Bit early, but post here if you're writing on this date. For me, it's looking to be third time's the charm hopefully.
Don't rush it! You wanna be confident going in. Give yourself as much time as you need. Rushing it is gonna put extra stress on you which will effect your performance.. good luck!
It's going alright, consistent with basically 1 wrong max per passage, except the oddball 3 wrong per passage still come up once in a while.How is VR prep going for you guys? I have been practicing with Kaplan FL's, doing a few passages at a time and spending lots of time doing post game analysis.
Sorry, I have no access to Kaplan FL so can't really help in that oneCould anyone help me out on this thread? Thank you. http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/kaplan-fls-vs-aamc-vs-real-mcat.1092367/
I'm retaking the test on 9/6. I've been reading through the thread a little bit and thought I'd share some insight.
Clearly I didn't do well on my first test. I actually scored 5 points below my AAMC FL average and I took most of them along with a bunch of other practice, which is obviously disappointing. That's not meant to worry anyone, I just suggest you don't hang everything on those tests. Be honest with yourself and look at content areas that you know you don't understand and struggle through those. Even if you get the same question wrong 7 times, you're much less likely to get it wrong on test day. Unfortunately, I had a test that picked every single one of my weak areas and it killed me.
A note on the SAs, don't beat yourself up if you do poorly at the end and think you're getting worse. I printed all of them out and wrote whether the question was easy or hard and realized that they set them up so the end is heavy on hard questions and the beginning is heavy on easy questions.
This time I'm sticking strictly to practice. Still having a hard time improving on verbal though. I have a really hard time focusing all the way through a passage and by the time I finish I don't understand it as well as I would like to. I'm not a huge reader (as in I don't read novels in my spare time) so I feel like that's part of it.
Lastly, give yourself a break every once in a while. This time around I've given myself a day where I don't do a single thing to study (gasp!) but it makes me so much more focused on the days that I do study and I'm able to put in a lot more quality hours.
I'm retaking the test on 9/6. I've been reading through the thread a little bit and thought I'd share some insight.
Clearly I didn't do well on my first test. I actually scored 5 points below my AAMC FL average and I took most of them along with a bunch of other practice, which is obviously disappointing. That's not meant to worry anyone, I just suggest you don't hang everything on those tests. Be honest with yourself and look at content areas that you know you don't understand and struggle through those. Even if you get the same question wrong 7 times, you're much less likely to get it wrong on test day. Unfortunately, I had a test that picked every single one of my weak areas and it killed me.
A note on the SAs, don't beat yourself up if you do poorly at the end and think you're getting worse. I printed all of them out and wrote whether the question was easy or hard and realized that they set them up so the end is heavy on hard questions and the beginning is heavy on easy questions.
This time I'm sticking strictly to practice. Still having a hard time improving on verbal though. I have a really hard time focusing all the way through a passage and by the time I finish I don't understand it as well as I would like to. I'm not a huge reader (as in I don't read novels in my spare time) so I feel like that's part of it.
Lastly, give yourself a break every once in a while. This time around I've given myself a day where I don't do a single thing to study (gasp!) but it makes me so much more focused on the days that I do study and I'm able to put in a lot more quality hours.
Finished my first aamc today - I did terrible. It was a good indicator though since I know what to study and how to do it properly now. Looking forward to the SAs and also the next aamcs.
Hi pacer,
Firstly, I'm reviewing my errors from the exam and working on those, and then doing some practice for my weak parts using some question/passage generator website. The reason I'm using this site is so I can narrow down what topics I want to work on, so I can target my weaknesses, etc. Then I will be doing my AAMC SAs, and finally the rest of my aamc tests. Hope that helps!
I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post it on here? If I am, I will haha. Can anyone confirm if I can post a website?
I took a practice passage (Verbal) today after like a week off..bombed the crap out of it. I was like wtf, no! Anyway practice is key! Before my week off. Everyday.. I was reading an article either from New yorker, Economist, The Atlantic. Summarizing each paragraph, @ the end writing, Topic, scope, purpose. It was helping my score...until I took a week off. When you are reading articles from the above...try and focus on reading articles from humanities, science...etc. Expose yourself to different material/articles. Practice practice! Also I found these links tonight. Hope they help!
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/a-vr-strategy-thats-working-really-well-for-me.936176/
yeah I've been doing passages from TPRH almost every singe day and I feel like I'm getting better at understanding the authors main idea and whatnot and I've been doing many passages and getting 0 questions wrong. But then I took a practice test from EK101 and I did horribly, so I don't know if I'm actually improving
Quick question - can someone explain to me how the density of water increases when salt is added? I came across a question on bouyant force stating that if salt is added, density of water is increased, thus bouyant force is increased and the submerged object rises.
I just bought TPRHSW today, getting it Tuesday. That is gonna be my bible until the actual test. Gonna try to crank out every single problem cover to cover in 2 weeks while doing FL every 3 daysBeen doing passages from TPR Science Workbook last couple of days. Tomorrow is my sixth FL, been averaging around a 30. Plan to write 5, maybe 6 more FLs. Almost there guys!
So 3 weeks left boys and gals, how you guys going to be distributing your time? And what's your realistic goal score/spread?
Wow that's great, I'd kill for a 12 in verbal. I'm hoping for 13/10/13I think I'm just going to be reviewing each chapter from Physics and Gen Chem while spacing out practice tests and then reviewing some physiology for Bio and mixing some TPRH/EK101 verbal in there. Honestly this test is more about problem solving than sheer memorizing, most of the content is given to you in the passage and there are rarely like wacko oddball discretes you would only be able to answer if you memorized X paragraph on Y page. I'm not entirely sure why people spend months purely studying content for this exam, unless they didn't learn it the first time around in their prereqs.
My goal all along has been a 37+ and my AAMCs have been around there, but my PS is usually a bit lower than my other two sections so I'm trying to bring that up closer to a 13. I'd be really ecstatic with like a 13 13 12 or like 14 12 12 or 13 12 12.
Don't get Into that attitude, rly going to hurt if you do. Just think how much effort you put in so far, wouldn't want to waste it because you're "tired"Ugh I just took AAMC 5 and got a 33 (11/12/10)... my BS and PS were terrible, but then again I finished them with 20-25 minutes left and just wanted to go eat dinner so idk. Silly mistakes for some of them but I just didn't pick up on them as I went through it, idk why. I don't have a lot of motivation left to keep going with the MCAT, it's really wasting my time.
If you haven't done any FL yet, I would do all of the AAMC first.Hey guys, in what order did you solve your FLs, between Kaplan and Aamc. Did you alternate? Did you solve all of Kap FLs then turned to AAMC? How'd you do it?
No I have, I've done about 8 actually, but I was just curious as to how you guys are organising your FLs!If you haven't done any FL yet, I would do all of the AAMC first.
That's kind of a really difficult question. My first MCAT last September had a very calculation heavy PS. This doesn't mean it is more difficult, just means you have to know your stuff a bit better.Is PS on the actual MCAT really that much harder than practice tests?
Scored 12/11/10 on AAMC 5. Finally happy with a FL though I did make a few stupid errors (as always). Hoping the trend remains this way.
Thats funny I just got that on AAMC 9 today.
I am also a bio major fml and I cannot get that passed a 10. #embarrassing
Perhaps you have random small content gaps in PS and in BS? If not, then I think your careless mistakes are still present.Kaplan 1 - 10/8/8
Kaplan 2 - 12/10/10
AAMC 3 - 10/13/14
AAMC 4 - 11/12/13
AAMC 5 - 11/12/10
AAMC 7 - 11/14/12
someone pls explain why i can't get above an 11 on the AAMCs for PS even though all I've been studying is Physics and why my Biology is all over the place
I really just want a 12 or 13 on PS and BS, and then a 12 on Verbal.
Perhaps you have random small content gaps in PS and in BS? If not, then I think your careless mistakes are still present.
I got 34 3 times in a row. Just did my 4th FL today, AAMC7 and got 35(14/10/11). So don't worry you'll go up on the 4th one like me!Just scored another 33......3 in a row. I'm remarkably consistent--yet that's quite discouraging considering I need that damn 2 point improvement! Going to go cry in a corner now before getting right back to it T_T. WHAT CAN I DO!?!??!?!??!
I got 34 3 times in a row. Just did my 4th FL today, AAMC7 and got 35(14/10/11). So don't worry you'll go up on the 4th one like me!