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So we can talk about all things MCAT 2015.
Just registered too!
Just registered too!
The Official June 2015 MCAT Thread
- Thread starter Abraxas305
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Congrats on being done guys! For those of you who took the test this week and studied from Kaplan books/practice tests, do you think the Kaplan Biochem book is sufficient enough to study from for the actual MCAT? Also, was Khan academy/Kaplan good enough for the psych / soc section?
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Personally, I think Kaplan did a great job with the biochem. I hadn't had a course, so I was forced to learn as I went. It's really detailed, but the writers did a great job of letting you know what to focus on and gave some useful tips. I used Khan and Kaplan for the P/S section, but there were a few things on my exam I had never seen. I think the best thing to do is to spread your exposure evenly between resources and use the official guide to make sure you've covered everything.
I'm legit scared I didnt do well but u know what? **** it. This exam wont stop me from becoming a doctor. All it might do is delay the process. This is what I want to pursue with all my heart and this one exam is nothing but a stepping stone.
This post was as much for my own stress relief as it was for anyone else who has struggled with this exam. If this is your passion in life, nothing will stop you from becoming a great physician, whatever path you may take.
This post was as much for my own stress relief as it was for anyone else who has struggled with this exam. If this is your passion in life, nothing will stop you from becoming a great physician, whatever path you may take.
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Preach.
Also, this two week wait is gonna suck
Edit = do we know what day we are supposed to get prelims?
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I did an unofficial hybrid of kaplan and TPR for almost all sections. I think combining the two was definitely good for psych because each one seemed to highlight or focus on topics more than the other, so I got a good breadth of coverage. And on my test today, I didn't see hardly any unfamiliar terms at all (for psych). I didn't use Khan. But disclaimer, I have a master's in clinical psych, so that probably helped too
I would say it's also sufficient for biochem but it does go pretty in depth. It reads like a textbook, whereas the MCAT typically does not ask super detailed questions... Although today I had one that asked about certain products from one step from one of the metabolic cycles. So it's definitely helpful. I did not use TBR, but I have heard good things from others about their biochem material too
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I did an unofficial hybrid of kaplan and TPR for almost all sections. I think combining the two was definitely good for psych because each one seemed to highlight or focus on topics more than the other, so I got a good breadth of coverage. And on my test today, I didn't see hardly any unfamiliar terms at all (for psych). I didn't use Khan. But disclaimer, I have a master's in clinical psych, so that probably helped too
I would say it's also sufficient for biochem but it does go pretty in depth. It reads like a textbook, whereas the MCAT typically does not ask super detailed questions... Although today I had one that asked about certain products from one step from one of the metabolic cycles. So it's definitely helpful. I did not use TBR, but I have heard good things from others about their biochem material too
I got asked about random compounds I've never heard of....
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I keep having nightmares about the orogo passages i had to deal with...
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Me too! Wonder if it's same one. I totally guessed but I think I got it right, according to Google.
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How'd all of you guys have the energy to go post on here after the exam!? I went straight to bed lol. I thought that was pretty rough...trying to stay positive but it's hard.
C/P: I was expecting this section to be REALLY bad, but it actually wasn't too bad. Still difficult, just not nearly as much as I thought it would be. That being said, I still had to make a lot of educated guesses...tbh though I don't even remember this section that much. It's all a blur
CARS: My weakest section on the old MCAT so I'm really hoping for the best here but I'm really not quite sure how I did. I found a lot of questions where there were two good answers and had difficulty choosing the "best" answer...ugh. I finished though so I suppose that's good.
Bio: Difficult passages but easier questions. Felt the most confident in this section by far.
Psyc: No words so this emoji shall do
C/P: I was expecting this section to be REALLY bad, but it actually wasn't too bad. Still difficult, just not nearly as much as I thought it would be. That being said, I still had to make a lot of educated guesses...tbh though I don't even remember this section that much. It's all a blur
CARS: My weakest section on the old MCAT so I'm really hoping for the best here but I'm really not quite sure how I did. I found a lot of questions where there were two good answers and had difficulty choosing the "best" answer...ugh. I finished though so I suppose that's good.
Bio: Difficult passages but easier questions. Felt the most confident in this section by far.
Psyc: No words so this emoji shall do
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Totally forgot to mention: When they were fingerprinting me and whatnot before I went into the testing room, the Prometric lady was like, "Make sure you don't write anything down until the first question pops up." I was like, uhh... Is that a new rule? She said they want to make sure we "pay attention to the tutorial." Wtf. They don't want us to do formula dumps or what? lol. I was nervous to write down formulas after that because I thought they might be watching on the camera or something. Then, every time I took a break (I took every break) and went back in to start the next section, they made sure to blurt out, "Make sure you don't write anything down until the first question pops up." We should be able to do what we want with our pencil and blue paper, shouldn't we?
M
mitrieD
This was a tougher mcat exam.
C/P: There were only like three physics passages. There were some physics subjects that weren't listed as subjects that we would be tested on, which threw me off.
Cars: Caught me by surprise since it was a bit more difficult than I prepared for. The first two passages were oddly the most difficult (and long), which got me kind of worried, but then the rest of the passages weren't so bad. Now that I think about it the passages seemed 1-2 paragraphs longer than I prepared for.
B/B: A lot more biochemistry than I prepared for. Surprised that I had to know that many details on the glycolysis/gluconeogenesis. I definitely guessed on ~5 biochem related problems. The passages were difficult to grasp/understand but the funny thing is the questions did not reflect the passage complexity at all.
P/S: This section threw me off the most. This was one of my best sections during practice. This section had so many terms that I haven't heard of before, so I had to make educated guesses. Though educated guesses in this section is almost useless since terms have specific components tied to them. My practice exams were considerably easier for this section.
C/P: There were only like three physics passages. There were some physics subjects that weren't listed as subjects that we would be tested on, which threw me off.
Cars: Caught me by surprise since it was a bit more difficult than I prepared for. The first two passages were oddly the most difficult (and long), which got me kind of worried, but then the rest of the passages weren't so bad. Now that I think about it the passages seemed 1-2 paragraphs longer than I prepared for.
B/B: A lot more biochemistry than I prepared for. Surprised that I had to know that many details on the glycolysis/gluconeogenesis. I definitely guessed on ~5 biochem related problems. The passages were difficult to grasp/understand but the funny thing is the questions did not reflect the passage complexity at all.
P/S: This section threw me off the most. This was one of my best sections during practice. This section had so many terms that I haven't heard of before, so I had to make educated guesses. Though educated guesses in this section is almost useless since terms have specific components tied to them. My practice exams were considerably easier for this section.
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wow thats really lame. I did a hardcore 10 min memory dump at the beginning. I guess I could've gotten in trouble for that?
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June 20th tester here. Going to give my two cents as thanks for those who shared and came before...ahem.
Physics -- As a disclaimer, this is my weakest section, and I think I didn't do as well here because it was the first section and I panicked a little bit. That said, it was not as bad as you would think. No orgo aside from maybe 1-2 discretres, contrary to yesterday's reports so take from that what you will. Content-wise, it was a good mix of basic physics and gen. chem put in a biochemical context, just like it says on the tin. Maybe a little bit harder than the FL, but very similar. Time was the issue for me here and only ended up with about 4 mins. to spare.
CARS -- usually my strongest section. The reports that this has longer passages is true, yes. But it was still managaeable and the questions ranged from just straight reading from the passage to making an educated guess about what the author meant. A lot of emphasis on analogies, implied messages (x10), and reading between the lines. I finished this section with about 15 minutes to spare and spent that time reviewing everything again.
Bio -- not too shabby. Felt the most representative of the FL to be honest. Know your AAs inside and out (doesn't really have to be said by now), hormone pathways, enzyme kinetics, inducers/activators, gene and protein interactions, etc. Finished with about 15 mins. to spare so took the time to review again.
PSY -- This is Psych in a nutshell:
Oh man. Smacked with the first question and it was one with a guy's name that was nowhere found in the study guide. That's going to be the running theme of this section: stuff that was implied on the study guide and not explicitly stated which leads to educated guesses as your only choice. Be really, really good at using the process of elimination and with a little luck, you should be OK. Otherwise, when the study guide for Psych has those one-line, overarching topics, you'd have to know every little thing about it. Some other questions were straight up definitions, experiment analysis, and study all those stuff from Kohlberg, Piaget, (all those developmental stages) etc. If you memorize everything from the Psych guide, I'd say that puts you at 70% for this section. The other 30% is application and stretching the definition in an inference-type question.
A typical question would ask about a theory/psych vocab then the choices would have 4 names/terms that you can easily distinguish (as in from first look) if you know what you're looking for in an either-you-know-it-or-you-don't fashion. More confusing to me was the sociological questions. They're a lot more vague and have definitions that overlap.
At this point, I honestly think AAMC doesn't really have everything figured out yet in making psych questions especially compared to the other sections that they have mastered already due to being on the old test, so they rely a lot on definitional and rote memorization. Expect that to change after they get enough data and tests out.
Physics -- As a disclaimer, this is my weakest section, and I think I didn't do as well here because it was the first section and I panicked a little bit. That said, it was not as bad as you would think. No orgo aside from maybe 1-2 discretres, contrary to yesterday's reports so take from that what you will. Content-wise, it was a good mix of basic physics and gen. chem put in a biochemical context, just like it says on the tin. Maybe a little bit harder than the FL, but very similar. Time was the issue for me here and only ended up with about 4 mins. to spare.
CARS -- usually my strongest section. The reports that this has longer passages is true, yes. But it was still managaeable and the questions ranged from just straight reading from the passage to making an educated guess about what the author meant. A lot of emphasis on analogies, implied messages (x10), and reading between the lines. I finished this section with about 15 minutes to spare and spent that time reviewing everything again.
Bio -- not too shabby. Felt the most representative of the FL to be honest. Know your AAs inside and out (doesn't really have to be said by now), hormone pathways, enzyme kinetics, inducers/activators, gene and protein interactions, etc. Finished with about 15 mins. to spare so took the time to review again.
PSY -- This is Psych in a nutshell:
Oh man. Smacked with the first question and it was one with a guy's name that was nowhere found in the study guide. That's going to be the running theme of this section: stuff that was implied on the study guide and not explicitly stated which leads to educated guesses as your only choice. Be really, really good at using the process of elimination and with a little luck, you should be OK. Otherwise, when the study guide for Psych has those one-line, overarching topics, you'd have to know every little thing about it. Some other questions were straight up definitions, experiment analysis, and study all those stuff from Kohlberg, Piaget, (all those developmental stages) etc. If you memorize everything from the Psych guide, I'd say that puts you at 70% for this section. The other 30% is application and stretching the definition in an inference-type question.
A typical question would ask about a theory/psych vocab then the choices would have 4 names/terms that you can easily distinguish (as in from first look) if you know what you're looking for in an either-you-know-it-or-you-don't fashion. More confusing to me was the sociological questions. They're a lot more vague and have definitions that overlap.
At this point, I honestly think AAMC doesn't really have everything figured out yet in making psych questions especially compared to the other sections that they have mastered already due to being on the old test, so they rely a lot on definitional and rote memorization. Expect that to change after they get enough data and tests out.
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Wow that sucks, the people at my testing center were so nice and so chill, definitely a big part in lowering my test anxiety that day.
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I have this feeling with my luck I only got the experimental questions right
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I'm sure this has ALREADY been answered but my search was not successful. I was a June19th Test taker in Dallas Tx. So glad that this is over. I hope I did as well as I felt I did. That being said, When will the AAMC release the new median / percentile rankings? I have heard it will be around 500 or so? Slightly more Slightly less?? Thanks guys and girls!
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Three weeks after the test day
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How do we know when the preliminary percentiles are out? Will we get an email or something?
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Go to aamc and they will tell you where to log in to see them. I am pretty sure its through your regular amcas
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Okay I wanted to write my thoughts about the exam:
I didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before, even thought I was in bed at 9:30. I kept going over pathways and random things in my head, but anyways. The morning of was full of excitement and nervousness. I get ready, was so pumped up. Did a CARS passage to get ready and aced it. It was a good feeling. And then I got to the test center and all the doors were locked. So that was fun.. but we finally all got in so that wasn’t too bad.
C/P: I was SUPER nervous starting this exam. I’m a retake from January, and I did not want to do this exam ever again. But after seeing some of the questions on this section, I was like "Hey I know this!" It was so relieving. There were definitely some tricky and hard questions but for the most part I felt pretty good about this section. I felt like it definitely played to my strengths, which was sooo nice. Definitely gave me the confidence I needed for CARS. I didn’t feel too rushed but I think I did have to guess on 1 or 2 questions.
CARS: this section started out amazing. The passages were actually interesting and I thought I did pretty well on them. And then I got the worst passage ever. And I mean ever. It really made me loose my focus. I had to guess on 4 or so questions on this passage because I couldn’t get a grasp of it. The rest of the section was ehhh but we’ll see how that turns out.
Bio/Biochem: I felt really good in this section. There were definitely some hard questions, but overall I think this was my best section. For the most part it played to my strengths.
Psych: HA. I really don’t know how to even explain what happened here. First off, before the section started, I had about 1 minute left in my break so I decided to write down the timing I use per passage so I could know when to go to the next one. The TCA lady walked over to me and was like you can’t write stuff during the break blah blah blah. And that really threw me off my game. Not only was I ridiculously exhausted but the lady coming over made me feel like I was doing something wrong so that sucked. Not to mention that I was getting really excited about being finished so my mind was definitely wandering about which bars I was going to go to after and what not. Also, good god…I was totally not prepared for this section at all. Seriously, someone posted about how psychologist who couldn't get into med school wrote these questions to get back at future doctors, was completely correct. At one point I was just so mentally exhausted and done with this exam that I took like a 3 minute break and just watched the timer go down (I only had 3 more passages and 38 minutes left so I felt it was okay).
All in all, I think I did well enough to apply and I’m definitely hoping for the best. I don’t think that I could take another gap year so I’m going to submit with these scores. This was definitely one of the most difficult things I’ve done. My best advice for people taking this exam in the future is study in time segments that mimic the exam. Start at 8am, go for 95 minutes, then take a 10 min break, 90 mins, 30 min break, 95 min, etc. But then keep going after the last 95 mins. If you practice doing this for 9 or 10 hours a day, the 7 hour exam will not seen bad at all and you’ll crush it. The hardest part of this exam is staying focused for so long. It is definitely more mental than anything else (especially in psych/soc).
For what it's worth I prepared with Berkeley books for everything, psych/soc: TPR and Kaplan. VR: TPR workbook and all AAMC things. When there was only 3 weeks left, I only did AAMC things. Best of luck to everyone. This thread has been amazing. Thank you all for the support!
I didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before, even thought I was in bed at 9:30. I kept going over pathways and random things in my head, but anyways. The morning of was full of excitement and nervousness. I get ready, was so pumped up. Did a CARS passage to get ready and aced it. It was a good feeling. And then I got to the test center and all the doors were locked. So that was fun.. but we finally all got in so that wasn’t too bad.
C/P: I was SUPER nervous starting this exam. I’m a retake from January, and I did not want to do this exam ever again. But after seeing some of the questions on this section, I was like "Hey I know this!" It was so relieving. There were definitely some tricky and hard questions but for the most part I felt pretty good about this section. I felt like it definitely played to my strengths, which was sooo nice. Definitely gave me the confidence I needed for CARS. I didn’t feel too rushed but I think I did have to guess on 1 or 2 questions.
CARS: this section started out amazing. The passages were actually interesting and I thought I did pretty well on them. And then I got the worst passage ever. And I mean ever. It really made me loose my focus. I had to guess on 4 or so questions on this passage because I couldn’t get a grasp of it. The rest of the section was ehhh but we’ll see how that turns out.
Bio/Biochem: I felt really good in this section. There were definitely some hard questions, but overall I think this was my best section. For the most part it played to my strengths
.Psych: HA. I really don’t know how to even explain what happened here. First off, before the section started, I had about 1 minute left in my break so I decided to write down the timing I use per passage so I could know when to go to the next one. The TCA lady walked over to me and was like you can’t write stuff during the break blah blah blah. And that really threw me off my game. Not only was I ridiculously exhausted but the lady coming over made me feel like I was doing something wrong so that sucked. Not to mention that I was getting really excited about being finished so my mind was definitely wandering about which bars I was going to go to after and what not. Also, good god…I was totally not prepared for this section at all. Seriously, someone posted about how psychologist who couldn't get into med school wrote these questions to get back at future doctors, was completely correct. At one point I was just so mentally exhausted and done with this exam that I took like a 3 minute break and just watched the timer go down (I only had 3 more passages and 38 minutes left so I felt it was okay).
All in all, I think I did well enough to apply and I’m definitely hoping for the best. I don’t think that I could take another gap year so I’m going to submit with these scores. This was definitely one of the most difficult things I’ve done. My best advice for people taking this exam in the future is study in time segments that mimic the exam. Start at 8am, go for 95 minutes, then take a 10 min break, 90 mins, 30 min break, 95 min, etc. But then keep going after the last 95 mins. If you practice doing this for 9 or 10 hours a day, the 7 hour exam will not seen bad at all and you’ll crush it. The hardest part of this exam is staying focused for so long. It is definitely more mental than anything else (especially in psych/soc).
For what it's worth I prepared with Berkeley books for everything, psych/soc: TPR and Kaplan. VR: TPR workbook and all AAMC things. When there was only 3 weeks left, I only did AAMC things. Best of luck to everyone. This thread has been amazing. Thank you all for the support!
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If anyone is using Kaplan books to study, make sure you find another book to study psychology from. They did not cover all the terms that AAMC expects. Also, if you did not take biochem yet, make sure you do and make sure you ace that class. I took biochem in the spring and that is the only reason I may have done okay. Biochem is confusing and if you try and learn it from a kaplan book in a few months, it will be tough.
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Woooo, all done. It was not what I was expecting in a lot of ways.
The new highlighting feature was lame. It made things a bit more tedious
I was allowed to take as many notes as I wanted during tutorial, as per the new AAMC guidelines
Chem/Physics: I had a good 4 passages that were just generic science info dumps. Mine also seemed heavy on Electrostatic/Magnetism (1 whole passage!) so that was new and I hadn't hit that up much cause I was focusing on broader physics topics. Nothing I would say I didn't know, but a few times I had to think real hard about what they were getting at. Luckily I didn't have whatever that crazy orgo passage was. Even got a really straightforward solution chem passage.
CARS: Def glad I over-prepared with the Nextstep and Kaplan exams. The AAMC passages seemed much more manageable. the Qs were about the same, maybe the aamc was a bit more tempting in their answers. It def seemed tougher than the Q pack stuff to me.
Bio/Biochem: Lots of biochem (it seemed like there was no orgo, not even the 5% the aamc says should be there) I had lots of bioenergetics stuff, with amino acids a close second. Here the passages were a bit more medically oriented but still, 3 of my passages were dry passages about some organ system or disease. Some of the genetics figures I got were tough to decipher. I would def have liked to have seen more genetics figures/practiced more of those passages.
Psych/Soc: prolly my toughest section. So many of the Q just seemed to randomly ask about a definition or some person's theory. Not much critical thinking to it (just my $0.02). Lots of text only passages, most still were study based, even w/o figures.
Can't wait for scores!
The new highlighting feature was lame. It made things a bit more tedious
I was allowed to take as many notes as I wanted during tutorial, as per the new AAMC guidelines
Chem/Physics: I had a good 4 passages that were just generic science info dumps. Mine also seemed heavy on Electrostatic/Magnetism (1 whole passage!) so that was new and I hadn't hit that up much cause I was focusing on broader physics topics. Nothing I would say I didn't know, but a few times I had to think real hard about what they were getting at. Luckily I didn't have whatever that crazy orgo passage was. Even got a really straightforward solution chem passage.
CARS: Def glad I over-prepared with the Nextstep and Kaplan exams. The AAMC passages seemed much more manageable. the Qs were about the same, maybe the aamc was a bit more tempting in their answers. It def seemed tougher than the Q pack stuff to me.
Bio/Biochem: Lots of biochem (it seemed like there was no orgo, not even the 5% the aamc says should be there) I had lots of bioenergetics stuff, with amino acids a close second. Here the passages were a bit more medically oriented but still, 3 of my passages were dry passages about some organ system or disease. Some of the genetics figures I got were tough to decipher. I would def have liked to have seen more genetics figures/practiced more of those passages.
Psych/Soc: prolly my toughest section. So many of the Q just seemed to randomly ask about a definition or some person's theory. Not much critical thinking to it (just my $0.02). Lots of text only passages, most still were study based, even w/o figures.
Can't wait for scores!
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anyone else curious as to why it takes 2 weeks to get an initial estimate of our percentiles? I understand how getting our official scores can take a while as they have to figure out the curve and scale everything appropriately. But 2 weeks just to tell me i did better than X percent of the other test takers? And it's a 15% range with 90% certainty? Seems like it should be pretty easy to calculate that quickly, and with certainty! 12-19 more days!
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Just wondering, how many of you submitted or will be submitting before the scores come in?
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I'm sure you did better than you thought. Those TPR/Kaplan tests are meant to throw you off. Many people in April/May who had your score range seemingly did very well.
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Hey June MCATers, seems like the psych/soc section was rough for you guys how helpful were the Khan videos in your preparation? I was going to print out the psych terms we need to know for the Mcat, but were all(most) of those terms covered in the videos for the most part?
how helpful were the Khan videos in your preparation? I was going to print out the psych terms we need to know for the Mcat, but were all(most) of those terms covered in the videos for the most part?- Joined
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Hey June MCATers, seems like the psych/soc section was rough for you guys
Videos were good, but if you can, I would supplement the Khan videos with the TPR psych book. It helped me the most! After my exam yesterday I went through the book and realized a lot of the terms I had trouble with were actually in there. Should've gone through it more thoroughly
Hey June MCATers, seems like the psych/soc section was rough for you guys
It wasn't that rough for all of us, just some of us who clearly got a different exam yesterday.
I would suggest reading the Kaplan and TPR books, and after that, go through the AAMC content outline for PSY/SOC and highlight whatever wasn't covered by TPR/Kaplan, and anything that didn't stick. Then just go watch the respective Khan vids.
Good luck!
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If it comforts anyone who is reading this, I've known people who have entered medical school in their late 20s/early 30s and frankly "killed" it.
I also know people who studied for the MCAT for over a year and took it more than 4-5 times in order to get a competitive score. They all turned out fine.
That's the beauty of America, you can decide to revisit the idea of medical school if you're a few years or a decade or more out of undergrad.
I remember being told by a MCAT tutor that he had a student who had 4 scores within the range of 16-24. On the 5th attempt with the help of the tutoring, the student scored a 32 and matriculated into a low tier MD school in their late 20s.
Anything is possible.
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I was pretty much underprepared for this exam, i studied circulatory,respiratory,lymphatic and immune systems and physics( 1 hour) on friday then i scrolled through muscular, skeletal, digestive, and urinary. I went to bed at 9.30. woke up at 1, couldnt go to bed until 4. my brain kept going over the things i studied the night before- i was resisting the urge to study. I woke up at 6. I felt like i could hear my neurons firing. On saturday morning, i sough of went through psych and biochem again, plus physics formulas i wanted to remember- all under 30 minutes. It was really hard to focus on the screen. Well, My best was Chem, I could do all the physics calculations, so that was a plus. Bio-too much experiments that i couldnt even understand, plus i was really pressed-bathroom wise, so i was very uncomfortable. i ran out of time and i have a bad feeling im going to do below 50th percentile. Verbal- same . i was 5 minutes lates, and then a full 10 minutes late- thats a whole passage. so when it was 9 minutes left, i had 2 passages left, so i scrolled through them. thank God, it wasnt too bad, i was familiar with the topics of the passages. Psych like everyone said was horrible, too much experiment concepts. Yh difficult to chose the correct answer from two that were narrowed down. Anyways i hope for the best. I have a 3.79 gpa.
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Yea, honestly, I've thought about it, and DAMN, I am so happy to be American! My parents are from India, and you don't get second chances there. If you don't kill your exams by age 18 there, your life is done. I fortunately was able to THOROUGHLY enjoy my undergraduate experience (paying the price for it now though, lol), and I still have a shot at following my passion.
'MURICA.
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- Reaction score
- 16
I took the June 19th MCAT.
Seems like people are worried about the behavioral section. I personally found it the easiest part of the test. Finished with 35 mins remaining, went back through it 2 more times. Nothing was completely unseen on the section. As a reference I had very little pysc/soc experience before studying. I got a 88% on the practice AAMC test and dont think it was much more difficult. Admittedly there were plenty of terms i havent seen in that context before but you just look at the other choices and you can easily use process of elimination and deduce what they meant.
The way I studied for this section was i first went through all of khan (expect the bio parts), then i read all of the kaplan book(khan is a better resource then the kaplan or TPR in my opinion). Then i went through all of khan and kaplan one more time focusing on topics I had difficulty understanding. I also used the content list and Wiki-ed a lot along the way. I definitely caught a couple terms that weren't mentioned on Kap or Khan but I saw on Wiki. Overall if you give yourself some time and systematically go through the content list i think you will do fine. Just my personal experience though.
Seems like people are worried about the behavioral section. I personally found it the easiest part of the test. Finished with 35 mins remaining, went back through it 2 more times. Nothing was completely unseen on the section. As a reference I had very little pysc/soc experience before studying. I got a 88% on the practice AAMC test and dont think it was much more difficult. Admittedly there were plenty of terms i havent seen in that context before but you just look at the other choices and you can easily use process of elimination and deduce what they meant.
The way I studied for this section was i first went through all of khan (expect the bio parts), then i read all of the kaplan book(khan is a better resource then the kaplan or TPR in my opinion). Then i went through all of khan and kaplan one more time focusing on topics I had difficulty understanding. I also used the content list and Wiki-ed a lot along the way. I definitely caught a couple terms that weren't mentioned on Kap or Khan but I saw on Wiki. Overall if you give yourself some time and systematically go through the content list i think you will do fine. Just my personal experience though.
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2014
- Messages
- 59
- Reaction score
- 35
Thanks. Yea I've been using Kaplan. Is TPR better Kaplan? Should I get the TPR book?
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2011
- Messages
- 2,566
- Reaction score
- 788
I admit reading the TPR psych book can be interesting at times. I've gone "oh cool" a few times ahah.
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2011
- Messages
- 2,566
- Reaction score
- 788
At least DO schools take grade replacement. One of my friends' GPA jumped up a ton with retakes.
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2011
- Messages
- 2,566
- Reaction score
- 788
I remember for the old MCAT, I thought of a certain question for an exam I voided earlier that afternoon while playing basketball. Realized I spent about 2 minutes on the question and then realized at night it was a quick 1,2,3 question for me, the nerves just told me it wasn't that simple. Needless to say, post MCAT thoughts can be tricky.
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2015
- Messages
- 151
- Reaction score
- 45
same as me. yes 125+ is 500 and over.Chem/Physics was the easiest.
CARS went okay... hopefully, I wanted to change some answers after rethinking them, but ran out of time finishing the test
Biology I felt was my worst section, which is disappointing, because everyone thinks it was easy. I can see myself missing ~15 on this one, due to some bad 50/50 guesses.
Psych, I felt like went slightly below average, but I think it will turn out well.
Overall, I just hope one section isn't too low that I have to retake. Fingers crossed. Hope you all did well.
Would you guys say a 124 is retake status?
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2015
- Messages
- 8
- Reaction score
- 11
What's up everyone, I'd like to share my experience on the MCAT yesterday since all of you have been so open, friendly, and gave me lots of advice which I utilized.
Chemistry/Physics: I thought this section went very well. I'm normally rubbish at Physics but the Physics there was mostly calculations which I knew how to do. There were a lot of calculations so you had to be quick and efficient. Usually this is my worst section for some reason (Even though I am a chem major and have an overall GPA of 3.77 and science GPA of 3.75) but I think this was hand down my best section. I'd approximate that I got about a 130-131 on this. Finished with 3 mins to check my marked answers. (76% on official AAMC practice test)
CARS: I thought this was very difficult. It started out rough and I thought it'd get easier but it didn't lol. Passages were much much longer that what I expected. I finished in exactly enough time. Oh well, I'm hoping for at least a 125 here and would be very disappointed with anything less. (75% sample test)
Biology/Biochemistry: This section started off a bit rough, maybe because I still had a hangover from that CARS section which hurt me a bit. I marked a few questions at the beginning and then came back at the end and answered them with ease. Anyways, I grew into this section and think I did well on it. I know for sure that I got at least 2 wrong but overall it wasn't hard. I finished with about 4 mins to review my marked answers and other questions. I normally do well on this section so I'm not expecting anything less than a 127-129. (78% sample test)
Psychology/Sociology: So to be honest I don't know what all the fuss is about with this section. I took Psychology and Sociology a year ago and did lots of review in these last 5 weeks but didn't think this section was as bad as people are making it out to be. I will say that in the last 4o mins I was dying to piss so that was on my mind alot. I thought there were a few terms I hadn't seen before but not that many. This section really was not that bad to me. Stop scaring everyone else guys!lol I'd say that I got about a 128-130 on this section. (83% sample test)
Now, overall I think this was definitely a fair exam. It was not as bad as I thought it'd be when my friend took the June 2nd one and scared the hell out of me. I'd say that made me study more and work harder. I'd say that my total score is probably about a 510-515 which I'd be very satisfied with. There's nothing worse than thinking you didn't give it your all and leave everything on that exam bcuz I honestly have zero energy to take this again. I tried my best and put everything I had into it so I am happy and won't retake it whatever the score but won't think I'll have to.
My advice: Make sure that you try your best and work very hard. There are no shortcuts for an exam like this unless you are an absolute genius. I used only Kaplan for every section and would say that it was very helpful. However there are several good test prep companies books to use....to each his own. I started studying in December of last year but only really went hardcore in this last 5 weeks once I got out of uni for summer break. I didn't study that much during the school year because I needed to get a 4.0 after doing poorly by my high standards (3.4) the semester before. Also, I was doing poorly on the Kaplan MCATs (495-498 on the last 3 I took) for some reason but would say that the real thing is much easier (though not an easy exam by any means).
Good luck to all of my fellow physicians!
Chemistry/Physics: I thought this section went very well. I'm normally rubbish at Physics but the Physics there was mostly calculations which I knew how to do. There were a lot of calculations so you had to be quick and efficient. Usually this is my worst section for some reason (Even though I am a chem major and have an overall GPA of 3.77 and science GPA of 3.75) but I think this was hand down my best section. I'd approximate that I got about a 130-131 on this. Finished with 3 mins to check my marked answers. (76% on official AAMC practice test)
CARS: I thought this was very difficult. It started out rough and I thought it'd get easier but it didn't lol. Passages were much much longer that what I expected. I finished in exactly enough time. Oh well, I'm hoping for at least a 125 here and would be very disappointed with anything less. (75% sample test)
Biology/Biochemistry: This section started off a bit rough, maybe because I still had a hangover from that CARS section which hurt me a bit. I marked a few questions at the beginning and then came back at the end and answered them with ease. Anyways, I grew into this section and think I did well on it. I know for sure that I got at least 2 wrong but overall it wasn't hard. I finished with about 4 mins to review my marked answers and other questions. I normally do well on this section so I'm not expecting anything less than a 127-129. (78% sample test)
Psychology/Sociology: So to be honest I don't know what all the fuss is about with this section. I took Psychology and Sociology a year ago and did lots of review in these last 5 weeks but didn't think this section was as bad as people are making it out to be. I will say that in the last 4o mins I was dying to piss so that was on my mind alot. I thought there were a few terms I hadn't seen before but not that many. This section really was not that bad to me. Stop scaring everyone else guys!lol I'd say that I got about a 128-130 on this section. (83% sample test)
Now, overall I think this was definitely a fair exam. It was not as bad as I thought it'd be when my friend took the June 2nd one and scared the hell out of me. I'd say that made me study more and work harder. I'd say that my total score is probably about a 510-515 which I'd be very satisfied with. There's nothing worse than thinking you didn't give it your all and leave everything on that exam bcuz I honestly have zero energy to take this again. I tried my best and put everything I had into it so I am happy and won't retake it whatever the score but won't think I'll have to.
My advice: Make sure that you try your best and work very hard. There are no shortcuts for an exam like this unless you are an absolute genius. I used only Kaplan for every section and would say that it was very helpful. However there are several good test prep companies books to use....to each his own. I started studying in December of last year but only really went hardcore in this last 5 weeks once I got out of uni for summer break. I didn't study that much during the school year because I needed to get a 4.0 after doing poorly by my high standards (3.4) the semester before. Also, I was doing poorly on the Kaplan MCATs (495-498 on the last 3 I took) for some reason but would say that the real thing is much easier (though not an easy exam by any means).
Good luck to all of my fellow physicians!
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2014
- Messages
- 279
- Reaction score
- 89
I think there were two different exams administered! One with a tough psyc/socl section and another with a tough CARS section. I got a 85% on the psyc section on the AAMC sample test, but the psyc on my actual MCAT was much much harder. I'd be surprised if I got a 50% tbh...
