AAMC average or trend?

[Imfuming]

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So I self studied for about 3 months, with EK, TBR...

I took AAMCs in this order and got:

7: 6 8 8 = 22
8: 7 8 9 = 24
11: 10 8 8 = 26

Take real MCAT after this (already signed up, too late. Did not finish 1-2 passages for each section, so I voided). After this I studied some more and felt my verbal improved a bit

9: 10 9 8 = 27
10: 10 9 9 = 28
average of all AAMC: 25.4

In addition, I did AAMCs 5, 6 long version and got 10,10,11 (but I don't count these because the timing is different and they are old tests)

Today I took the MCAT the 2nd time. Felt okay about VR and BS, but ran out of time and purely guessed on TWO PS passages (random clicking).

People say they usually perform within 1-2 points of their average AAMC, but I don't notice many people have this "trend" I have. Does anyone have a similar score distribution/trend? If so, what did you end up getting? 😕

Update: after MCAT: 25: PS 9 VR 6 BS 10
so I did score my AAMC average afterall... although the distribution is off.

 

[Galatasaray]

it seems like you're having issues completing the passages in time. I took the 9/10 exam, and I also didn't finish BS (probably missed about 3-4 because of it). I also had to blindly guess on 2 questions for the PS.
In this case, I actually got lucky because i had about 1-2 minutes left but I didn't really need to read the last passage thanks to TBR (very close to one of the practice passages).

Hopefully the curve will reflect the calculation heaviness of the PS section, and you'll score decent.

 

[LebLlama]

thats a steady increase, not bad. how far apart did you take each one? what was the difference?

from the scores alone. it seems like the knowledge wasnt a prob, you just needed to adjust to the format of the test, hence the lower score at first

 

[ThereSheGoes]

in all seriousness, i think there are a lot of limiting reagents at play here. your science scores are consistently 10 and below which indicates to me that your lacking content knowledge or how to apply it. also, timing issues are holding you back tremondously, which could be simply solved by improving your content knowledge, but you may want to focus on this a bit more. missing 2 passages can dramatically influence your score 3-4 points? i think you should take more practice exams and keep studying hardcore. don't give up yet

 

[Chrome19]

in all seriousness, i think there are a lot of limiting reagents at play here. your science scores are consistently 10 and below which indicates to me that your lacking content knowledge or how to apply it. also, timing issues are holding you back tremondously, which could be simply solved by improving your content knowledge, but you may want to focus on this a bit more. missing 2 passages can dramatically influence your score 3-4 points? i think you should take more practice exams and keep studying hardcore. don't give up yet

Content knowledge is overrated. On my BS, you could know all the biological facts and still score below a 10.

 

[ThereSheGoes]

Content knowledge is overrated. On my BS, you could know all the biological facts and still score below a 10.

i agree. it's not a read and repeat type of test, don't think it ever was. content knowledge isn't the only skill that you need to succeed, and it may not even be the most important, but it should be your base. ... the questions i saw on the test required general understanding of certain scientific principles and lots of reading comp skills and general logic.

 

[KindofBlue]

i agree. it's not a read and repeat type of test, don't think it ever was. content knowledge isn't the only skill that you need to succeed, and it may not even be the most important, but it should be your base. ... the questions i saw on the test required general understanding of certain scientific principles and lots of reading comp skills and general logic.

I think so too. Of course the majority of the problems don't directly ask you about facts that have to be memorized, but it is based upon those facts and asks even more. So if you didn't have the foundation it would be impossible to even understand what the question was asking.

 

[Imfuming]

Thanks for the responses. I took each about a week apart. After each test, I reviewed each answer carefully and thought of ways to improve the way I think and also reviewed content more. I guess after awhile, both my testing skill and knowledge improved and I felt I started to feel "ooohhh i see" more.

On yesterday's test, I don't really know what the problem was, as I felt most of the PS questions were very doable. There was no "wtf are they talking about, or "i don't know this ****" Everyone did say this test was very calculation heavy though... How do you guys identify what your problems are for not getting a higher score? Why is it that people on this forum have aamc scores that are pretty consistent? 😕 How come I don't see positive trend often?

 

[ridethecliche]

Guessing on two passages is a bit ridiculous...

 

[KindofBlue]

Were you taking the practice FLs under timed situations?
I think if I took twice the time it took me to finish a section I would be able to decrease my error rate by at least 50%, especially for VR.
If you weren't able to finish the exam on time for both MCATs, it seems like you either have really bad test day jitters or a problem with timing.
As for reviewing, when you go through the problems try to remember why you chose the incorrect answer. What convinced you into choosing this one instead of the other? What was your reasoning behind eliminating/choosing an answer? What kind of specific content knowledge was required to solve the problem?
In my case it was usually either a mistake, lack of content knowledge, or inability to apply the knowledge. So, I would usually make a list of topics I wanted to review after each FL and then looked them up on a textbook or content book for more background information.
But in your case, I don't think a lack of knowledge was a serious issue, at least from what your FL scores are telling me. You should really work on improving your timing by simulating the real test environment. Same amount of exam time, breaks, everything.

 

[Imfuming]

Guessing on two passages is a bit ridiculous...

Yes I was very surprised this time that I had to guess on two passages. I guess the calculation heaviness got the best of me. Under timed condition, the worst was me guessing on 4 questions on PS aamc. I didn't void because I felt better about the VR and BS although usually my PS is better...

"But in your case, I don't think a lack of knowledge was a serious issue, at least from what your FL scores are telling me. You should really work on improving your timing by simulating the real test environment. Same amount of exam time, breaks, everything."

I wish I have more AAMC to practice on 🙁 ran out. My TBR chapter by chapter PS scores range from 9-13 if that means anything...

Question: When you guys see a question that asks for calculation, do you try to solve it until you get an answer, or move on after two minutes or so and not getting the answer you want? I think I spent wayyy too much time with calculation, like when I started the calculation for a problem, I had to finish it, because I felt like I already wasted all that time on that question, why not do it til the end? Also, how fast do you guys do calculation? I don't mean calculation like: P=IV, but things involving a bunch of conversions and longer equations like: q=mcat, PV=nRT... I need to know when I should move on... Also, what is the best source on how to solve math faster on the MCAT?

 

[Morsetlis]

If you ran out of time, either you are not the smartest pea in the pod, or you didn't know what they're talking about and tried to create knowledge ex nihilo.

This is why most strategies recommend skipping past questions which you have no idea how to answer and finishing the ones that you do know first.

 

[Chrome19]

Question: When you guys see a question that asks for calculation, do you try to solve it until you get an answer, or move on after two minutes or so and not getting the answer you want? I think I spent wayyy too much time with calculation, like when I started the calculation for a problem, I had to finish it, because I felt like I already wasted all that time on that question, why not do it til the end? Also, how fast do you guys do calculation? I don't mean calculation like: P=IV, but things involving a bunch of conversions and longer equations like: q=mcat, PV=nRT... I need to know when I should move on... Also, what is the best source on how to solve math faster on the MCAT?

The best thing to do is to skip them and return to them later if you are not that fast with calculation. When I took my calculation-heavy PS (5 physics passages and all in the middle), I told myself that if the computational questions just kept coming midway through the test I would skip the more seemingly demanding ones and return. My rule of thumb was this: after the first 3 passages and 1st set of discretes I should have 40-45 mins on the clock no matter what.

The best thing to do is to practice computation over and over. Get used to computing in your head as well and with the required accuracy. I was a math minor so I'm used to taking 1 hr tests that would make MCAT PS computation a joke. And never spend more than 2 mins on a question. NEVER.

I used 3.5 pages of Prometric paper to compute and diagram things. I write in very small size and I managed to finish with 6-7 mins remaining. I never used that much paper in my practice tests so I was bit surprised.

 

[ThereSheGoes]

Question: When you guys see a question that asks for calculation, do you try to solve it until you get an answer, or move on after two minutes or so and not getting the answer you want? I think I spent wayyy too much time with calculation, like when I started the calculation for a problem, I had to finish it, because I felt like I already wasted all that time on that question, why not do it til the end? Also, how fast do you guys do calculation? I don't mean calculation like: P=IV, but things involving a bunch of conversions and longer equations like: q=mcat, PV=nRT... I need to know when I should move on... Also, what is the best source on how to solve math faster on the MCAT?

So, there could be a few calculations on the MCAT, some hard and some simple. You should be able to identify which type it is fairly easy. The simple ones shouldn't take you longer than 30 seconds. The harder ones can take 60-90 seconds. I think most of us have a general understanding of how much time we will spend on a given calculation problem. If you end up spending too much time then something has gone wrong and it's best to guess or mark it and move forward. Manage your time really well. Some passages take longer than others. Some problems will take longer than others, but make sure you stay on a strict time schedule throughout the exam. I would try not to spend more than 7-9 mins per passage. On the real thing, I jotted down my target time on my scrap paper for each passage so I knew how much time I had to work on the passage before I had to move on. Best way to get better at calculation is practice. Get familiar with the calculations, they are repeated. The math itself should be simple.

 

[mafunk]

If you ran out of time, either you are not the smartest pea in the pod, or you didn't know what they're talking about and tried to create knowledge ex nihilst.

Ouch! kind of harsh

 

[centrigeugle]

 

[Imfuming]

The best thing to do is to skip them and return to them later if you are not that fast with calculation. When I took my calculation-heavy PS (5 physics passages and all in the middle), I told myself that if the computational questions just kept coming midway through the test I would skip the more seemingly demanding ones and return. My rule of thumb was this: after the first 3 passages and 1st set of discretes I should have 40-45 mins on the clock no matter what.

The best thing to do is to practice computation over and over. Get used to computing in your head as well and with the required accuracy. I was a math minor so I'm used to taking 1 hr tests that would make MCAT PS computation a joke. And never spend more than 2 mins on a question. NEVER.

I used 3.5 pages of Prometric paper to compute and diagram things. I write in very small size and I managed to finish with 6-7 mins remaining. I never used that much paper in my practice tests so I was bit surprised.

So, there could be a few calculations on the MCAT, some hard and some simple. You should be able to identify which type it is fairly easy. The simple ones shouldn't take you longer than 30 seconds. The harder ones can take 60-90 seconds. I think most of us have a general understanding of how much time we will spend on a given calculation problem. If you end up spending too much time then something has gone wrong and it's best to guess or mark it and move forward. Manage your time really well. Some passages take longer than others. Some problems will take longer than others, but make sure you stay on a strict time schedule throughout the exam. I would try not to spend more than 7-9 mins per passage. On the real thing, I jotted down my target time on my scrap paper for each passage so I knew how much time I had to work on the passage before I had to move on. Best way to get better at calculation is practice. Get familiar with the calculations, they are repeated. The math itself should be simple.

Yea the math was simple. I guess the general consensus is that this test was just very calculation heavy and I need to be prepared for this (doing quick math and not just understanding physics concepts). I'll start focusing on speeding up my calculation. Thanks for the tips, will keep them in mind!

To the other two people:
If you guys simply judge intelligence based only on how fast I do math then okay... I already said I had no trouble understanding any of the questions on that PS, and not that 10's on PS AAMC's are great or anything, but I don't think those indicate I am dumb.

 

[KindofBlue]

Next time around, try practicing with EK1001, and also EK verbal and math. EK1001 covers pretty much all types of calculation heavy problems that could come up on PS. You might want to use EK1001 for Gchem, Ochem, and physics, or whatever subject you feel weak in (Bio isn't generally recommended).
Although a lot of the times the material presented or the calculation requirement for EK1001 series is more difficult than the usual MCAT problem, I felt it was good for practice and solidifying my content knowledge.

I didn't get around to actually using the EK verbal and math (it's one book) but it seemed like it offered a lot of practice and tricks you could use for doing math problems, so check it out.

 

[Imfuming]

Got my score...if anyone is curious, I got a 9 on PS. Not bad I guess for putting random answers on 2 passages

 

[ridethecliche]

Got my score...if anyone is curious, I got a 9 on PS. Not bad I guess for putting random answers on 2 passages

Yeah, but what about the other stuff?

 

[Imfuming]

Yeah, but what about the other stuff?

PS 9 VR 6 BS 10

VR: lower than any aamc
BS: higher than any aamc

verbal makes it a very easy decision for a retake. Just hope I can speed things up next time and actually finish 100% of PS so I can get at least an 11 bio, don't know if it was a fluke or i actually did improve