I used front and back of a full page. There were more calculations than on the practice tests, but the math was very simple.
With all due respect I don't think he was trying to be arrogant. He was just offering his opinion of how he thinks the scores will come out for a process that we will never truly know exactly what happens behind the scenes. And like he said near the end, it was more a statement to calm his own feelings of anxiety as we wait for this month to pass. Nothing wrong with that. That's great if you thought the test was straightforward. I'm sure that bodes well for your score.
Dude, take it easy. I really didn't read his post as arrogant, he was just voicing out how he felt. Tone is sort of hard to discern via text, so give the guy the benefit of the doubt. I found his post very calming because it reassured me (someone whose average is 3 points lower than his) that we are all in this boat together, so the curve is likely to be nice. So calm down.
If you're an average scorer and thought this test was simple and straightforward, I think you fell for the tricks. The test wasn't simple or straightforward.
I never said it must have been hard for everyone because it was hard for me. I said that if the test seemed hard to test-takers with AAMC FL averages of 35+, then it would be extremely difficult for test-takers with AAMC FL averages around the average of all test-takers on the real test. Given that half of people that take the MCAT never even apply to med schools, my assumption that the MCAT was extremely difficult for those people is certainly not a baseless claim. I also stated clearly that no arrogance was intended, for I knew it may come across as an arrogant post to some.
PS: TBR all the way
Berkeley Review for Gen Chem and Physics
It really depends where your weaknesses are. If you're having trouble with timing and pacing yourself during practice tests, it'd probably be a good idea to add other practice tests. If there are specific subject areas where you're weak, you could spend more time going over those areas. I had a weakness when it came to calculations... I couldn't do them quickly enough, so I spent a lot of time just doing calculation discretes out of EK 1001 and TPRH SW until calculations were no longer an issue. If you come across questions in your practice tests that you don't know how to answer, it'd probably be a good idea to review that topic area so you know how to answer a similar question if it were to come up on the real thing.
I don't see any problem with taking 3 tests in a week, and if you are concerned about the sciences in particular i would say definitely add in the GS exam every week. I was taking a test every other day or so up until the last week before the exam when i slowed down quite a bit to recover. 1 day in between for review was enough for me, but it depends on how much reviewing you need to do post-test. If you are only missing a handful of questions each test then 1 day is plenty, but make sure you have a good handle of why you missed the questions you did and how to get em right the next time before you go on to the next test.
I presume so. I got it yesterday.
I believe the latest MCAT dates accepted vary by school. I think most said dates will be right around the middle of September. If you check the school websites, you will see the policy listed.
I believe there is a chart posted on the aamc website that has the breakdown of every school and whether they will accept the 2014 MCAT or not for the next three cycles. Also, last time I checked only one school explicitly said they would only accept the 2015 MCAT for 2016 matriculation (Indiana I believe). Tbh I can't imagine many students will have the potential to even take the 2015 MCAT before apps are due that cycle. So I'm guessing even this one school will soften their stance on not accepting the old MCAT.
I only remember two passages from verbal, and yes, it scares me, too. The first passage really tripped me up. I only remember one of the questions from the first passage, and there seemed to be two possible answers, with two out of four being the same and the other two out of four being the same, and none was correct in my mind.
Good info!
Supposedly there's a question challenge protocol in place for the MCAT but how could one feasibly even go about using it? We never see the test post-hoc and its not like we're keeping a compilation of iffy questions in mind at the end. We're trained to forget the previous section and move on. Doesn't seem like a valid challenge model to me.
Yep. I had a dream last night that I got a 4 on VR. How has it only been 3 days?? This test feels like it was an eternity ago.Anybody else having nightmares about this test?
I didn't know they even had that. And I think it's because it may be hard to create a more facile challenge model that wouldn't also lead to a ridiculous amount of challenges.
I had a dream the night before that I woke up at 1:05 for my test at 1:00. Needless to say I freaked for a bit. I've had some pretty bad nightmares borderline terrors and I'd say this was on par haha.
Yup. No test scores available
I was hoping maybe just maybe they'd glitch and my scores would show.
lol bruh..............................................................................relax
I think the point of passages like that is to build a bell curve. They have to have some questions that only a small percentage can answer to differentiate between 14s and 15s.
I'm so curious to know what this passage was lol
The problem is that it's so imprecise. This is really the only test I've taken where the probabilistic correctness of guesses almost invariably affects scores. I could be wrong since I don't know how the test is actually scored, though I'm certain that it isn't scored the way the AAMC FLs are. It's not unreasonable to conclude that the actual raw-to-scaled conversion takes difficulty into account, such that getting 3 difficult questions wrong may equate to getting 1 easy question wrong (maybe it's the other way around), and that was never the case on the AAMCs.
I wish I could show that to my old gen chem professor and watch him have absolutely no idea, either, though maybe he would.
It's 8 hours long, so I would hope so, haha.
I always feel a bit relieved when I see other people struggled with the verbal, too. When people comment that the verbal was "easy," I honestly wonder if they got the same test, because the verbal section I witnessed was utterly cruel. And what's worse is that they put the most difficult passages in the beginning. I answered the questions for the last passage without reading the whole passage because I was running out of time (fortunately, the last passage seemed easy, and I could get the idea the author was trying to get across after just reading the first two paragraphs or so).Hey! First time poster here. I've been following this thread for the last couple weeks so I thought I'd give my thoughts on the test after its been driving me crazy the last few days
I was averaging 37-38 on the AAMCs.
PS- I thought was reasonable aside from that one passage everyone's talking about. Its funny the topic appeared on the WikiPremed lectures and I overlooked it because I figured it wouldn't be covered but low and behold. Some of the questions from the passage were simple retrieval or calculation masked with a lot of extraneous information I felt. The other passages seemed fairly doable although I may have overlooked some concepts while answering question. There was also one other passage that had some pretty weird answer choices as well.
Verbal- Easily my weakest section on the AAMCs and also on this MCAT. The passages were longer but I felt that wasn't the real issue as much as trying to understand what the first two passages were even saying. To make matters worse some of the questions had a few solid answers or in some cases no good ones at all. This was really different than most of the AAMCs where the answer usually jumps out at you. Really don't know what to expect for this section.
BS- Definitely surprised by the orgo heavy section although previous test takers have mentioned this on the forum so it was expected. I felt like the bio passages were easier than AAMC 11 or at least on par whereas the verbal was more challenging but also tested in a different way than the AAMCs. Kicking myself for changing my answers to wrong ones for two questions and overlooking an easy ochem discrete.
Overall, like most of us my feeling about this test goes in waves where I'll feel decent about it and then terrible before I sleep. I wouldnt say our test was easy or much easier than other tests because it doesn't make sense to me that AAMC would do that. The scale may be harsh but I don't think it'll be worse than the AAMcs as others have mentioned.
Hopefully we all get the scores we want and deserve!
I got to the last question with 30 sec left and lost track of time--thus, I certainly missed one. If the verbal wasn't so ridiculous, I'd actually be feeling somewhat good about this test.
