Advice for re-taker- please help!

[lizard7]

So I just got my June 15th scores back and was not happy with a 24Q, 8's across the board. I was pretty shocked since this was lower than all of my practice scores and even my Kaplan diagnostic. I do want to retake but I don't know what to do differently this time around.

I already took a Kaplan course, had some (iffy) tutoring, and studied for months. My practice scores were 27-30, I had never gotten lower than a 10VR. I wasn't freaking out on test day- I don't know how it happened.

For anyone else who re-took and improved, or anyone who studied using different methods and did well, any advice would be great! I'm one year out of school and working full-time so studying 8 hours a day is not an option. The rest of my application is ok but I definitely need a 30+ for MD, and I'd like to improve for DO too. How do I get my score up? Thanks!

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[ChePibe]

Be careful with those feelings about the MCAT. I also scored lower than all of my practice tests and my VR ranged from 11 to 14 but I ended up with a 9 on the real thing. Thank God the sciences gave me a good overall score. Nevertheless, you have to ask yourself why did you do less than your potential. For instance, some people had cramps during the exam or flat out vomited during the ordeal. If this is your case then by all means retake it. I know why I did poorly on the VR section, I did not focus as fast as I should have and I believe that hurt me in the first two passages as they took me a long time to finish so I had to rush the rest of the exam. Again re evaluate the situation and make a decision.
Hope this helps.

 

[lizard7]

well i didn't have any extreme physical problems, I was nervous of course. I think one thing that hurt was that I really struggled to focus during PS so I ran out of time/was flustered. For the rest of the test, I focused alot more on timing and finished much earlier than usual vs. my practice tests. Since I tended to change right answers to wrong ones during practice tests, I only changed things I was really unsure of.

The bigger issue for me during all of my practice tests is that I struggled alot more with reasoning than content. I think Kaplan was bad for me because I took the strategy tips too seriously and would overthink easy answers, hence changing right to wrong.

Either way, I don't really know what went wrong for me on test day. For my retake, I need soemthing besides a prep course so any suggestions would be awesome. I'm really impressed by all the re-takers whose scores went up so much, what was different the second time around?