The July 12th 2014 MCAT Poll

Boost your MCAT score by 12 points or more.
This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
S

stonyalltheway

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
May 29, 2011
Messages
73
Reaction score
6
To all those that took the MCAT on July 12, 2014, which section did you find the most difficult? Share your opinion using the poll!
Members don't see this ad.
 
Last edited:
Sort by date Sort by votes
Members don't see this ad :)
i thought the 3rd passage wasn't even objectively answerable with the given information.

there was also 1 discrete that i thought had no really good answer.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
dogeisdoge said:
i thought the 3rd passage wasn't even objectively answerable with the given information.

there was also 1 discrete that i thought had no really good answer.
Click to expand...

Yeah there was this discrete and I was just like whaatttt.. I just picked a letter. I don't remember what the third passage was so I dunno.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
BS could go either way it was full of really dense info that I reasoned through but I just wasn't 100% sure. The orgo was easy though.


I was slow at PS and regret it because there was at least 3 easy questions that just require plug and chug math that I couldn't do so I had to rule out 2 and 50/50 guess due to timing.

I suck at verbal and worked really hard to get better the last two months it was straight forward but I'm sure I made mistakes based on wording.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
PKA<0 said:
BS could go either way it was full of really dense info that I reasoned through but I just wasn't 100% sure. The orgo was easy though.


I was slow at PS and regret it because there was at least 3 easy questions that just require plug and chug math that I couldn't do so I had to rule out 2 and 50/50 guess due to timing.

I suck at verbal and worked really hard to get better the last two months it was straight forward but I'm sure I made mistakes based on wording.
Click to expand...

Yeah I ran out of time on the last passage (verbal) and it seemed so easy :(
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
the last passage was the easiest passage out of the 7 imo.

its weird that they would do that. all the practice MCATs had an easy first passage, and most had an easy second passage. it seemed like 2 of the easiest 3 passages came last. The 6th was the hardest and the 1st was the 2nd hardest imo.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
dogeisdoge said:
the last passage was the easiest passage out of the 7 imo.

its weird that they would do that. all the practice MCATs had an easy first passage, and most had an easy second passage. it seemed like 2 of the easiest 3 passages came last. The 6th was the hardest and the 1st was the 2nd hardest imo.
Click to expand...

So mean! :(
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I am worried that the raw score cut offs for verbal will be extremely harsh, and this poll in confirming my fear even further :mad:. The more I think of it, I realize the PS was pretty comparable to BS in difficulty. It was definitely not exactly what I would have expected, but that's obviously the goal. This wait is literally keeping me up at night... I have a scribe shift I have to be up for in 4 hours and can't stop thinking about the freaking test.:hungover:
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Upvote 0 Downvote
GolfUSA said:
I am worried that the raw score cut offs for verbal will be extremely harsh, and this poll in confirming my fear even further :mad:. The more I think of it, I realize the PS was pretty comparable to BS in difficulty. It was definitely not exactly what I would have expected, but that's obviously the goal. This wait is literally keeping me up at night... I have a scribe shift I have to be up for in 4 hours and can't stop thinking about the freaking test.:hungover:
Click to expand...

I have a bloody timer going. If I wasn't good at math and if my PS wasn't really strong, I would have been screwed. I have never had to rush and use up all my time in PS before, but I think I pulled PS off. I'm scared about verbals curve too, and BS just was too long and I couldn't catch up in time and ran out.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I never really have issues with timing, but I had to start guessing in the BS section. I had to guess on many of the discretes :(
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thanks for putting this poll together!

I voted PS simply because it's my weaker area and this was reflected on test day. It was very comparable in terms of difficulty to the other AAMC's
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Upvote 0 Downvote
Members don't see this ad :)
Ginred said:
Thanks for putting this poll together!

I voted PS simply because it's my weaker area and this was reflected on test day. It was very comparable in terms of difficulty to the other AAMC's
Click to expand...

I agree.

I felt that the PS was calculation heavy, and I had an issue with timing.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I'm so surprised that the split is pretty much even between PS and BS. I thought the PS was nothing out of the ordinary, it was just like the practice tests except it required more math, that's all.

The BS I felt like was nothing like I had seen on any of the AAMC exams. It was a little like AAMC 11 but still on a whole another level. Every thing was so research based, long, dense, complex, complex questions, weird graphs, images were funny, couldn't even see the answers together on one page, some discretes were very difficult. I feel like there were so many more aspects making BS completely different and difficult whereas all that was different on PS was math.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
SwedishMD2B said:
I'm so surprised that the split is pretty much even between PS and BS. I thought the PS was nothing out of the ordinary, it was just like the practice tests except it required more math, that's all.

The BS I felt like was nothing like I had seen on any of the AAMC exams. It was a little like AAMC 11 but still on a whole another level. Every thing was so research based, long, dense, complex, complex questions, weird graphs, images were funny, couldn't even see the answers together on one page, some discretes were very difficult. I feel like there were so many more aspects making BS completely different and difficult whereas all that was different on PS was math.
Click to expand...
... interesting that the July 2 test BS was much different (PS was the tougher one, but not too terrible). I guess each exam has its own element of surprise/ hurdles, much like in real life in which nothing is truly uniform. However, I think the scale evens things out...
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
shh-pthway said:
... interesting that the July 2 test BS was much different (PS was the tougher one, but not too terrible). I guess each exam has its own element of surprise/ hurdles, much like in real life in which nothing is truly uniform. However, I think the scale evens things out...
Click to expand...

Yeah, I got so upset when I kept reading the July 2nd posts and people were calling the BS section a "joke" and a "laughter" because it was so easy. It seems like they also had a hard PS with lots of math. I don't understand why the AAMC would do that.

I was originally signed up for July 2nd, then I switched to July 12th :bang:
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
... yes, our Verbal was generally easy but passages were very long (they through quite a few tricks but I think I caught them). What was July 12th like?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
shh-pthway said:
... yes, our Verbal was generally easy but passages were very long (they through quite a few tricks but I think I caught them). What was July 12th like?
Click to expand...

I dunno, they didn't seem long, but they seemed easier. However, I ran out of time and I usually don't, so maybe they were actually long? I don't know.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
... yeah it's interesting, because during practice verbals, one receives score right away. When one has to wait a month for verbal, then one can only speculate (remembering verbal is less concrete than remembering a discrete science question---and students are left relying more on a gut feeling. That's why I think some students' expectations of their verbal score less frequently matches actual score)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
shh-pthway said:
... yeah it's interesting, because during practice verbals, one receives score right away. When one has to wait a month for verbal, then one can only speculate (remembering verbal is less concrete than remembering a discrete science question---and students are left relying more on a gut feeling. That's why I think some students' expectations of their verbal score less frequently matches actual score)
Click to expand...

I always did poorly on verbal. I never have high expectations. If I feel like I did poorly, I do poorly, if I feel like I did great, I still do poorly.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I feel like for the BS section AAMC goes:

"Okay let's take a poll and see which one of our board of directors has the most complex, convoluted manuscript, that has not been published but has pretty figures?" "We can put it on the next AAMC."

pause for evil laughter..:lol:
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users
Upvote 0 Downvote
orangetea said:
I feel like for the BS section AAMC goes:

"Okay let's take a poll and see which one of our board of directors has the most complex, convoluted manuscript, that has not been published but has pretty figures?" "We can put it on the next AAMC."

pause for evil laughter..:lol:
Click to expand...

Lol I think they use all published ones. I know someone who had actually studied one of the papers extensively that was on their mcat and answered the entire passage in like 2 minutes. So not fair.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
SwedishMD2B said:
Lol I think they use all published ones. I know someone who had actually studied one of the papers extensively that was on their mcat and answered the entire passage in like 2 minutes. So not fair.
Click to expand...
... that was like me on one of my passages. I haven't read the exact paper but it was in a subject in a very familiar field
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Looking at the poll, we can probably expect the most generous curve for BS and maybe a similar curve for PS. Verbal clearly wasn't difficult for most people, so the curve may be more stringent

Although July 2nd posts had people calling their BS section a "joke" and a "laughter" because it was so easy, I don't think we can call the PS or BS section on the July 12th exam "easy"
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
stonyalltheway said:
Looking at the poll, we can probably expect the most generous curve for BS and maybe a similar curve for PS. Verbal clearly wasn't difficult for most people, so the curve may be more stringent

Although July 2nd posts had people calling their BS section a "joke" and a "laughter" because it was so easy, I don't think we can call the PS or BS section on the July 12th exam "easy"
Click to expand...
Admittedly, I am trying to make predictions too, but I think predictions should be taken with grain of salt. I don't think we can make any strong conclusions off a handful of replies on a thread (with posters not necessarily being representative, being SDN posters lol)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
stonyalltheway said:
Looking at the poll, we can probably expect the most generous curve for BS and maybe a similar curve for PS. Verbal clearly wasn't difficult for most people, so the curve may be more stringent

Although July 2nd posts had people calling their BS section a "joke" and a "laughter" because it was so easy, I don't think we can call the PS or BS section on the July 12th exam "easy"
Click to expand...

Yeah, neither was easy. They were both hard, PS was harder and more math extensive than any of the AAMCs. I was stronger in PS and constantly scored 13-14 on PS, so for me it was easier than BS. But both of them were way harder than anything I would have expected after taking the AAMC exams.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Upvote 0 Downvote
stonyalltheway said:
Looking at the poll, we can probably expect the most generous curve for BS and maybe a similar curve for PS. Verbal clearly wasn't difficult for most people, so the curve may be more stringent

Although July 2nd posts had people calling their BS section a "joke" and a "laughter" because it was so easy, I don't think we can call the PS or BS section on the July 12th exam "easy"
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't know. The July 2nd BS section felt more like AAMC #10 to me. PS was on another level though. :(
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Upvote 0 Downvote
shh-pthway said:
Admittedly, I am trying to make predictions too, but I think predictions should be taken with grain of salt. I don't think we can make any strong conclusions off a handful of replies on a thread (with posters not necessarily being representative, being SDN posters lol)
Click to expand...

Yeah I agree. This is just the closest we're going to get to getting a feeling of how the curve for our exam may turn out.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Upvote 0 Downvote
I was thinking PS would be easy for me to handle as I hold a PhD in physics, but it was not as easy. The BS on the other hand was very hard. Plus Verbal is always a headache for me. SO overall I think one should be very smart to get a 10 on PS before the curve.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Upvote 0 Downvote
BoldEagle said:
I was thinking PS would be easy for me to handle as I hold a PhD in physics, but it was not as easy. The BS on the other hand was very hard. Plus Verbal is always a headache for me. SO overall I think one should be very smart to get a 10 on PS before the curve.
Click to expand...

Your comment actually makes me feel better.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users
Upvote 0 Downvote
Upvote 0 Downvote
stonyalltheway said:
You can still register for the August 27the exam. August 12th is when the "Bronze zone" registration begins, which basically means you have to pay a higher fee than the fee you'd pay if you had registered earlier.

https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/mcat/reserving/261800/registrationdeadlines.html
Click to expand...
No way am I even considering rushing into that exam if I did poorly. I think if I did bad there's a December mcat with my name on it and another gap year of scribing. Here's to hoping I don't need to take this thing 3x
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Upvote 0 Downvote
PKA<0 said:
No way am I even considering rushing into that exam if I did poorly. I think if I did bad there's a December mcat with my name on it and another gap year of scribing. Here's to hoping I don't need to take this thing 3x
Click to expand...
I'm in the same boat! Can't rush my next again. December is what I'll aim for too
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I thought the last MCAT date for this year (2014) is November 7th? No dates offered in December?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
wuhsabee said:
I thought the last MCAT date for this year (2014) is November 7th? No dates offered in December?
Click to expand...
It appears that you are correct there are no December MCAT dates. I guess I meant January as those are still old style.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Next unread thread

Similar threads

P
July 28th MCAT okay?
Replies
2
Views
1K
BerkReviewTeach
B
M
Taking the MCAT in July....tips?
Replies
3
Views
1K
MyOdyssey
M
V
July 15 MCAT for this application cycle
Replies
10
Views
2K
gyngyn
gyngyn
I
July mcat timeline
Replies
1
Views
568
wysdoc
wysdoc
M
MCAT in June vs July
Replies
2
Views
655
Bonne Nuit
Bonne Nuit
Top