The Official August 2015 MCAT Thread

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vsantav

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Registration opens up sometime today so I thought I'd go ahead and make this thread. Anyone else taking it in August?

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Is there any consensus on how to calculate the # of ATPs in cellular respiration??? There is like a range from 30-38, but I always thought it was 32....

Also why do the KA videos describe FADH2 as a donor to the electron transport chain??? I thought it was succinate that donates to complex II (as my friend taught me)
 
@Hatfield0429 I felt out of all the NS exams, the fourth one probably the most representative and fair. You might have just had an off day. Be sure to look over your exam thoroughly and try to notice any one thing that is causing you trouble. If it's an issue of not knowing material then just content review hard for a couple days or if its an issue of interpreting experiments I would look at khan academy.
 
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Is there any consensus on how to calculate the # of ATPs in cellular respiration??? There is like a range from 30-38, but I always thought it was 32....

Also why do the KA videos describe FADH2 as a donor to the electron transport chain??? I thought it was succinate that donates to complex II (as my friend taught me)

I highly doubt they'll ask a question that differentiates between 32 and 38...but I think the main point to think about is that Prokaryotes always make more...since eukaryotes have to shuttle electrons across the mitochondrial membrane. So in this case, it'd be either pro:38, eukaryotes:36 or....pro:32 eukaryotes:30. For the Calculation it usually just depends on the value given to NADH and FADH2. I know in TPR they say NADH=2 and FADH2=1.5

Edit: FADH2 is an electron carrier/donor that specifically donates it's electrons to complex II, which has succinate (an intermediate in the CAC) as part of the complex

Lol sorry for all the edits. My brain is dead. Next thursday can't come soon enough
 
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Yeah, I'm kind of bummed I didn't know about this beforehand... my friend has been using an outdated one that was at least 3-4 years and I briefly looked at it until this forum said they're updated. On the side note, I just remembered how my friend took AAMC 11 and absolutely bombed it then 3 days later she ended up doing 6 points better on the real MCAT.

Gonna use the kaplan quicksheets tomorrow to go over topics while going through more Bio questions.
 
Decided to sit for August 6th. Averaging only a point lower (on the old scale, 26-27 on AAMC stuff, I want a 27+ which is apparently a 503+ although I would be ecstatic with a 506+) than where I want to be, I think I will take my chances. Void it if it goes bad and just take it again in September.
 
Decided to sit for August 6th. Averaging only a point lower (on the old scale, 26-27 on AAMC stuff, I want a 27+ which is apparently a 503+ although I would be ecstatic with a 506+) than where I want to be, I think I will take my chances. Void it if it goes bad and just take it again in September.

Good call dude. Just remember that anything can happen on the real thing, and you could potentially just get all topics that are tailored to your strengths. Looking at that Xenith/Mcatjelly compilation, a lot of the high scorers ended up scoring way higher than their practice FL's especially in the sciences (C/P especially), which definitely gives me hope. Just have a strong internal locus of control and I'm sure you'll be perfectly fine!
 
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I'm curious - where are y'all getting practice passages??? Only FLs/AAMC material/KA passages??? Is there anything that's been worthwhile/good practice other than those???

I just want to be productive in between my FLs (other than reviewing the FLs)! Any responses appreciated~~!
 
@Hatfield0429 I felt out of all the NS exams, the fourth one probably the most representative and fair. You might have just had an off day. Be sure to look over your exam thoroughly and try to notice any one thing that is causing you trouble. If it's an issue of not knowing material then just content review hard for a couple days or if its an issue of interpreting experiments I would look at khan academy.
Thanks! My day didn't start great and I haven't been feeling well. I also need more content review and more passages. As others have said, being good at verbal helps with the other sections. English is my third language and I'm still working on comprehension, but I'm glad about my scores. I think I just need 510-512 to be competitive in my school. My classmate got in with a 505 (28) and 3.8GPA even though she was waitlisted for months.
 
Good call dude. Just remember that anything can happen on the real thing, and you could potentially just get all topics that are tailored to your strengths. Looking at that Xenith/Mcatjelly compilation, a lot of the high scorers ended up scoring way higher than their practice FL's especially in the sciences (C/P especially), which definitely gives me hope. Just have a strong internal locus of control and I'm sure you'll be perfectly fine!

Yeah I saw two people in my situation and their average perlims was around 62% and 72%, 503 to a 506.

Crazy to see some 59% in C/P translated to a 127/128 on the real test. People are saying that's easier on the test when in reality, I remember taking it and thinking it wasn't too hard.
 
Thanks! My day didn't start great and I haven't been feeling well. I also need more content review and more passages. As others have said, being good at verbal helps with the other sections. English is my third language and I'm still working on comprehension, but I'm glad about my scores. I think I just need 510-512 to be competitive in my school. My classmate got in with a 505 (28) and 3.8GPA even though she was waitlisted for months.
I apologize if you already posted about it before but did you take the AAMC FL yet? If so look at which content categories you most often got incorrect and hammer those down. If not try to review some content and take it pretty soon. Another thing if you have taken it, you can try to do NS5 which is very similar to the AAMC FL and try to see if you learned from your mistakes. 510 is certainly within reach. During the actual exam you will be alert and focused bc you know it's real, I found that sometimes I would catch myself drifting in the middle of a passage during a practice test which I know won't happen on the actual thing, that should help to avoid any stupid mistakes too.
 
Saw my test center this morning with a friend. We didn't walk into the room because people may be testing and the proctor was talking to someone. Might have been someone taking a Step exam because I think I saw a white coat being hung up and only seemingly one test taker there talking to the proctor.

Great location. Arguably considered the best location in my area due to convenience and the fact we couldn't even hear these two having a conversation across the room despite standing right outside of it. It was in the basement of a small office building and took only 2-3 minutes to find after taking the elevator down. Only downside is, it's in an area where it's quite easy to get lost so going there today to find it was a good choice. Took longer than it should have. Finding the location, parking, the correct doors to go through etc.

Only downside is... I might be running into old high school classmates on test day. Hopefully I can zone that out and just focus on taking the test rather than get distracted by their presence.
 
I apologize if you already posted about it before but did you take the AAMC FL yet? If so look at which content categories you most often got incorrect and hammer those down. If not try to review some content and take it pretty soon. Another thing if you have taken it, you can try to do NS5 which is very similar to the AAMC FL and try to see if you learned from your mistakes. 510 is certainly within reach. During the actual exam you will be alert and focused bc you know it's real, I found that sometimes I would catch myself drifting in the middle of a passage during a practice test which I know won't happen on the actual thing, that should help to avoid any stupid mistakes too.
Haven't taken the AAMC FL yet. Took the OG and got 71%. I plan to do all of the qpacks in the next few days, and then take the AAMC FL (would be about 10 days before my actual test). Or should I do the FL first and then the qpacks? I also have EK4 and NS5 before the actual test.
 
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Saw my test center this morning with a friend. We didn't walk into the room because people may be testing and the proctor was talking to someone. Might have been someone taking a Step exam because I think I saw a white coat being hung up and only seemingly one test taker there talking to the proctor.

Great location. Arguably considered the best location in my area due to convenience and the fact we couldn't even hear these two having a conversation across the room despite standing right outside of it. It was in the basement of a small office building and took only 2-3 minutes to find after taking the elevator down. Only downside is, it's in an area where it's quite easy to get lost so going there today to find it was a good choice. Took longer than it should have. Finding the location, parking, the correct doors to go through etc.

Only downside is... I might be running into old high school classmates on test day. Hopefully I can zone that out and just focus on taking the test rather than get distracted by their presence.

Debating on whether to do that this weekend or just to wake up early the day before exam day (which I'm not planning on studying that much that day) and simulate driving at the same time as test day and seeing what traffic is like, etc.

Only downside is idk if they'll let me walk in to see where it is in the building considering the 5th is also a testing day.
 
Saw my test center this morning with a friend. We didn't walk into the room because people may be testing and the proctor was talking to someone. Might have been someone taking a Step exam because I think I saw a white coat being hung up and only seemingly one test taker there talking to the proctor.

Great location. Arguably considered the best location in my area due to convenience and the fact we couldn't even hear these two having a conversation across the room despite standing right outside of it. It was in the basement of a small office building and took only 2-3 minutes to find after taking the elevator down. Only downside is, it's in an area where it's quite easy to get lost so going there today to find it was a good choice. Took longer than it should have. Finding the location, parking, the correct doors to go through etc.

Only downside is... I might be running into old high school classmates on test day. Hopefully I can zone that out and just focus on taking the test rather than get distracted by their presence.
Hopefully I won't run into former classmates either. I'll go see my test center in a few days.
 
Haven't taken the AAMC FL yet. Took the OG and got 71%. I plan to do all of the qpacks in the next few days, and then take the AAMC FL (would be about 10 days before my actual test). Or should I do the FL first and then the qpacks? I also have EK4 and NS5 before the actual test.

Nope 10 days is sufficient. That's what I did. Took the AAMC FL. Took a breather that night and reviewed it within 2 days. I had 8 days planned to fix up all my weaknesses. I like it that way, I don't plan to take another FL. Already have taken 6 TPR FLs and OG.
 
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I'm curious - where are y'all getting practice passages??? Only FLs/AAMC material/KA passages??? Is there anything that's been worthwhile/good practice other than those???

I just want to be productive in between my FLs (other than reviewing the FLs)! Any responses appreciated~~!

I've been doing KA and a little bit of TBR C/P and B/B.
 
I did some KA bio passages last night. I disliked like half of them. Some were way beyond the scope of the mcat in terms of depth or the nit picky detail questions. Not a fan but it's still decent practice.
 
Less posting and reading on SDN and more studying, y'all. (might be looking at you, Dreamstoo, blowing up this thread! but might not be looking at you ;) ) Be smart, if you're taking next week, this weekend is really the end of studying. Monday and Tuesday the brakes should be hit hard to best ensure the best testing performance.
 
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Is it me or is NS FL2 impossible? IMO it's worse than TPR tests. I've never had such an awful CARS section in Kaplan and TPR.
 
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Haven't taken the AAMC FL yet. Took the OG and got 71%. I plan to do all of the qpacks in the next few days, and then take the AAMC FL (would be about 10 days before my actual test). Or should I do the FL first and then the qpacks? I also have EK4 and NS5 before the actual test.
I would do the FL first and instead of doing the qpacks you should content review then take the FL. Then afterwards you should review the FL and then do even more content review based on your results and while you're content reviewing maybe do a few problems from each q pack each day leading up to your exam. I think this would be the most efficient way to go.
 
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I just took NS4 and got a 502 with their more generous new scale. Using their old scale, that would be 494. I was lost most of the time that I felt so defeated!
I felt as if NS 4 was tough as well. I took it yesterday and didn't do as well as I had hoped (though I was having sort of a rough morning and had little motivation to take the exam). I thought the P/S section was dumb. There were quite a few terms that I have never seen before and I felt as if a few of the tested topics weren't on the AAMC outline. I'll have to go back and double check, but it just felt off.
 
Saw my test center this morning with a friend. We didn't walk into the room because people may be testing and the proctor was talking to someone. Might have been someone taking a Step exam because I think I saw a white coat being hung up and only seemingly one test taker there talking to the proctor.

Great location. Arguably considered the best location in my area due to convenience and the fact we couldn't even hear these two having a conversation across the room despite standing right outside of it. It was in the basement of a small office building and took only 2-3 minutes to find after taking the elevator down. Only downside is, it's in an area where it's quite easy to get lost so going there today to find it was a good choice. Took longer than it should have. Finding the location, parking, the correct doors to go through etc.

Only downside is... I might be running into old high school classmates on test day. Hopefully I can zone that out and just focus on taking the test rather than get distracted by their presence.
Didn't even consider the possibility of running into old high school classmates on test day...wouldn't be surprised since my testing center is in my town. Don't wanna be distracted by that...
 
Just did the Chem Q pack in one dreadful sitting. Somehow got 82%...way higher than I expected given previous Chem/Phys scores. Now onto Physics.
 
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Just scored 66% on CARS 1 pack after scoring 87% in the AAMC FL.... lol so much for a confidence boost, just gotta do physics and CARS pack 2 over the weekend
 
Man, the anxiety is real. But I think it's just the right amount to get me wired for the exam. But I'm also kind of concerned as to how well my brain will function after waking up a 6:30am since I'm not really a morning person.
 
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I'm trying to practice waking up earlier. First 8Am, then 7 and hopefully 6 on the day of. I think I'm going to a practice passage that morning and flashcards.
 
I recommend mathe alarm for your phone @federer875 , its really helpful in waking up early if you have to and gets you up and alert since you can set the number and difficulty of equations you have to do in order to turn off your alarm. This, in addition to going to bed an hour or half an hour earlier and shifting your wakeup time like @scaredadvocate said, should help you get accustomed over the next few days.
 
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Man, the anxiety is real. But I think it's just the right amount to get me wired for the exam. But I'm also kind of concerned as to how well my brain will function after waking up a 6:30am since I'm not really a morning person.

I've been waking up around 6:40 am in bed lol but I don't get out of until like 8 am. Been sleeping about 6.5 hours last few nights. Just had my lunch break outside in the park next to the library I study at. Watched NBA highlights of some games from the early 2000s and had pasta and gatorade :). Got to love when you take time for yourself after studying for 3 hours in a row (with a few intermittent breaks).
 
Could someone help breakdown my scores into the real AAMC breakdown? PLEASEEEE?????

Chem/Physics: 69% right
CARS: 75%
Bio/Biochem: 75%
Psych/Soci: 68%
 
Just took the bio and cars for TBR 1, with 44/59 for bio and 35/53 for cars. About to take psych now. I always seem to get wrecked by one whole passage on CARS and then just mostly 1 and maybe 2 wrong for other passages.
 
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I've been waking up around 6:40 am in bed lol but I don't get out of until like 8 am. Been sleeping about 6.5 hours last few nights. Just had my lunch break outside in the park next to the library I study at. Watched NBA highlights of some games from the early 2000s and had pasta and gatorade :). Got to love when you take time for yourself after studying for 3 hours in a row (with a few intermittent breaks).
Lol that's so real. I spend like an hour on my phone. At least we're awake though.
 
I'm reviewing my TPR test and the system keeps kicking me out of the test. I'll see a mistake, minimize the test window for like 1 min to google something I am unfamiliar with, and when I come back it says "your exam has been suspended for inactivity"
Ugh, so annoying!
 
Does anyone think that TBR FL 1 is too easy? Or are the other TBR FL's supposed to be much harder? According to the next step scale, I am at ~ 510-512, but I think thats a bit far from the truth?
 
Does anyone think that TBR FL 1 is too easy? Or are the other TBR FL's supposed to be much harder? According to the next step scale, I am at ~ 510-512, but I think thats a bit far from the truth?

For the old MCAT, I remember hearing they were quite on par with the AAMC tests in terms of overall score, if not a few points lower (usually). They were considered great practice for test takers who wanted to go from a 30+ to a 33+ or so.
 
has anyone done the complete test for tpr? i'm finding them significantly easier than the course tests
 
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