The Official MCAT® Self-Assessment

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jon stewart

jon stewart

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Anyone know if the questions in this assessment are all new and NOT in the aaamc practice exams or the official guide to the mcat?
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jon stewart said:
Anyone know if the questions in this assessment are all new and NOT in the aaamc practice exams or the official guide to the mcat?
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They are not on any of the AAMC practice exams.

They are from old ones or from retired exams.

It's a good collection of problems and worth the cost if you can afford it.

(Can only take the test once though)
 
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jon stewart said:
Thx for the reply!!

Do u know if it's timed or not?
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Not timed and you can take as long as you want and pause as many times as you want. But you should really try to do it straight up to condition yourself under stress.
 
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SamyLSF said:
They are not on any of the AAMC practice exams.

They are from old ones or from retired exams.

It's a good collection of problems and worth the cost if you can afford it.

(Can only take the test once though)
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so if you just get the first package ( with ONLY the assessments)

Physical Sciences Self-Assessment: 213 questions
Biological Sciences Self-Assessment: 208 questions
Verbal Reasoning Self-Assessment: 120 questions


you can only take each assessment once? and its not timed?
 
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jon stewart said:
so if you just get the first package ( with ONLY the assessments)

Physical Sciences Self-Assessment: 213 questions
Biological Sciences Self-Assessment: 208 questions
Verbal Reasoning Self-Assessment: 120 questions


you can only take each assessment once? and its not timed?
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the reason why they only let you take it once is because it calculates your data and uses it to show where you stand in relation to others. If you take it twice youl probably get everything right. Its not timed, just do them all and read every single answer once your done (even for the ones you get right)

There's only so many ways you can ask the same question. So this practice is good.
 
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SamyLSF said:
the reason why they only let you take it once is because it calculates your data and uses it to show where you stand in relation to others. If you take it twice youl probably get everything right. Its not timed, just do them all and read every single answer once your done (even for the ones you get right)

There's only so many ways you can ask the same question. So this practice is good.
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ahh i see. Makes sense! So i watched some of those vids....some take it at the end of the prep as a final review sort of deal...what do you guys think of that?

use it as a pretest or use it as a final review sort of deal?
 
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Wait, can I review \the answers as many times as possible? and When I review is it possible for it to NOT show the answer without me clicking the check mark like in the AAMC. ?
 
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jon stewart said:
ahh i see. Makes sense! So i watched some of those vids....some take it at the end of the prep as a final review sort of deal...what do you guys think of that?

use it as a pretest or use it as a final review sort of deal?
Click to expand...
Considering this thing only came out less than a week ago I'd imagine the people using it as a final review are mainly doing so because there's really no other option for them.

From what I understand this thing is supposed to tell you where your weak and strong points are, right? So I'd imagine it would be best used shortly after finishing your content review, so that that way you know where to focus and which areas you can safely ignore (or put as least priority).

Also, since this thread is what made me aware that the assessment package finally went on sale, I just looked it up on e-mcat and I'm a bit peeved right now at the fact that they bundle it with the official m-cat guide but only if you get test 4. Figures they'd only bundle the test that people are most likely to have already bought, and make it so that the only way to get the guide for less than $30 is to buy it with said test. For some reason though they offer the test 4 + assessment bundle, but no assessment + guide bundle.
 
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Being that it is an assessment they probably think that those who are interested in buying it have thought about buying or bought the official guide long before they consider buying the assessment because the assessment is to be done after content review.

And people that want to buy the assessment should be done with content review and starting practice exams. This might be why they bundle it like that.
 
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This sounds legit. Has anyone been through it yet? Is it harder/easier than the already published AAMC?
 
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Can't decide if it's worth attempting before the June 21st MCAT.... Might be useful for some last minute adjustments, but probably not. Any other June 21ers considering giving it a go?
 
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Think I'm going to get this, but do you have to complete all 200+ questions in one sitting or can you spread it out over a couple days?
 
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cwrig14 said:
Can't decide if it's worth attempting before the June 21st MCAT.... Might be useful for some last minute adjustments, but probably not. Any other June 21ers considering giving it a go?
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why would you not do it? Its aamc material...

and yeah you can complete in and take breaks etc =]
 
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I believe someone said that you can spread it out.

For anyone that has finished it- do they provide explanations for all of the Q's? What's included in the feedback after you finish it?
 
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cwrig14 said:
Can't decide if it's worth attempting before the June 21st MCAT.... Might be useful for some last minute adjustments, but probably not. Any other June 21ers considering giving it a go?
Click to expand...

I'm taking the 6/21 test and I think I'm gonna go ahead and get the BS assessment, I mean its great practice in between FL and I only have 1 FL left to take so maybe it'll pin point a certain weakness in an area?
 
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Yeah that's true.. I still have 2 aamc practice tests left, 10 & 11, and 5 days total. I think this could very well be worth the money.
Whoever does try it out let us know how it goes
 
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For those who have purchased it, can you comment on how close they are to the latest AAMCs?

I was planning on only purchasing the VR section and taking those, but if the PS and BS are indeed stimulating like the newer AAMC's I might consider it.

Any thoughts for those who've dived into it?
 
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Are the questions from exam 6 by any chance? Or just questions from mcats that have been published?? Can it be bought online and get access instantly or is it a mail order thing?
 
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Can someone who has purchased this please comment?

I am taking the July 6th MCAT and I am weak in some content. Worth the $105? What kind of analytics does it provide at the end?
 
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So I just did the biology assessment and here's my impressions so far:

- The test is basically a giant subject-specific MCAT. The biology test has 22 passages and a bunch of discretes, although the passages usually don't have as many questions as a normal passage would which is likely due to the fact that AAMC cut out a few questions from each passage. Still, you get 128 questions in the biology test which is a nice amount of practice (IIRC the other tests are roughly the same length, although orgo is shorter than the rest).

- Most of the questions are pretty easy, by the test's own admission (it ranks questions as easy, moderate, and hard and tells which ones were which at the end). A fair number are moderate. Very, very few are hard.

- While you do get results at the end which are much more detailed than the practice tests' end of test results, they still suffer from the same issues of category vagueness that the questions on the practice tests do. For example, a question may ask you something about vertebrates and yet be labeled a microbiology question. So it's dubious how accurate the content categories are, and on top of that some categories don't have very many questions which makes it impossible to tell if your low (or high) percentage correct in that area is due to your knowledge or due to getting one or two fluke questions right/wrong (although thankfully the test does point these areas out explicitly so you know to take their results with caution). On the flip side, the fact that AAMC couldn't even get enough questions for an accurate assessment in those areas probably says something about how likely they are to show up on the actual test.

- The assessment does report your percentage correct compared to the percentage correct that the average test taker would have. While this does give you some indication of where you stand, you have to remember that it's comparing you to the average test taker; ie the guy who gets a 25 CS score. So if you're a typical SDNer and shooting for a 35+ this doesn't really help you out too much. For example, I got 91% correct on my biology assessment and have no idea if I should be pleased with that or not. Obviously it's much better than the average 66% correct, but I don't know if that 91% puts me in the 10-11 range or the 12-13 range or what.

So right now I can't say how useful these assessments will be for people. I'll see what happens when I take the other tests. I think I am weaker in physics and gen chem and have some weak spots there, so hopefully these tests will tell me where to focus my studying although after doing the bio test I'm not getting my hopes up.
 
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OCDOCDOCD said:
So I just did the biology assessment and here's my impressions so far:

- The test is basically a giant subject-specific MCAT. The biology test has 22 passages and a bunch of discretes, although the passages usually don't have as many questions as a normal passage would which is likely due to the fact that AAMC cut out a few questions from each passage. Still, you get 128 questions in the biology test which is a nice amount of practice (IIRC the other tests are roughly the same length, although orgo is shorter than the rest).

- Most of the questions are pretty easy, by the test's own admission (it ranks questions as easy, moderate, and hard and tells which ones were which at the end). A fair number are moderate. Very, very few are hard.

- While you do get results at the end which are much more detailed than the practice tests' end of test results, they still suffer from the same issues of category vagueness that the questions on the practice tests do. For example, a question may ask you something about vertebrates and yet be labeled a microbiology question. So it's dubious how accurate the content categories are, and on top of that some categories don't have very many questions which makes it impossible to tell if your low (or high) percentage correct in that area is due to your knowledge or due to getting one or two fluke questions right/wrong (although thankfully the test does point these areas out explicitly so you know to take their results with caution). On the flip side, the fact that AAMC couldn't even get enough questions for an accurate assessment in those areas probably says something about how likely they are to show up on the actual test.

- The assessment does report your percentage correct compared to the percentage correct that the average test taker would have. While this does give you some indication of where you stand, you have to remember that it's comparing you to the average test taker; ie the guy who gets a 25 CS score. So if you're a typical SDNer and shooting for a 35+ this doesn't really help you out too much. For example, I got 91% correct on my biology assessment and have no idea if I should be pleased with that or not. Obviously it's much better than the average 66% correct, but I don't know if that 91% puts me in the 10-11 range or the 12-13 range or what.

So right now I can't say how useful these assessments will be for people. I'll see what happens when I take the other tests. I think I am weaker in physics and gen chem and have some weak spots there, so hopefully these tests will tell me where to focus my studying although after doing the bio test I'm not getting my hopes up.
Click to expand...

Let me know how the Physics and GChem ones go! Those are the ones I am most interested in. 91% sounds pretty damn good to me! :) When are you taking them?
 
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The Gen Chem I feel is very good so far ( haven't finished yet). It's great practice and it will give you a great idea of what you need improvement on. The Bio also seems good so far. Some passages are easier than others. I'll keep you posted on physics and orgo!
 
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Do you get explanations for every answer at the end like AAMC tests or just a percentage and topic breakdown?
 
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Bump!

Can someone give me advice on whether or not to get this? I am really, really broke at the moment and I don't want to shell out $100 if it isn't worth it. Do you get answer explanations for every question?

My test is 7/6
 
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gumbyj said:
Do you get explanations for every answer at the end like AAMC tests or just a percentage and topic breakdown?
Click to expand...

Yes, you get explanations for every answer at the end just like the AAMC tests. Like I said before, the assessments are basically just giant subject-specific AAMC practice tests with no time limit. If you get the whole set of assessments you're getting something like 500 AAMC practice questions and probably around 70-80 passages.

itsalwayslupus said:
Let me know how the Physics and GChem ones go! Those are the ones I am most interested in. 91% sounds pretty damn good to me! :) When are you taking them?
Click to expand...

I just finished reviewing the Gen Chem assessment. Again, the labeling for some of the questions seems pretty dubious to me so I'm still not sure how helpful the content labels are, but it looks like AAMC labels them according to the study guide they put out on their site so I'm giving them the benefit of a doubt. There's also far more many easy questions than moderate of which there are in turn many more moderate questions than hard questions. That said, looking at my completed practice tests the same is true on them as well, so it seems there's validity to that after all.

Anyway, on gen chem I got 84% correct. I think the most helpful thing in this assessment though came from trying to find a pattern. What I found was that I missed something in every content area (unlike bio where most of my areas were 100%), and that bizarrely I had a better %correct with the hard questions than the moderate questions. Looking at the "cognitive skills performance" tab, I found that I'm very strong in quantitative analysis (100%) but have a glaring weakness in "evaluation processes" (whatever that means) wherein I scored 58% correct which is 2% below the average test taker. So from looking at all of that the conclusion I'm leaning towards is that my content knowledge in gen chem is actually pretty solid and my real problem has to do with answering certain types of questions. Now if I can just figure out what that problem is and how to fix it I'll be golden :laugh: Granted the assessment does link you to AAMC's description of each cognitive skill area, but after reading the description I still don't know how it differs from any of the other question types.

I'll see how physics goes tonight.
 
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Can someone tell me, is it possible to review the package after I complete it, without it SHOWING the answers? I like to try and solve questions I got wrong, before giving up and usuing the solution
 
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nabilesmail said:
Can someone tell me, is it possible to review the package after I complete it, without it SHOWING the answers? I like to try and solve questions I got wrong, before giving up and usuing the solution
Click to expand...

I'll let you know tonight, but probably not. I assume it is the standard MCAT review portal.

I am doing the Biology one now, and while I agree it seems a tad easy compared to AAMCs it is awesome for just getting a sh*tload of practice questions from the AAMC. Great practice!
 
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Anyone want to share their scores from this? I'm 3/5 done now and am looking for comparison.. since it doesn't tell you where it would rank out of the normal scale, its kind of hard to gauge anything from this.

Physics (weakest)- 77%
Chem (2nd weakest)- 87%
Orgo (2nd strongest)- 90%

Will take Bio and Verbal tomorrow. As for practice AAMCs, I'm a little all over the place right now because I only took a few and am getting used to the CBT testing.. but 35-37 for the most part. Going to take another AAMC on Thursday.
 
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Bio - 91%
Orgo - 85%
Gen Chem - 84%
Physics - 82%

Haven't done verbal yet. FWIW my AAMC average is 33, average bio score is 12, average physics score is 11 (two 10s, two 12s). Just for the hell of it I took the weighted percentage of each section and multiplied it by 52 and compared the product to AAMC 10's scale (so for BS I did [(91*3)+85]/400 times 52). I found that in every case my assessment percentages match up perfectly to what I typically get in the practice test sections. So apparently % correct on assessment = % correct on practice tests, at least in my case.

I think the real value of these assessments is in showing where you're relatively weakest. For example, I have no subjects I'm explicitly weak in according to the assessments; I'm above average in all areas. However, there are some areas where I'm only barely above average and then there are areas where I was 100% in. So going with that, the areas where I'm barely above average would be my weak areas whereas the ones I did best in can be put on the back-burner. Conveniently, your assessment results are reported in order from best to worst so it's easy to see what you need to work on and in what order.

Another thing that's nice is that these assessments let you see how you do on types of questions. For example, I seem to do well on everything but "evaluative process" questions which I'm disproportionately weak on in every science. Unfortunately, the only way that AAMC suggests you practice those areas is by customizing a practice test to give you only questions from that cognitive skill type which means you either make due with questions you've done before, or you waste a practice test attacking that one skill.
 
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Several people have commented on the science sections for the self assessment package, I was wondering what opinions there are about verbal?

Also, are these sections timed at all or can you choose not to time it?
 
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premed767 said:
Several people have commented on the science sections for the self assessment package, I was wondering what opinions there are about verbal?

Also, are these sections timed at all or can you choose not to time it?
Click to expand...

Haven't done the verbal yet but the sections aren't timed so you can take as long as you want to complete. For example it took me 2 days to complete the physics one because I paused it after doing roughly 60 questions and came back to it the following day.
 
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A few questions about the MCAT Self-Assessment:

1- I have a paper version of AAMC 6; should I not use it if I plan on using the Self-Assessment?

2- In order to complete the Self-Assessment I may need to sacrifice doing two of the AAMC FLs (which would probably be AAMCs 3 and 4 or 6 depending on the response to question 1). Is the Self-Assessment worth the trade-off for two AAMCs (while considering that I would have time to do all the other AAMCs) since the Self-Assessment specifically identifies your weak spots?

3- For those few that have already used it for BS, PS, and Verbal- for which (BS, PS, or Verbal) is the Self-Assessment most
useful/least useful?
 
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Does anyone know if the Self Assessment is an exact collection of AAMC 1, 2 and 6? Are there any original questions not seen in these three exams?

Also, I see a lot of people are saying the sciences are somewhat easier than the AAMC practice tests, is Verbal pretty reflective, or is that easier as well?
 
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Verbal seems more reflective than any other source other than AAMC's. That is for sure, even if it might be a bit easier (not sure)
 
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Does anyone have the correct answers to the self-assessment verbal passages? My MCAT is next week and I am doing these passages for practice. I do not have time to complete all the passages and I do not want to end the self-assessment test before I finish all the passages (because you only get one try).


THANKS :)
 
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Yes, but you can click restart on paper and it should let you fill in the answers though it won't let you download the pdf. Then I can just send you the PDF
 
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Just bought all of these this past weekend and am using them as final prep for the July 6th test since I've taken all of the full lengths already.

Bio- 94%
Gen chem- 92%
Physics- 88%

Starting verbal tonight and probly will finish tomorrow. Overall, I think these have been helpful for honing in on which content areas are weakest. Also, like someone else mentioned, it is useful to see that there are far fewer questions available from certain content areas which means that studying other areas will help you get more out of your time.
 
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Backflip72 said:
Just bought all of these this past weekend and am using them as final prep for the July 6th test since I've taken all of the full lengths already.

Bio- 94%
Gen chem- 92%
Physics- 88%

Starting verbal tonight and probly will finish tomorrow. Overall, I think these have been helpful for honing in on which content areas are weakest. Also, like someone else mentioned, it is useful to see that there are far fewer questions available from certain content areas which means that studying other areas will help you get more out of your time.
Click to expand...

Wow great job, how have your FL scores been?
 
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Btw in Physics, anyone else feel like They have no clue why some answers are physically correct even when reading the explanations, but the answer just sounded right lol.

I'm pretty bad at understanding the experiments and how they work (usually), but for the most part can choose the answer that makes sense=relevent to the experiment
 
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