500 +/- 3 on all the exams. The difference is that all of my friends performed incredibly well on the real test, and I did not.

My question is: how will I know I am ready to take the exam again if my previous way of analyzing my readiness was not effective? Why is it that we were performing the same on the practice full lengths yet ended up with such different scores?

And lastly, which of the full lengths did you find to be the most representative of the real thing, besides the official AAMC sample test?

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[MCAT-MVP]

Hi @Snoopy528

This is a really good question. Because we do not sell any MCAT practice exams I feel like I could give an unbiased opinion. First, what works for some students may not work for others.

What I can do is give you some tips that you could use to improve your score. First you definitely want to make sure you have practice exams that mimic the look and feel of the exam, which is what you already said so I think you are on the right track for getting the score you want. I have heard the Next Step exams are pretty good at mimicking the exam, so you may want to get a few of those.

After you do an exam make sure you review all the questions even the questions you got right. The reason is because you can sometimes pick up hints about a question that you may not know. This is very important because you can read over the test again and you will start to notice how questions are asked on the exam.

Also, do not try to learn every small detail in a MCAT book and do not just review the content without doing practice exams. Alter between doing practice exams and reviewing the content.

A good clue that will let you know you are ready to take the exam is when you are able to take a practice exam and finished it under the time required and you are able to get enough questions right so that you get the score you want.

 

[Snoopy528]

Last time I studied for the MCAT, I took 9 Kaplan practice exams. Time was never an issue for me, and I felt comfortable with the structure and setup of the exam. I am pretty sure my issue was content, but if I was getting the same scores on Kaplan full lengths as my peers, then how will I know that I am actually performing well? Because, like I said, I did not do well while my peers did excellently.

 

[Altius Premier Tutor]

On any retake, I always advice my 1-on-1 students NOT to sit for the exam until they have seen a MONUMENTAL, almost METAMORPHOSIS-LIKE change in their performance on practice tests. If you were scoring as you say, around 500-503 on a certain set of practice tests, I wouldn't sit for the exam again until you were at least in the 5-teens. There are also many other full-length practice exams out there besides Kaplan, so you can find some new "unseen" tests to use from scratch. FLEs aren't the only way to measure a huge uptick in performance either--you can look for and insist upon a huge increase in your confidence with each individual topic or chapter, your ability to teach it to others, your speed and accuracy in reading research journal-type experiments, and so forth. The AAMC has documented well that MOST students do NOT improve on a retake. They will try to scare you into thinking it is some kind of permanent reflection of your abilities. The truth is that most students do not improve on a retake because their BEHAVIOR in prepping for the retake is too similar to their original preparation. If you realize an undeniably large improvement in BEHAVIOR and INDICATORS the second time, you will undeniably see an improved score. Best of luck!