Hey everyone!
After taking the August 10th 2p.m. exam I ended up voiding after I realized I had 3 minutes left on the physical sciences section and still 3 passages left unanswered. I honestly don't know what happened to me, I've never had issues with test anxiety or being distracted so I'm not sure why I failed to perform. I had an average of 34 (8-11) on the FL exams and I did all of them under normal timed conditions. Right now I plan to retake in January, considering there are no open seats for this month or September. Anyways, I had a couple of questions and was hoping some of you could possible answer them.
1. When originally studying from May-August I feel as though I somewhat neglected verbal and as a result it was my weakest section (averaging 9-10), so I had planned to really buckle down this round. Now that I have another ~5 months to study what should I do for verbal practice? I've already gone through EK 101 and TPRH Verbal. Would it be practical to buy older/newer editions of the same books or do the passages remain the same with each new edition?
2. If those 70 minutes of suffering Friday taught me anything it was that I may have been prepared for the material, but not for the test as a whole. I now realize that I didn't do enough research on the actual testing center/environment. I guess I thought it would be similar to any other standardized test or even normal college exam from my previous years in terms of environmental stress (minimal noise, everyone starts at roughly same time (and on time)). During the actual test I basically had two extremes to choose from, noise canceling headphones that blocked out the world at the expense of crushing my head or the loud tapping of keyboards. What I'll probably do is buy a pair of those headphones or some earplugs and study for the next 5 months while using them because what distracted me more than anything was constantly taking off and putting on that pair of headphones (the proctors probably though i was insane). So here are a few questions about the actual testing center/environment.
After taking the August 10th 2p.m. exam I ended up voiding after I realized I had 3 minutes left on the physical sciences section and still 3 passages left unanswered. I honestly don't know what happened to me, I've never had issues with test anxiety or being distracted so I'm not sure why I failed to perform. I had an average of 34 (8-11) on the FL exams and I did all of them under normal timed conditions. Right now I plan to retake in January, considering there are no open seats for this month or September. Anyways, I had a couple of questions and was hoping some of you could possible answer them.
1. When originally studying from May-August I feel as though I somewhat neglected verbal and as a result it was my weakest section (averaging 9-10), so I had planned to really buckle down this round. Now that I have another ~5 months to study what should I do for verbal practice? I've already gone through EK 101 and TPRH Verbal. Would it be practical to buy older/newer editions of the same books or do the passages remain the same with each new edition?
2. If those 70 minutes of suffering Friday taught me anything it was that I may have been prepared for the material, but not for the test as a whole. I now realize that I didn't do enough research on the actual testing center/environment. I guess I thought it would be similar to any other standardized test or even normal college exam from my previous years in terms of environmental stress (minimal noise, everyone starts at roughly same time (and on time)). During the actual test I basically had two extremes to choose from, noise canceling headphones that blocked out the world at the expense of crushing my head or the loud tapping of keyboards. What I'll probably do is buy a pair of those headphones or some earplugs and study for the next 5 months while using them because what distracted me more than anything was constantly taking off and putting on that pair of headphones (the proctors probably though i was insane). So here are a few questions about the actual testing center/environment.
- Are all the people in that same 8-10 seat room taking the 2:00pm (or whatever time you're scheduled) mCAT? If so, why have they already started when its not even 1:30 yet? It was my understanding that you should be at the testing center 30 minutes early in order to be checked in so that you could ideally START around 2:00 PM, I had no idea I'd be sitting down around roughly 1:50 and starting my tutorial while the guy next to me was halfway through his written section (how is he 2 1/2 hours ahead 10 minutes before the test is even suppose to start?). Obviously I had expected/planned for there to be people typing maybe at the same time or before me (given the different speed people take the test and whether or not they break), but I guess I just thought that I wouldn't have the face that until another hour or two (after I got into a groove).
