August 26 MCAT Club!

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meddocapplicant

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I didn't see a post for the 8/26 MCAT, so I'm wondering if anyone is taking it on August 26? Have you started taking practice exams? Are you still reviewing the material? Is this your first MCAT?

I just started reviewing and will be taking my first practice MCAT tomorrow. Good luck everyone!! :)

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oh gosh everyone had hospitals?? i feel like i might've read something about the victorian era, but no recollection of hospitals... AAHHHHH
 
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finally registered.. no hospital passage either. i really don't know how I did on that test. those 2 bio passages killed me..i didn't even have time to read them! I started, but freaked out and had to guess..
I've registered for the last mcat this year, hopefully I will do better this time around.
My biggest problem is that I run out of time. Does anyone else have the same problem. I see people here finish with 20 min to spare. How can you do that? I'm not a slow reader, but I have to double check my answers..:(
 
hey guys!

when do you think scores will come out? since sept. 26th is a friday, would they release it the 29th? thanks
 
The scores seem to come exactly one day before the estimated date, so they should be out by September 29th, which feels like forever :thumbdown:. There should be an expedited score option!
 
The scores seem to come exactly one day before the estimated date, so they should be out by September 29th, which feels like forever :thumbdown:. There should be an expedited score option!


Ah yes, one more way for the AAMC to make money off desperate premeds: pay $100 for the expedited score option and you can have your results back the week after you take the exam.

Frankly, I'm surprised that they shortened the grading to 30 days when they could have kept us waiting for 2 months and made a boatload of money on an expedited score option.
 
Ah yes, one more way for the AAMC to make money off desperate premeds: pay $100 for the expedited score option and you can have your results back the week after you take the exam.

Frankly, I'm surprised that they shortened the grading to 30 days when they could have kept us waiting for 2 months and made a boatload of money on an expedited score option.

An expedited score option might sound nice, but it is implausible because everyone's scores must be weighted for the curve. I doubt it is "pre-set." In that case, we would have all our scores but writing already.
 
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ahhhhh i can't wait lol. just heard a friend a mine got hes score back thought it was the easiest test and scored very low. man this is killing me, i thought it was an alright test, came out feeling good but man now im scared, this is my second time, if i have to take it again, ill :(
 
Its closer...but still way too far away given that we paid 200 dollars for the test. And many of us also paid 40 dollars each practice test.

Football season and the fall semester starting is keeping my mind off of the long wait though.
 
took my second MCAT today... it was really a bad idea..this test was at least 10 times harder than Aug. 26th one. had to void it... so upset.. i don't know what to do now. I found out that some schools I 've applied to actually accept Jan's score.. should I take it again? is it gonna look really bad if I take MCAt 3 times..? i'm really frustrated.. the worst thing I don't even know how to study for it now, since this test is so unpredictable..
 
fairy tale, I am sorry to hear that. I would like to mention that it is not very uncommon for applicants to take the MCAT multiple times. However, you may find this information somewhat enlightening:

The AAMC will not report your participation in the test to AMCAS or to non-AMCAS schools if you void your scores.
We will, however, regard you as having attended the test and will therefore count the attempt toward one of the three
permitted each year.
 
thanks a lot for the info, Bloody Surgeon! Is it from the AAMC website? I would be so happy if they don't report it.. I actually felt pretty good about the physical science, but something happened to me during the verbal.. I was staring at the screen, and couldn't understand anything I was reading! crazy!!! It went downhill from there.. On Aug. 26 I was so confident, and thought verbal was pretty easy.

I did not expect that to happen to me today at all... I tried to concentrate, but nothing helped. :(:(:( And yeah..I had a fight with my boyfriend last night. thanks to that I couldn't sleep well and couldn't stop thinking about that.. I know I shouldn't blame anyone, but I can't believe he did that knowing how important the test is to me.

I looked at the bio section though.. It was nothing like AAMC's practice tests. I thought it was much harder..even compared to Aug. 26th one, which I thought was bad. I have no idea how to study for the bio if I decide to take the mcat again. Should I read research publications or medical journals and try to predict possible questions and answers?

I would appreciate any suggestions. :)
 
I just finished the Sept 13th exam. It was much easier than the Aug 26th one.

Comparing the 2:

PS:

Aug 26th - I ran out of time and had to guess 5 questions.
Sept 13th - I finished and had 5 mins to spare. Less calculations.

Verbal:

Aug 26th - Not bad for me.
Sept 13th - Passages were a little longer, but pretty much the same.

Bs:

Aug 26th - The 2 bio passages we all talked about were hell ---one especially with all the acronyms, I couldn't make sense of it.
Sept 13th - No passages jumped out as unreasonable. 1 or 2 I had to read carefully, but I felt I understood them afterwards.

I don't think I was much more prepared either. I honestly think the test was just easier on the 13th.
 
oh no..:( I wanted to register for the 13th one, but there were no seats left. guess I'm stuck with the Aug 26th score. hope the curve will be nicer.
how was the bio? did you have a lot of genetics? It was mostly genetics yesterday.. very different from the aug 26th one...
 
I just finished the Sept 13th exam. It was much easier than the Aug 26th one.

Comparing the 2:

PS:

Aug 26th - I ran out of time and had to guess 5 questions.
Sept 13th - I finished and had 5 mins to spare. Less calculations.

Verbal:

Aug 26th - Not bad for me.
Sept 13th - Passages were a little longer, but pretty much the same.

Bs:

Aug 26th - The 2 bio passages we all talked about were hell ---one especially with all the acronyms, I couldn't make sense of it.
Sept 13th - No passages jumped out as unreasonable. 1 or 2 I had to read carefully, but I felt I understood them afterwards.

I don't think I was much more prepared either. I honestly think the test was just easier on the 13th.

Woah. Your thoughts about the Aug 26th test basically exactly mirror mine. So i might have also thought the same exact same thing as you about the Sept 13th exam. Which is news to me because after i took the Aug 26th test i just assumed that all real MCATs were going to be really hard. Good post, this could change how i think about taking a retake.
 
Woah. Your thoughts about the Aug 26th test basically exactly mirror mine. So i might have also thought the same exact same thing as you about the Sept 13th exam. Which is news to me because after i took the Aug 26th test i just assumed that all real MCATs were going to be really hard. Good post, this could change how i think about taking a retake.

Yeah I'm pretty happy! I'll see what the mark is like though.....

I'd say I came out of the sept 13th one feeling like it was pretty close to an AAMC practice test. Maybe a little bit harder, but nothing like Aug 26th, where I felt it was waaaaaaaaaaaaay harder than the practice tests.
 
Now if the MCAT is even remotely fair, the difference in difficulty should be reflected in some sort of curve.
 
I'm afraid of the fact that I often hear people say that the particular exam you get is a major factor in how well you will do. It makes me think that their curve is an inaccurate means of standardization. I do think our exam was more difficult that the practice exams (Physics for length, and Biology due to those two horrid passages). I hope it works itself out!
 
I'm afraid of the fact that I often hear people say that the particular exam you get is a major factor in how well you will do. It makes me think that their curve is an inaccurate means of standardization. I do think our exam was more difficult that the practice exams (Physics for length, and Biology due to those two horrid passages). I hope it works itself out!

I wouldn't worry about that too much. What you should do is read through threads from previous exams and see all the people shocked at how low their scores were for exams that they all thought was easy coming out of it.
 
Yep, it's too hard to predict your score on an exam like this. i'm going to be checking my score expecting anywhere from the 20's to high 30's.
 
check the july 18th thread and it gives you a perfect example of how easy mcat does not always equal high score. If you thought it was easy, most ppl would generally find it easy as well, and the curve will adjust for that. Similarly, if you thought it was hard, most ppl would generally find it hard as well and the curve will reflect the difficulty.
 
did anyone think the verbal seemed easier. because every time i think i do well on verbal i get nailed and vice versa.... scary stuff
 
did anyone think the verbal seemed easier. because every time i think i do well on verbal i get nailed and vice versa.... scary stuff

ya man, that happens to me too, i thought the passages were easier to read but i dunno what I felt when i answered the question, i forgot lol
 
how did you feel about the sciences. im going nuts one day i think i did great the next i think i got screwed.
 
how did you feel about the sciences. im going nuts one day i think i did great the next i think i got screwed.

man i dunno lol. This is the second time I took the test. I first took the test on April something. But in comparison to that, I dunno I felt much better after this August 26 one than the April test. Physics I thought was pretty forward; although, there were many calculations and I didn't finish 4 questions, it was much better than my april in which I guessed on 10+ questions. For Biol, although the cancer and the UTI passages looked very hard, I thought it was actually pretty easy. All it seemed to asked was something about look at the graph and whether something increase or decrease, which was pretty much doable. There were a lot of acroynm for both passages, I got lucky on the cancer because I pretty much was familar with the acronym because of my cancer biol class and for UTI, I had taken virology and I recognize the immune response acroynm, tottally forgot what it was. I also had some time to go over questions, so I went over those two passages again.

To tell u the truth, i dunno man. I'm scared now lol. i heard a friend of mine who has retaken his test, thought the test was super easy and ended up doing worst than his first. I'm afraid that will happen to me. Also, I'm freaking out by what everybody said above, with the majority saying it was a super hard test. This means I fell into massive traps . Furthermore, I don't really know where I was at when I came into the test since I taken the practice aamc twice. I don't remember the range I got the first time, but the second time, the scores for sure were higher. Also I think I came in with a lot of confidence because the last aamc I took was 10 and ended up with: 14P 10V 13B. Never had this score in my life. My avg usually moves around 29-33. So I dunno lol. man I hate this wait; yet, at the same time I don't want the day come lol because what if I did bad. I can't think about this anymore lol, I'm gonna go crazy lol.
 
OptionMD - right there with you man. Some days I feel semi-confident and other days I'm clueless as to how I did.

The physics started out solid(usually my strongest section), but quickly took a turn for the worst. I didn't really stall on questions, but still didn't finish. I think I completely guessed on 3-4 questions, in addition to the 3-4 questions I wasn't sure of, and chances for mistakes. Not really sure what to expect from this section.

I felt like verbal went well, I was pretty focused and thought my POE was effective. I'm expecting a pretty good score here, but you never really know with verbal.

Biology seemed pretty reasonable aside from those two passages. The passage with all of the charts wasn't clicking in my head, no idea how this will turn out. I'm hoping there is a nice curve on those two passages.
 
Short story. Took test august 15. I thougt the bio was really hard...thought I got a 9...stopped writing essays and stuff. Got an 11...bio is strangely curved for past couple tests...conclusion: you never know...don't be discouraged...focus and keep working hard on application.


Longer story: I got my scores back from August 15. I think the curves do change significantly from test to test, esp recently for the bio section

I took my first MCAT August last year and got a 12p 6v 11b
On that exam, besides the fact that I couldn't read that day, I was almost 100% sure I nailed the physics, as in I could only think of one question that I was somewhat not sure about. I was thinking I was gonna get a 13-14.

For the bio, there was probably only only a few questions i wasn't sure about from one passage, but I thought it went smoothly too.

My MCAT score from this time was 12p 11v 11b. I wont talk about the verbal b/c my verbal skills defintely upgraded while my sciences probably didn't much.
From that test, I thought I got a bit messed up on the physics, as in there were at least 4 questions I wasn't sure about at all and one that I completely guessed on. One passage in particular I didn't really know what was going on. I was predicting an 11 to 10...

What's even more surprising is that I was actually hoping for a 9 in biology, even acknowledging that an 8 was possible. I had NO idea for 5 questions in two passages and guessed on about 7 other questions, which never happened to me before. Nothing even close like that. It was defintely harder and more detailed than AMCAS tests. I feel like the bio is getting more ambiguous so I think there is a better curve, or else i wouldn't know how else to explain how I pulled an 11 again.

Also my AMCAS averages, if you are curious, were like 11 P 10V and 11 B. 1 week after I took the test all the way to where I got my scores, I felt like I should have voided it and that I was gonna bomb the bio and do ok (like 10) on the other sections. The highest I got on a practice test was a 33 so for me at least a 34 was good and I was glad I didn't void.


The seriously stupid thing I did was that I stopped working on secondaries and delayed so much stuff b/c I was so discouraged. I also lost some sleep and got furstrated at times. I was so worried about my bio performance but it turned out much better than I though and pretty close to my average. Don't do what I did - keep positive and know that they will probably be around ur average.
 
Finally, time is moving a little faster and we're a little bit closer to the MCAT score release.

J-Cody, I hear you on the physics; If only we can get some compensation for the time a lot of us lost on the physics section.

Time is a strange thing...it moves fast during the physics section and really slowly while you wait for your scores. Dude, I'm going to **** up time if I don't get a good score.
 
yea, really sucks waiting for the score... moreover, we don't get them back on the 26th and have to wait 4 extra days...
 
yea, really sucks waiting for the score... moreover, we don't get them back on the 26th and have to wait 4 extra days...

Are you guys hoping for it to come on the 26th?

I dont really want to put it much hope for that and then be dissappointed, as the results for the aug 15th mcat came on the exact scheduled score release date.
 
I'm not holding out a ton of hope that they'll come 4 days early, but at the same time, the wait is absolutely killing me. I agree with the posters above; I go back and forth between thinking that maybe I pulled it off, and maybe I should have voided. Oi vey...
 
man i dunno lol. This is the second time I took the test. I first took the test on April something. But in comparison to that, I dunno I felt much better after this August 26 one than the April test. Physics I thought was pretty forward; although, there were many calculations and I didn't finish 4 questions, it was much better than my april in which I guessed on 10+ questions. For Biol, although the cancer and the UTI passages looked very hard, I thought it was actually pretty easy. All it seemed to asked was something about look at the graph and whether something increase or decrease, which was pretty much doable. There were a lot of acroynm for both passages, I got lucky on the cancer because I pretty much was familar with the acronym because of my cancer biol class and for UTI, I had taken virology and I recognize the immune response acroynm, tottally forgot what it was. I also had some time to go over questions, so I went over those two passages again.

To tell u the truth, i dunno man. I'm scared now lol. i heard a friend of mine who has retaken his test, thought the test was super easy and ended up doing worst than his first. I'm afraid that will happen to me. Also, I'm freaking out by what everybody said above, with the majority saying it was a super hard test. This means I fell into massive traps . Furthermore, I don't really know where I was at when I came into the test since I taken the practice aamc twice. I don't remember the range I got the first time, but the second time, the scores for sure were higher. Also I think I came in with a lot of confidence because the last aamc I took was 10 and ended up with: 14P 10V 13B. Never had this score in my life. My avg usually moves around 29-33. So I dunno lol. man I hate this wait; yet, at the same time I don't want the day come lol because what if I did bad. I can't think about this anymore lol, I'm gonna go crazy lol.

Man i feel the same way, but dont worry to much my friend just got his scores and they really came close to his aamc 10. By the way do u go to wayne state because i also just took cancer bio, but i didn't remember anything and it seemed like i should have. Hopefully we both do welll
 
Are you guys hoping for it to come on the 26th?

I dont really want to put it much hope for that and then be dissappointed, as the results for the aug 15th mcat came on the exact scheduled score release date.


I agree that they probably won't come out 4 days earlier. But I do hope it comes on that monday (sept 29) instead of tuesday the 30th..

Yea I do realize that the past three releases have been on the designated dates (on tuesdays). soo I guess ours will come on tuesday also, but again I just need to see the score asap... waiting is killing me
 
glad to see everyone had similar thoughts on that bio section....PS/VR not to bad. I got a 10 BS on the july 18th test and thought that the difference in difficulty was ridiculous ....which i am hoping translates into a better "norm" for all of us on that section

And the count down continues
 
they enjoy playing with emotions, i can see them sitting around a table and laughing
 
The scores will most likely come out late on the 30th because August and September have so many MCATs. However, there is a chance that the scores might come on the 29th. If the Aug 22 MCAT takers get their scores on Monday, then I think its likely we'll get ours the following Monday.
 
Hey everyone! So, I took the Aug. 26th MCAT as well and I'm terrified about getting my scores back. I just read through this thread and feel pretty much the same as everyone else about the sections, with PS having a ton of calculations and BS having some tough passages that I freaked out on. I took the Kaplan course over the summer, and was consistently getting 37-38 on the Kaplan tests, but I feel like my real score will be far lower than what I got on the practice tests. :eek:
 
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