Advice please. HELP! MCAT 26

[sjagan1]

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I am a college senior who lives in Maryland. I took the MCAT my first time in June 16th 2011 at 2pm. I took Kaplan and improved significantly over time. I loved my tutors. I started prepration in January. I got an 11 on the PS, which I was happy about. I felt the PS was easy and I swept the section. I got an 8 on verbal, which did not surprise me. However, I crashed on the BS. I do not remember making stupid mistakes. Biology is my favorite subject. I loved Human Anatomy and Physiology in college. I got A's in those courses. I remember rounds of easy questions. There were two killer experimental passages. However, I got a 7! I never scored below a 9 in my Kaplan FLs (I took 10) and my AAMCs (I took 3). I don't understand. What could have went wrong? I was focused throughout the test. I was so crushed.

I am planning on taking my second MCAT attempt on March 2012. How can improve based on what my scores are like and other factors? I am reading and doing verbal enrichment exercises so I feel more comfortable with hard passages like literature, history, and philsophy. I do poorly on those verbal passages. Reading can only help me. What else though?

 

[dragonfly99]

Don't worry...med school admissions is a marathon, not a hurdle. You are still in college so not to worry.
I would say you could get some individual tutoring in biology and verbal, perhaps. Maybe you just got a little tired or got a little unlucky with some of the passages that were thrown at you. Also, if I remember correctly, the bio section also requires some reading comprehension along w/speedily reading through the passage to get to the questions. If you have trouble w/the verbal section maybe improving on that section will also help you on biology section.

 

[sjagan1]

What is the best way to overcome hard verbal passages like Literature, philosophy, history etc? I am asking your personal opinion.

I sweep the science passages, arts passages , and etc.

 

[sjagan1]

No wonder I had trouble with that biology section!. I got killer experimental passages that looked like foreign languages. I know even those who score 30 and above on FLs still would cringe at them. But they are fundamentally strong in verbal. ( i mean strong strong) I am only adequate in verbal because there are some passages I am terrible at deciphering and comprehending (philosophy, literature etc).

 

[flodhi1]

No wonder I had trouble with that biology section!. I got killer experimental passages that looked like foreign languages. I know even those who score 30 and above on FLs still would cringe at them. But they are fundamentally strong in verbal. ( i mean strong strong) I am only adequate in verbal because there are some passages I am terrible at deciphering and comprehending (philosophy, literature etc).

The Biology section is starting to be very similar to the VR section with respect to style and theme. I scored a 10 on the BS even though my VR section was pretty crappy. I was disappointed because I was averaging 12-13 and i had a very strong foundation in Biology, I took tons of upper level Biology classes. You can do well on the BS as long as you have a strong understanding of the basics. Experimental Biology passages used to make me cry but with tons of practice I got used to them. If you feel Biology is really hard on the MCAT I would suggest taking classes like Biochemistry, Genetics and Biostat to strengthen your foundation.