28 Days left until my MCAT! Suggestions needed!

[dennis-brodmann]

I have 28 days left to study for the August 10 MCAT.

22 of the 28 will be full potential study days

6 of the 22 are supposed to be when I go to a family reunion, however, my family knows how much this test means, so while I am there, I am probably going to study in a place like Starbucks for most of the day.​

5 of the 28 will be partial study days where I really will just have to sandwich time in when I can.​

1 of the 28 is the day before my exam, and I am just going to relax.​

Today, I took AAMC CBT 7 and scored a 26.

My breakdown was 10/6/10 (PS/VR/BS).​

I felt good during and after my science sections, but during the VR, my timing was REALLY off (when I practice individual passages, I can finish within 8-9 minutes).​

I know that I can bring up my scores if I just bust my butt for this last month!

I've been done with content review using TBR for over a week now.​

Of the materials I have, I am planning to work what I have left of the TBR passages​

Also, I have TBR CBTs 2-7. I am not going to do these as full lengths, however, because I believe the VR does not represent the AAMCs at all.​

I have AAMCs 8, 9, 10, and 11 left.​

I have EK101 Verbal.​

My concerns are as follows:

(1) First and foremost, WHAT DO I DO ABOUT VERBAL!?!?!?!

On AAMC 7, it felt like the writers tacked on two extra paragraphs than I was used to reading on AAMC 4 and 5 (I used AAMC 4 and 5 to practice their VR sections as individual passages).​

I stopped using EK101 Verbal a while ago because their questions, answers, and explanations frustrated me.​

In EK101, I have 9 full tests that I can do (which means 63 individual passages).​

Should I use EK101 as the 60 minute tests since my timing seemed off during AAMC 7?​

Also to help my timing, should I re-do AAMC 3-7 VR with the one hour time limit?​

(2) How should I fit my TBR CBTs within my AAMC FL schedule?

I have 4 more weeks till the MCAT, so I was going to take an AAMC FL for each week.​

I am not quite sure how to divvy up my time among the remaining TBR CBTs and my TBR practice passages.​

I know that the TBR CBTs will be beneficial in that I will not have the benefit of knowing what concepts they are testing, unlike the practice passages, where I kind of expect to be tested on "Kinetics", for instance, in the "Kinetics" section lol​

That being said, I also feel like I should beat my weak points into the ground by doing practice passages.​

(3) Am I taking to long on post-passage?

When I do TBR passages, tt seems like the bulk of my time is used in reviewing.​

I know quality is definitely more important than quantity, but I feel like I should get through more passages to see if what I review really stuck.​

I have done my best since May. I know that if I push just little harder and modify my approach, I will get where I need to get! If you have any suggestions, please share!

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[nisarg2010]

1) Your score is defiantly can be improved in the next few weeks. Have faith in your self and try not to worry too much. Sometimes an easy way to improve your score can be as easy as not worrying too much while taking the test. When you are doing practice tests, think about nothing but the question you are reading. Dont worry about if what you answered for the last question was right or wrong. Dont think about the previous section and how hard you thought it was.

2) If the problem with your verbal is timing, than that can only be fixed by practice. Dont just do one passage and time the passage. Do entire verbal sections timed. The more sections you will do, the better your timing will get. GO THROUGH ALL THE EK 101 tests!! Do them timed and analyze them in dept after each test. Dont look at the time too much while doing the test, look every 2 passages. A method I employ is that I go through passages that I can read easily (Natural science, politics) much quicker than passages on (social science, history, philosophy). This allows me to save a lot of time and spend it on the passages I really need to spend time on. I dont think redoing the AAMC 3-7 is going to help at all as you will know the passages and will be able to read through them much quicker than you normally do.

3) From my understanding, you have a total of 10 FL (4 AAMC and 6 TBR). Do two tests a week from now on. One AAMC and One TBR. This will get you through 8 tests (2 TBR remaining). Do a test on Monday and Go through it on Monday and a little bit on Tuesday if you cant go through the whole thing on the same day. Also do TBR passages on Tuesday and review them. On wed, take an EK 101 test and review along with passages from TBK and review. On Thur, do content review. Keep a note of what types of questions you are missing on the FL and what sections you are missing most questions on in TBR and review those concepts. Take another FL on Friday and review. Sat, review if you still have reviewing to do from the FL and take a test from EK101 and review that. If you have time do passages on sat also and review those. Sunday should be some passages from TBR and content review. This should allow you to maximize your study materials and time.

4) I think reviewing is a VERY important part of doing FL or passages. You should spend as much time as you need reviewing. On average try to spend about 2X the time you spent doing the passage to review it.

5) SEE # 1!!!

Good luck

 

[dennis-brodmann]

Do them timed and analyze them in dept after each test.

For verbal post-analysis, I usually try to think "What in the phrasing of the question stems and answer choices tripped me up?" Is that what you usually do? Sometimes, the explanations for VR answers (whether its from EK101 or AAMC) seem really out of left-field, so I have been trying to get to the conclusions of why the three wrong answers are incorrect and why the one right answer is correct in my own terms...That being said, I am convinced there is some pattern somewhere!

I dont think redoing the AAMC 3-7 is going to help at all as you will know the passages and will be able to read through them much quicker than you normally do.

I failed to mention that last summer, I went through all of EK101, but since then, I have forgotten most of everything, so I think it'll be okay.

From my understanding, you have a total of 10 FL (4 AAMC and 6 TBR).

I also failed to mention that I have AAMC 5's PS and BS left. I'll incorporate them into my weeks.

Thanks for the encouragement nisarg!