When am I supposed to see substantial improvement?

[jv00927]

I've only taken Kaplan FL 1 and went up 2 points net from (Diagnostic) 9P, 7V, & 6B to 8P , 7V , & 9B . I'm afraid even if I put in the work, I am not going to get my target score (which is at least a 10,10, 10). From your experience, when did you see substantial improvements in your score?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[sentrosi]

My improvement was constant throught when I was studying for the MCAT. Started out around 29 or so I think. Got up to 40+ on practice tests right before the actual MCAT. Ended up with a 36.

I studied by taking 2 full length practices each weekend (while working during the weekdays). Saw about 1-2 points improvement every week.

 

[4s4]

Does it really help to do full-lengths for bio and physics when you haven't reviewed the material enough? I did 3 full-lengths (well the last one I kinda gave up by the bio section) and my physics score was constant in all of them. To me, that just means I need to review the material more. Like if I don't know a concept--practicing more won't help. Does anyone else feel this way?

 

[ADeadLois]

Like if I don't know a concept--practicing more won't help.

The MCAT does not test your rote knowledge of the concepts; it tests your ability to solve problems based on the concept. Practicing will help with or without understanding the concept is more beneficial than rote studying, IMO. Doing practice tests is a way to triage what you know and what you don't know. Also, you'll be able to see how many science problems you can answer correctly based only on the info passage, which will save you time in the long run.

If I could do it all over again, I would have started taking practice tests earlier.

 

[MedChic]

My improvement was constant throught when I was studying for the MCAT. Started out around 29 or so I think. Got up to 40+ on practice tests right before the actual MCAT. Ended up with a 36.

I studied by taking 2 full length practices each weekend (while working during the weekdays). Saw about 1-2 points improvement every week.

sentrosi,

you said you mostly did pracitce tests on weekends...

how much of the actual material did you study, i.e. hours a day/week?

thanks

 

[Rafa]

I just took K1 today and got a 23. Not nearly as high as I'd like, but my only studying thus far has been listening to AO. I plan to take 1FL every 2 weeks from now until the end of January, when's the real thing.

I agree with comments that it has a lot to do with finding the answers in the passage. For the discreets, yes, you need outside knowledge. But today I noticed how many of the passage questions seemed to have the answers on the page. I was just too impatient to look for them. Plan to change that over time.