The Official April 11, 2014 MCAT Thread

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txlonghorn2314

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This happens to fall on my birthday...don't know if that's a good thing or bad. Starting sn2d's 3 month program on Monday! I'm scared.

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Wow, that's interesting. I thought only a few of you were pulling some weird conversations; I guess I didn't expect SDN to celebrate April Fools. What's on everybody's agenda with 10 days left?

On a side note, a friend of mine was convinced his buddy won a $250k lottery ticket. That was pretty funny.
 
Wow, that's interesting. I thought only a few of you were pulling some weird conversations; I guess I didn't expect SDN to celebrate April Fools. What's on everybody's agenda with 10 days left?

On a side note, a friend of mine was convinced his buddy won a $250k lottery ticket. That was pretty funny.

For my last 10 days I'll be finishing my last 2 AAMC FL's and maybe doing a TPR FL if I have time. I've almost finished all the TBR passages, so I'll probably do some TPRH passages as well.

Also, and I strongly urge everyone to do this, I'm going to go over the AAMC topics list and make sure I am comfortable with all of the topics.

We're almost there! :)

Hahaha... you can buy gag gift lottery scratchers that say you won a few k$. On the back, in the fine print, it says something about it being a joke. One of my buddies received one and was super ecstatic until he realized he got punked. His reaction was classic.
 
Going to take today mostly off. Stayed up so late last night fighting with my bf. Worst possible timing ever.

If I do nothing else I'm going to make sure I get enough sleep every night till test day.

I'll probably just review all my notes to memorize anything I might not be 100% sure on.

Good luck to everyone. Let's keep up the good work just a little longer.
 
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I'm just doing some free-standing questions that I have left over to fill in any missing gaps of information. I also plan on going over the mcat content list. The only day I plan on taking off is the 10th.

I still don't feel that great about verbal. But, then again I don't think I would ever feel ready for verbal.

Also it's a whole mind game. I realized just saying to myself everything will go well and you'll get a decent score calms me down quite a bit. But, occasionally the thought that oh you're going to get a 4 in verbal comes into mind. :( lol

Best of luck to all!
 
Wow, that's interesting. I thought only a few of you were pulling some weird conversations; I guess I didn't expect SDN to celebrate April Fools. What's on everybody's agenda with 10 days left?

On a side note, a friend of mine was convinced his buddy won a $250k lottery ticket. That was pretty funny.

I'm taking a practice exam every other day, reviewing what I got wrong the following day, and watching chad's videos for Orgo, Gen chem, and Physics one more time before test day.
 
Are you finding chad's videos helpful? Was planning on getting Ochem one? Thanks.

He is great at explaining things as well as keeping you interested. I don't know about you, but after studying for 4+ months I find it absolutely impossible to look at a Kaplan book. I would definitely invest in his O Chem.
 
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He is great at explaining things as well as keeping you interested. I don't know about you, but after studying for 4+ months I find it absolutely impossible to look at a Kaplan book. I would definitely invest in his O Chem.

You buy his videos? Anywhere i can watch them free lol? I have GS videos... And Kaplan class reruns always an option too
 
You buy his videos? Anywhere i can watch them free lol? I have GS videos... And Kaplan class reruns always an option too

Yea im pretty sure its like 40 dollars for one month which is totally worth it, if anything just buy the Organic chemistry lectures, he really explains organic soo well, I had no idea how Mass spectrometry worked until he explained it.
 
Yea im pretty sure its like 40 dollars for one month which is totally worth it, if anything just buy the Organic chemistry lectures, he really explains organic soo well, I had no idea how Mass spectrometry worked until he explained it.

$40 for all the videos for 1 month?? That's a steal.... I'll check it out. A 1 hr private tutor sesh is like $100 lol

Edit: Free Bio videos while I walk home/to classes?... whuddup!
 
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Need some advice, my plan was to take my final FL today but I never had time to post phrase the one I took Wednesday. Should I post phrase first or just go ahead with the exam and post phrase them both together?
 
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Need some advice, my plan was to take my final FL today but I never had time to post phrase the one I took Wednesday. Should I post phrase first or just go ahead with the exam and post phrase them both together?

I would Post-phrase first, then do the other exam Tuesday, review it Wednesday, and relax and look at note cards/polish anything you have trouble with Thursday.
 
Hey you guys... totally not super important, but I thought I would point out that what you mean to say is post-phase. Not phrase.

Sorry, just a quibble, but I know that I like to be corrected when I am wrong so I thought maybe you would as well. Anyway stay focused everyone! We're almost there :)
 
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Hi All, I'd like to take one more full length before the test (really working on section tests and last minute content review) and have AAMC 10 or 11 to choose from. If you were to take one of the two, which would you lean toward?

I too am taking the Chad approach on o-chem. O-Chem was always a nightmare for me. I only got through Day 1 of his o-chem so far and it's alright (will be working the quizzes for Day 1 short). He does teach a few things very differently from how I learned them (ex. he ranks acids by looking at conjugate base stability, a method I don't recall learning).
 
Hey you guys... totally not super important, but I thought I would point out that what you mean to say is post-phase. Not phrase.

Sorry, just a quibble, but I know that I like to be corrected when I am wrong so I thought maybe you would as well. Anyway stay focused everyone! We're almost there :)

What makes you think that? Everywhere I've ever read it, including a lengthy post on SDN a few years ago outlining the process, it has been referred to as "post-phrase." In fact, an orthopedic surgeon I talked with this past summer cited "post-phrasing" as his method for obtaining a nearly perfect score when he took the MCAT in the early 1980's
Hi All, I'd like to take one more full length before the test (really working on section tests and last minute content review) and have AAMC 10 or 11 to choose from. If you were to take one of the two, which would you lean toward?

I too am taking the Chad approach on o-chem. O-Chem was always a nightmare for me. I only got through Day 1 of his o-chem so far and it's alright (will be working the quizzes for Day 1 short). He does teach a few things very differently from how I learned them (ex. he ranks acids by looking at conjugate base stability, a method I don't recall learning).

I took 10 Wednesday and 11 this morning, I felt that 10 was a bit easier but I got a similar score on both. If you're well prepared it shouldn't matter which test you take. Just to help you make your decision, I wound up doing more calculations for 10 than 11
 
What makes you think that? Everywhere I've ever read it, including a lengthy post on SDN a few years ago outlining the process, it has been referred to as "post-phrase." In fact, an orthopedic surgeon I talked with this past summer cited "post-phrasing" as his method for obtaining a nearly perfect score when he took the MCAT in the early 1980's

Wow... it looks like I was the one that was wrong ;) I have never heard this term before... and matter of fact, when you google it, it seems to be nearly exclusively used in terms of the MCAT. Very interesting. Thank you for correcting me :)

Edit: Hrmm... it looks like it may be a term that was coined by Kaplan

Edit 2: This is why I don't put too much stock into what prep companies have to say:

"For the MCAT, professional coaching yields trivial improvement - at most a half a point - according to several large-scale surveys of test takers."

Quoted from the New England Journal of Medicine, July 14, 2011.

Anyway, just food for thought. I was still wrong about the term "post-phrase" though... albeit due to the fact that it is a coined term.
 
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Thanks, that's actually pretty helpful. Calculations tend to slow me down a lot so I'll take 10. I could be better prepared, but will be grateful with any score in the 27-33 range (I'm targeting DO schools and the SUNYs so probably lower than what many here are aiming for).


What makes you think that? Everywhere I've ever read it, including a lengthy post on SDN a few years ago outlining the process, it has been referred to as "post-phrase." In fact, an orthopedic surgeon I talked with this past summer cited "post-phrasing" as his method for obtaining a nearly perfect score when he took the MCAT in the early 1980's


I took 10 Wednesday and 11 this morning, I felt that 10 was a bit easier but I got a similar score on both. If you're well prepared it shouldn't matter which test you take. Just to help you make your decision, I wound up doing more calculations for 10 than 11
 
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This is from the last page, but I'm gonna chime in that if you're trying to use Kaplan's FL's you're better off doing them untimed and not taking them to heart. Their verbal section is poorly worded and most of the questions are very similar in structure. The PS is ambiguous and requires way too much tedious calculation. The way Kaplan words their questions are completely off the mark and reading their explanations is pretty frustrating. It didn't feel anything like what you would see on AAMC tests so don't let the scores bring you down. If you want more practice go for it, but even then I'd argue there are better materials to use.

Good luck to everyone on Apr. 11th.
 
This is from the last page, but I'm gonna chime in that if you're trying to use Kaplan's FL's you're better off doing them untimed and not taking them to heart. Their verbal section is poorly worded and most of the questions are very similar in structure. The PS is ambiguous and requires way too much tedious calculation. The way Kaplan words their questions are completely off the mark and reading their explanations is pretty frustrating. It didn't feel anything like what you would see on AAMC tests so don't let the scores bring you down. If you want more practice go for it, but even then I'd argue there are better materials to use.

Good luck to everyone on Apr. 11th.

Are you saying they are easier or harder? Or they are just useless and not representative at all?
 
Are you saying they are easier or harder? Or they are just useless and not representative at all?

They're definitely harder. I wouldn't say they're representative at all because the questions themselves are very strange and dissimilar to what you see on actual AAMC practice tests and thus aren't a good projection of what you'd actually get on the MCAT. I bought an entire set of FL's from them on Amazon and haven't touched it since.
 
Everyone is different. Personally I perform better under stress. Also, I think if you are already scoring in your target range then taking a FL 3 days before the test isn't going to somehow be detrimental to your confidence on test day even if it isn't your highest score. I know a lot of people advise to be stress free the day before the test, but I'll be damned if I'm not at least skimming all my notes one last time on the day before the test. To me at least, not brushing up on your material the day before the test would be like an athlete that doesn't at least warm up his muscles before a 100 meter sprint. Or like a boxer that isn't getting his heart pumped up before a match. It just doesn't make sense to me to go into lazy mode the day before the main event. To each their own though, I hope your method works very well for you :)

I think you nailed it on the head. I'll be reviewing extensively the day before. I don't see it as stressful, if anything it would be more comforting to have all relevant physics formulas/ orgo reactions/ random bio facts ready for retrieval. Good luck to everyone next friday!
 
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hey guys.
Just took AAMC 10. over all 37 (14, 11, 12)

its an one point improvement in my overall. Im at that point where doing better in verbal could make a world of difference, but also this late in the game what are the chances of that?

Im using this as a pretty good indicator of where im at because I never took this AAMC before. So glad to know that there hasn't been any inflation. Still finished with 20-25 minutes left on science sections. Tho for ppl who also finish early on full lengths and are first time test takers,, DONT rely on this for test day.

How u guys doing? any last minute improvements?
 
hey guys.
Just took AAMC 10. over all 37 (14, 11, 12)

its an one point improvement in my overall. Im at that point where doing better in verbal could make a world of difference, but also this late in the game what are the chances of that?

Im using this as a pretty good indicator of where im at because I never took this AAMC before. So glad to know that there hasn't been any inflation. Still finished with 20-25 minutes left on science sections. Tho for ppl who also finish early on full lengths and are first time test takers,, DONT rely on this for test day.

How u guys doing? any last minute improvements?

34 on AAMC 10 (12,11,11)

I'm also finishing with a lot of time left on my FLs but that's just how I take tests in general. I'm finishing PS with ~20 mins on average, VR with ~10, and BS with ~30 (Sometimes more). On test day, however, I plan on using every minute of each section, even if it means going through the whole thing twice. On AAMC 10 I found a few questions that I'm confident I would've gotten right if I went through the again and a few more that I feel I could've reasoned through, which would've left me with a 36 at least. It's frustrating that I didn't simply get those questions right in the first place but I have a hard time focusing 100% on practice tests.
 
hey guys.
Just took AAMC 10. over all 37 (14, 11, 12)

its an one point improvement in my overall. Im at that point where doing better in verbal could make a world of difference, but also this late in the game what are the chances of that?

Im using this as a pretty good indicator of where im at because I never took this AAMC before. So glad to know that there hasn't been any inflation. Still finished with 20-25 minutes left on science sections. Tho for ppl who also finish early on full lengths and are first time test takers,, DONT rely on this for test day.

How u guys doing? any last minute improvements?

Nice score! Congrats! :)

I have mixed feelings on AAMC 10. I thought passage 7 in the physical sciences section was way out there. I did not understand the experiment, but I got super lucky with some educated guesses. I just hate that uncomfortable feeling of not fully understanding something. On the other hand, I finished the biological sciences section with 13 minutes left over and didn't get any incorrect, so I was pretty stoked on that. I think I'm going to hone in on my understanding of that topic in passage 7 of AAMC 10 Physical sciences. I have a feeling something like that will come back to bite my ass if I don't.

I'm doing my last TBR passages today, all the questions from the official AAMC guide tomorrow, review Monday, then on Tuesday I'm going to take AAMC 11, then I'm just going to do review for the remaining 2 days.

Almost there! :) I can't wait to get this debacle over with.
 
34 on AAMC 10 (12,11,11)

I'm also finishing with a lot of time left on my FLs but that's just how I take tests in general. I'm finishing PS with ~20 mins on average, VR with ~10, and BS with ~30 (Sometimes more). On test day, however, I plan on using every minute of each section, even if it means going through the whole thing twice. On AAMC 10 I found a few questions that I'm confident I would've gotten right if I went through the again and a few more that I feel I could've reasoned through, which would've left me with a 36 at least. It's frustrating that I didn't simply get those questions right in the first place but I have a hard time focusing 100% on practice tests.

Finishing VR early is un heard of for me lol. That's awesome tho. And I totally get what u mean about not being able to focus.

Nice score! Congrats! :)

I have mixed feelings on AAMC 10. I thought passage 7 in the physical sciences section was way out there. I did not understand the experiment, but I got super lucky with some educated guesses. I just hate that uncomfortable feeling of not fully understanding something. On the other hand, I finished the biological sciences section with 13 minutes left over and didn't get any incorrect, so I was pretty stoked on that. I think I'm going to hone in on my understanding of that topic in passage 7 of AAMC 10 Physical sciences. I have a feeling something like that will come back to bite my ass if I don't.

I'm doing my last TBR passages today, all the questions from the official AAMC guide tomorrow, review Monday, then on Tuesday I'm going to take AAMC 11, then I'm just going to do review for the remaining 2 days.

Almost there! :) I can't wait to get this debacle over with.

I feel like those educated guesses are just the best thing u can do for a lot of these passages. There are so many times where I don't know the answer but can figure out that two or three of the options are not right.
 
Finishing VR early is un heard of for me lol. That's awesome tho. And I totally get what u mean about not being able to focus.


The only advice I can give anyone looking to finish early on verbal is to ditch reading in "science-mode." Most of the scientific reading we do on a daily basis requires memorization and understanding of concepts. I just try to figure out what is being said in each paragraph and why its in place in the passage. It may sound ridiculous but I also try to read in a voice fitting to the passage (in my head of course), it makes things a bit more interesting when an old englishmen is the voice discussing late 19th century brit lit.:D
 
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anyone else feeling like they don't know what else to do?
not really sure what kind of studying would give me any more score pay off right now
 
anyone else feeling like they don't know what else to do?
not really sure what kind of studying would give me any more score pay off right now

I'm going over all of the self-assessments and practice FL's today. Mostly skimming them and focusing on questions that gave me trouble. Then after that I'm skimming all my notes real quick (~1 hour), then sleep, then AAMC 11 tomorrow. I pushed my AAMC 11 back one day from today because I did all the questions in the Official AAMC guide book yesterday and didn't want to do so many questions on consecutive days. Then 2 days of light content review until the test on D-Day! :)

Anyone else do all the Official guide questions? I found the biological sciences to be somewhat different from what I've encountered with the AAMC FL's 3-10 so far. If this is what people mean when they talk about the current biological sciences, then I don't think it should be too bad. Most of the difficult question are only difficult because of convoluted and poorly-worded questions in my opinion. If you are quick enough on the other easier questions, I can imagine that spending extra time on these types of questions can make them relatively simple to figure out.
 
I'm going over all of the self-assessments and practice FL's today. Mostly skimming them and focusing on questions that gave me trouble. Then after that I'm skimming all my notes real quick (~1 hour), then sleep, then AAMC 11 tomorrow. I pushed my AAMC 11 back one day from today because I did all the questions in the Official AAMC guide book yesterday and didn't want to do so many questions on consecutive days. Then 2 days of light content review until the test on D-Day! :)

Anyone else do all the Official guide questions? I found the biological sciences to be somewhat different from what I've encountered with the AAMC FL's 3-10 so far. If this is what people mean when they talk about the current biological sciences, then I don't think it should be too bad. Most of the difficult question are only difficult because of convoluted and poorly-worded questions in my opinion. If you are quick enough on the other easier questions, I can imagine that spending extra time on these types of questions can make them relatively simple to figure out.

Is the official guide a pdf? Where can I get my hands on that?
 
anyone else feeling like they don't know what else to do?
not really sure what kind of studying would give me any more score pay off right now

I plan on going through all my notes today, tomorrow, and Wednesday and once I'm done with that each day I'm going to go over the questions I got wrong on FLs and make sure I know where I went wrong. Other than that I plan on going for easy runs every day, going to sleep/waking up early, and eating solid meals. At the very least I'm going to keep busy to drive the thoughts of "Oh ****, what if I get a 20 on this exam" and every other scenario of what could go wrong out of my head.
 
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I plan on going through all my notes today, tomorrow, and Wednesday and once I'm done with that each day I'm going to go over the questions I got wrong on FLs and make sure I know where I went wrong. Other than that I plan on going for easy runs every day, going to sleep/waking up early, and eating solid meals. At the very least I'm going to keep busy to drive the thoughts of "Oh ****, what if I get a 20 on this exam" and every other scenario of what could go wrong out of my head.

I agree with you ZymurgySurfer. I spent today reviewing my notes/TPRH passages/equations and listening to Audio Osmosis. After taking AAMC 11 tomorrow, I'll review that exam and the other AAMCs. There is not much that will be learned from now until the exam. Best thing to do is remember the traps you fall into on practice exams to avoid them on test day. Few more days until freedom!
 
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Is the official guide a pdf? Where can I get my hands on that?

Nah... I wish, just because it would have been nice to read it off of a computer. You can only buy it from the AAMC. It's in the 3rd edition now, but if you can find a used 1st or 2nd edition though, it's pretty much all the same material. Some minor corrections have been made, but nothing major.
 
I agree with you ZymurgySurfer. I spent today reviewing my notes/TPRH passages/equations and listening to Audio Osmosis. After taking AAMC 11 tomorrow, I'll review that exam and the other AAMCs. There is not much that will be learned from now until the exam. Best thing to do is remember the traps you fall into on practice exams to avoid them on test day. Few more days until freedom!

^ I strongly agree with the above bolded. Only rarely do I miss a question for a lack of content knowledge. Nowadays pretty much all the questions that I miss are because of careless errors, or not thinking something through properly. Ever since I started taking the FL's I have been doing fewer and fewer of these errors, but it's tough to eliminate them all when you're timed and under pressure.
 
Im experiencing the same thing where my mistakes are from being either careless, lazy to read the passage, or tired. so I feel like my best bet is being well rested. Simulating the real thing with AAMC 11 tomorrow morning.
 
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Im experiencing the same thing where my mistakes are from being either careless, lazy to read the passage, or tired. so I feel like my best bet is being well rested. Simulating the real thing with AAMC 11 tomorrow morning.

Me too! ;) Waking up at 6 am, exercise, same test-day meal, same time duration estimated for driving to the testing center, same snacks, same everything. Starting around 8:15-8:30 because of the time delay for check-in.
 
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Im experiencing the same thing where my mistakes are from being either careless, lazy to read the passage, or tired. so I feel like my best bet is being well rested. Simulating the real thing with AAMC 11 tomorrow morning.

Would love to hear how you feel about AAMC 11, since it is most similar to the real deal... Especially PS compared to the previous AAMCs
 
AAMC 11 (PS and VR in the books). Made so many stupid mistakes on PS! Also, ran out of time and basically didn't get to the 7th passage (1/4 correct). I should scored a 10 with a little more care, but ended up with an 8. I really need to get timing down on this section. I need to write down much less (I think I map too much stuff)!

Had quite the opposite happen on verbal. I finished with more than about 15 mins to spare. Thought I missed a passage. Scored a 10. A woman came into the quite room of the library where I was taking the test and started to hum and distracted me so I had even had to re-read a passage. Most of my mistakes were on that particular passage when I was distracted (also, despite my sociology degree, social science passages are a particular weakness of mine)!

Had to put BS off! Will do it tomorrow.

Hope everyone's studying is coming along well. We are almost at the finish line. I'm still dreaming of my 10/10/10.
 
Im finishing up chads videos tomorrow for physics, then memorizing all my physics/gen chem equations and units. I also feel its a good idea to know what your units derive into i.e (Energy is in Joules (J) = N * m = (Kg x m^2) / s^2),
This will be HUGE if you come across a problem you don't know how to set up, but know what units you have to end up at.
 
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Wooooo!! Nothing like waking up at 6 am and doing a little light cardio at the a$$-crack of dawn :)
 
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Sooo.... im so lame because my plan to simulate test day was a total fail... whatever. as long as I make it to the real thing on time. this kind of stuff is where the type B aspect of my personality shines.

Just finished PS of AAMC 11 I can see why you guys feel that way about it. Its definitely different from the other AAMCs.... So I marked 5 that I guessed on... AKA don't really know the answer to. So lets see how that actually turns out score wise. I finished pretty much exactly on time for this one. None of that 20 minutes early nonsense so seems like a good comparison to the real deal.

time to go finish this test...
 
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Sooo.... im so lame because my plan to simulate test day was a total fail... whatever. as long as I make it to the real thing on time. this kind of stuff is where the type B aspect of my personality shines.

Just finished PS of AAMC 11 I can see why you guys feel that way about it. Its definitely different from the other AAMCs.... So I marked 5 that I guessed on... AKA don't really know the answer to. So lets see how that actually turns out score wise. I finished pretty much exactly on time for this one. None of that 20 minutes early nonsense so seems like a good comparison to the real deal.

time to go finish this test...

Lol awww... don't take SDN breaks! ;)

I'm bout to start this beast. MCAAAAAATTT!!!

 
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Sooo.... im so lame because my plan to simulate test day was a total fail... whatever. as long as I make it to the real thing on time. this kind of stuff is where the type B aspect of my personality shines.

Just finished PS of AAMC 11 I can see why you guys feel that way about it. Its definitely different from the other AAMCs.... So I marked 5 that I guessed on... AKA don't really know the answer to. So lets see how that actually turns out score wise. I finished pretty much exactly on time for this one. None of that 20 minutes early nonsense so seems like a good comparison to the real deal.

time to go finish this test...

Can you elaborate on that? PS is the bane of my existence.. what's the most similar practice material to the PS on 11?
 
Can you elaborate on that? PS is the bane of my existence.. what's the most similar practice material to the PS on 11?

Ok so just got my score and PS was def a dooozy on this one. My worst section on this test and its usually my best. I would say its harder because these later AAMC tests force you to apply knowledge rather than just straight up using a formula.
 
Ok so just got my score and PS was def a dooozy on this one. My worst section on this test and its usually my best. I would say its harder because these later AAMC tests force you to apply knowledge rather than just straight up using a formula.

Yoo what was your breakdown?
 
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