PS: Yeah. PS pretty much murdered me. I took all but one of the AAMC practice tests, four TPR practice tests and I felt all right on them and was definitely really familiar with the material. The questions I was missing were just because of stupid mix-ups, not because I didn't know the material...
...But when I took the PS section today, I serioiusly felt like there was a mix-up and they'd given me the wrong test or something. Half the questions/passages I was like, "Huh? WTF?! I've never seen anything like this before!" There are only so many ways to ask a question on the MCAT, but apparently AAMC pulled some new ones out of their bag of tricks for this one. Jesus. Unreal.
And yeah, I was pissed at all of the repetition. Why are you testing me on the same stuff?? If I didn't know it the first time, I'm certainly not going to know it the second time. TEST ME ON STUFF I KNOW, DAMN IT.
But beyond the personal disadvantage- and as someone else pointed out- this type of repetition really doesn't allow a student to show his/her aptitude. You would think that with the amount of money we pay, combined with the obvious effort they put into *other* areas (e.g. fingerprinting n all that) the least they could was to check the seven passages to make sure there isn't too much overlap. Ugh.
However! As a side note and to those of you worried because you didn't get to all of the passages, when I first took the test a couple years ago I ran out of time and had to randomly bubble in a passage and a half. PS was my weakest subject to begin with, so I was freaked out. I thought I bombed it. Ended up getting a ten.
V: This is my strongest subject. I didn't even really study for it. Not surprisingly I felt fine about my performance today. The last two passages about African religion and the Renaissance were kind of weird though. Anyway, we'll see! Hopefully pulled it out.
B: Hard to say. I was getting 11 and 12s on practice exams, so hopefully I'll get about the same on this one. There were a few weird passages and I finished with less time to spare than I normally do. All n all I really have no idea how I did.
Overall: I felt like this test was a departure from their and others' practice exams. It seemed really convoluted. TONS of calculations and they were long and indirect. Concepts were really buried. I really don't know how in the world people are saying it was straight forward. I've sat for the exam before. I've taken all the practice tests. This was *not* straight forward and it felt really, really different than the normal testing format. Like I said above with the PS section, it honestly felt like I had accidentally sat down in the wrong classroom and took someone else's final or something. Maybe it was just bad luck, but I felt like 97% of what I knew and worked so hard on was totally useless. *shrug*
I'm not freaking out though. It is what it is and almost everyone feels like they did worse than they did. Either way, there's nothing I can do about it now (but hope for a forgiving curve!).
Good luck everyone!