The official MCAT May 20th 2016

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sofpink

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Just wondering if anyone else will be taking the MCAT on May 20 2016. I would like some support, input, and help on your MCAT strategies I am only studying 2 hours a day for the MCAT, as I am taking a full load semester. Anyone else in this track?

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I will never understand why some of the people on here feel the need to be overdramatic with comments like "oh my God. that was SO BRUTAL!"
Only to follow them up with "at the very least, I feel like I got between a 515-520...which is within the range of what I was getting on my practice tests."

**** you.
 
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Am I the only one who is kinda lost right now? Like ever since finals week I've been pushing and studying nonstop. Now classes are over and MCAT is done. I don't know what to do with my life lol
 
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Really late reply here, but I've been out of town for a bit.

My general thoughts on the 20th test:
C/P: This is my strongest section in general. My best subjects are chemistry, organic, and physics. I usually do very well on all practice sections of C/P, but I definitely felt that this C/P section was very challenging compared to the practices tests I've taken. I still hopefully did well (fingers crossed), but it was definitely harder than any C/P section I'd practiced.
CARS: I felt as though this was easy at first, but got harder, but maybe that was just me psyching myself out because I was a little behind on time, so I tried to rush near the end. There were a couple of passages in the middle that I got too bogged down on bc a couple of questions kept bothering me so I stayed on them too long. Overall, an average-ish CARS section.
B/B: The B/B on my test was very easy in my opinion. A couple of discretes messed me up, but the passages were generally easy to understand and it wasn't too bad. Overall, an easy bio section.
P/S: HOLY COW. This section was a slaughterhouse. Misguided and overconfident coming out of a successful bio section, I expected to cruise through the P/S section as I usually did pretty well on this section. Boy, was I wrong. This section was hard, ambiguous, answer choices were very similar so it was hard to pick, it was NOTHING like the practice tests I'd practiced, and it was overall a completely different beast than what I had prepared to slay. Overall, this section railed me.

I chose to score my exam, so there's not much left to do except pray that the curve is in our favor.

There is a curve?


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There is a curve?
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Yes and no... The scores are based on percentiles, not directly on the number of questions correct, so it's possible to miss more questions on a difficult exam and get the same score as a person with a greater number of correct answers on an easier exam.
 
Really late reply here, but I've been out of town for a bit.

My general thoughts on the 20th test:
C/P: This is my strongest section in general. My best subjects are chemistry, organic, and physics. I usually do very well on all practice sections of C/P, but I definitely felt that this C/P section was very challenging compared to the practices tests I've taken. I still hopefully did well (fingers crossed), but it was definitely harder than any C/P section I'd practiced.
CARS: I felt as though this was easy at first, but got harder, but maybe that was just me psyching myself out because I was a little behind on time, so I tried to rush near the end. There were a couple of passages in the middle that I got too bogged down on bc a couple of questions kept bothering me so I stayed on them too long. Overall, an average-ish CARS section.
B/B: The B/B on my test was very easy in my opinion. A couple of discretes messed me up, but the passages were generally easy to understand and it wasn't too bad. Overall, an easy bio section.
P/S: HOLY COW. This section was a slaughterhouse. Misguided and overconfident coming out of a successful bio section, I expected to cruise through the P/S section as I usually did pretty well on this section. Boy, was I wrong. This section was hard, ambiguous, answer choices were very similar so it was hard to pick, it was NOTHING like the practice tests I'd practiced, and it was overall a completely different beast than what I had prepared to slay. Overall, this section railed me.

I chose to score my exam, so there's not much left to do except pray that the curve is in our favor.

May the curve be ever in our favor.

(Sorry, had to.)
 
For my people out there struggling/worrying about B/B.. Seriously consider getting Lehninger's Biochem textbook. I remember thinking to myself in the middle of the section how ridiculously hard the Biochem portion of the test is for people with a weak background in biochem. I'm sure khan academy and everything else are alright, but Lehninger's book that I used in my classes was a huge help.

But at the end of the day... We're done. So who wants to worry about studying or buying textbooks? Have a nice summer, everyone.
 
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Well for starters avoid the Green Lantern and Dead Pool and the Avengers 1 and 2 are a great start!


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I actually do remember seeing Green Lantern. It was cool. Was supposed to see Deadpool on a movie date, but he cancelled on me then kinda broke things off so I kinda have bad memories/vibes from that movie so don't want to watch it Lol.

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I actually do remember seeing Green Lantern. It was cool. Was supposed to see Deadpool on a movie date, but he cancelled on me then kinda broke things off so I kinda have bad memories/vibes from that movie so don't want to watch it Lol.

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Oh man you can't let that ruin deadpool for you. Easily one of the best movies I've ever seen.
 
I actually do remember seeing Green Lantern. It was cool. Was supposed to see Deadpool on a movie date, but he cancelled on me then kinda broke things off so I kinda have bad memories/vibes from that movie so don't want to watch it Lol.

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Excuse me green lantern was cool?
We are talking about the Ryan Reynolds green lantern right? Anyways you have to watch superman vs. batman.


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I actually do remember seeing Green Lantern. It was cool. Was supposed to see Deadpool on a movie date, but he cancelled on me then kinda broke things off so I kinda have bad memories/vibes from that movie so don't want to watch it Lol.

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Oh man you can't let that ruin deadpool for you. Easily one of the best movies I've ever seen.

Deadpool actually really was great, and I don't even really care about superhero or action movies. However, I totally get having bad vibes associated with shows/movies because of boys. I've straight up quit several tv series before following breakups when they were "our" shows.
 
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@Formation I've decided you're my spirit animal lol....in my post-MCAT insomnia last night I read the whole 5/14 MCAT thread. I saw where you posted the question about the source material. I thought that was my best kept secret strategy! I learned after a couple convulated TPR CARS passages to look at the source material author and title to help frame the passage....it totally helped me!
 
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Deadpool actually really was great, and I don't even really care about superhero or action movies. However, I totally get having bad vibes associated with shows/movies because of boys. I've straight up quit several tv series before following breakups when they were "our" shows.
Yes!! Had to stop watching Sense8 because of a guy. Sigh...oh well. Also, woah I never thought about looking at source information.
 
@Formation I've decided you're my spirit animal lol....in my post-MCAT insomnia last night I read the whole 5/14 MCAT thread. I saw where you posted the question about the source material. I thought that was my best kept secret strategy! I learned after a couple convulated TPR CARS passages to look at the source material author and title to help frame the passage....it totally helped me!
Hahaha I thought I was the only one too.

Especially because these passages are often random excerpts from larger works and rarely have any real conclusions, seeing the title and the publication source really does help to put it in context. Especially useful for the Main Idea questions.
 
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Hahaha I thought I was the only one too.

Especially because these passages are often random excerpts from larger works and rarely have any real conclusions, seeing the title and the publication source really does help to put it in context. Especially useful for the Main Idea questions.
oooooo im gonna start doing that!!
 
I can't sleep thinking about questions I guessed on and thought I'd post one last thing that really pissed me off about that test. For the B/B section I absolutely hate how they give so many abbreviations. likr the HT93r domain of the tr73 protein was deleted at the E89T region and BBB was added to the solution with HT54 present and not present. This is obvious an exaggeration but I swear I had sentences similar to this that made me literally start cracking up that the AAMC would expect anyone to understand what their talking about.
This is not AAMC doing, it's just the format in the scientific literature. Check it out.
 
This is not AAMC doing, it's just the format in the scientific literature. Check it out.
I don't think Wolfpack's point is that it's the AAMC writing the passages, it's that its the AAMC choosing the most convoluted ones.
 
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Tbh the stress just transferred from MCAT to AMCAS haha
For me its double stress because I don't even know if I scored high enough to even apply this cycle. So in the back of my mind I'm super nervous all my effort will be for nothing.

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For me its double stress because I don't even know if I scored high enough to even apply this cycle. So in the back of my mind I'm super nervous all my effort will be for nothing.

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Yup, it's really hard to get motivated without knowing if you're even actually going through with this cycle. And all I keep thinking is I'm going through all this work with letter writers and transcripts and it might be for nothing...AND I'll have to do it again next year. Assuming I could even improve on the MCAT enough for the next cycle.

It's a dangerous thought process to follow.
 
515?

I dunno. Isn't it kind of a moot point if we're sending in the application before we get the score? Speaking of, is there a... safer way of doing that? It feels so dangerous.

I've heard, apply to a throwaway school so your app gets verified, then add schools accordingly after your score gets released and it only takes an extra business day for it to process
 
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515?

I dunno. Isn't it kind of a moot point if we're sending in the application before we get the score? Speaking of, is there a... safer way of doing that? It feels so dangerous.
I'm applying to my state school only when we can first submit. I'll add more schools once my score comes back. I think as long as we're verified we can just add on schools that last week before apps get sent to schools on July 1st
 
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Cutoff is probably a 508 but tbh would have to see when the rubber meets the road. Currently living vicariously through the 4/23 test date score release
 
Cutoff is probably a 508 but tbh would have to see when the rubber meets the road. Currently living vicariously through the 4/23 test date score release
I just entered that thread and got SO stressed out. :dead:

This next month of waiting is gonna be so difficult to get through!
 
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So the April 23rd group generally (and I'm being serious when i say /generally/) did well. I think the average was around a 513.
Well ****.
It's inspiring but at the same time I'm hoping I can be up there with them :(
 
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So the April 23rd group generally (and I'm being serious when i say /generally/) did well. I think the average was around a 513.
Well ****.
It's inspiring but at the same time I'm hoping I can be up there with them :(

The ones who did well and felt like sharing their scores averaged a 513.

The average is a 500 time and time again- that's what a normal distribution is.
 
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I don't even know what I'm going to do. Finally got my copy of my official transcript the other day and apparently the incomplete I have for my ongoing thesis research is being counted as an F. I checked and AAMC will also count it as an F--not because it's an incomplete, but because my school has listed it as an F without noting the incomplete on my transcript. There's no way for me to do the application cycle and finish the thesis before it's too late for an update to matter, it's either/or. Wondering if I just push my app until next year :(

All that on top of the new MCAT waiting game. *sigh*

So the April 23rd group generally (and I'm being serious when i say /generally/) did well. I think the average was around a 513.
Well ****.
It's inspiring but at the same time I'm hoping I can be up there with them :(

Me, too, my friend. I get that pretty much only people who did well or at least better than they expected are posting their scores, but I still want to be one of those people, so...
 
So we can submit the application for verification on June 1st right? I can't seem to find this on the AMCAS website.
 
When do ya'll think is too late to submit my amcas primary? I'm doing a pretty important internship this summer (June 1-Aug 9) that is going to give me some pretty critical shadowing, clinical, and research hours (I'll submit a paper for publication by the end of it) that will definitely enhance my application. Do you guys think I should go ahead and submit my app in June and describe what I'm currently doing and will be doing with the internship, or should I wait till mid July when I've completed a lot of hours and and can more accurately describe what it is I'm doing? Is that too late to wait that long? I'd normally post this in in the AMCAS questions thread, but I'm partial to you guys (been a part of this thread for too long haha)
 
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