BERKELEY REVIEW scores/discussion

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capn jazz

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Just like the EK Verbal 101 thread, this is a thread to talk about how you're doing with the TBR passages. I don't know how people are generally going through these, but I'm doing Phase I and II after reading the chapter, and saving Phase III for after I finish all content review.

I'm currently working on Gen Chem.

Chapter 1:
Phase I: 27/41 = 66% = 10
Phase II: 10/20 = 50% = 8 (ouch!)

Chapter 2:
Phase I: 29/37 = 78% = 11
Phase II: 28/33 = 85% = 13

So far I LOVE the book. I hated Gen Chem and I'm enjoying reading this and I really feel like it's helping me grasp the topics. Hopefully future chapters will continue this trend...

Now it's up to you guys! Keep this thread alive!
 
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TheMightyBoosh,

Ha ha, yeah, I'm joining you. There is something sobering about allowing others to see your weakness. It puts it out there and doesn't let me conceal it in my mind. Hopefully it pushes me to do more work to get better!


Regarding #7, let me look at my book when I get home from work. I did those passages in Gen Chem 3 around 10-11pm last night. I could have just read right over it. To be honest, I don't even remember seeing two equations, ha ha.
 
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Im following sn2's study guide, and i guess im not learning the content as great as i should be, cuz im averaging 7-9 in all sections =x.
 
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JKNANH,

That's alright, as long as you are learning from the mistakes. There are no prizes for doing well on practice.

If I could only get 7-9's but be better prepared for the MCAT, I would take it! Learn from your mistakes. Figure out your errors in reasoning, memory, or application.

Do not be discouraged, there are many kids out there who kill my scores, some can do it without practice. I'm putting in a lot of time to get better, so I am prepared for the big show!!!
 
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i know this doesnt go here,
but with verbal
im consistenly scoring 9-10s,
i want to bring up to around 11 - 12
(which is only few questions more.)
how can i improve my score?
any suggestions?
btw, i have 2 months till the actual exam.
you think i can do it?
 
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snipermonkey, try out the verbal strategy i just posted

Most of that is from what I've learned and utilized from EK, and the rest is from SDN.

Trust me..it works WONDERS. give it a shot, let me know how it goes.

🙂
 

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I think the best strategy for verbal is to read the passage for the main idea, then read the question stems and answer choices like a defense attorney trying to destroy someone on the stand. VR can be practiced and improved, but in the end it is a lot of focus and natural ability/test taking skils.

The guy who just posted a 15 VR yesterday hardly practiced VR outside of FLs. And I doubt he developed a strategy. You just need to post game the AAMCs pretty hard and start to see patterns, then develop an intuition based on that.

I honestly think the best way to develop this intuition would be to read over the AAMC MCAT guide, because they tell you how they develop answers/questions and they explain their thinking. EK has the best advice for VR BUT EK strategies always favor closer to 10s rather than 15s. AAMC realizes EK tells people, "don't pick extreme choices", so they put extreme correct choices in passages.
 
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Don Draper said:
I honestly think the best way to develop this intuition would be to read over the AAMC MCAT guide, because they tell you how they develop answers/questions and they explain their thinking.
Click to expand...

Do you mean the official guide that you buy separately from them?
 
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I got a 9 on physics section 3 phase 1 🙁(

do you guys take down a lot of notes while reading? or what do you do during the lecture readings?
 
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Parthenon89 said:
I got a 9 on physics section 3 phase 1 🙁(

do you guys take down a lot of notes while reading? or what do you do during the lecture readings?
Click to expand...

I mainly focus on understanding why the equations are the way they are for physics. And I also try my best to solve each example before looking at the solutions.

I also do 1/3 of EK 1001 physics problems for that particular section before hitting the BR passages. This definitely helps to make sure I know how to work through problems before doing the passages. I'm sure doing TPR workbook problems before hand would help as well, but so far I haven't been efficient enough with my studying to fit that in. I'm pretty sluggish when it comes to getting reading/passage review done quickly during the day, and I need to fix that.
 
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Awesome outline man! Feel free to post one of these up after every chapter 🙂

No but seriously, it takes me a while to go through each chapter, and taking notes would take me wayyy too long to finish. But you could obviously do it pretty quickly, so that works for you.

I mainly rely on highlighting and putting little post it notes at random points in the chapter.

To each his own.
 
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dondraper if you would post all of your notes, you would be an SDN God Send.....i guess in this world we call that an acceptance letter..any way you get the point, PLEASE post your notes, I'm looking through the one for equilibrium and its awesome.
 
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Hey guys, looking for opinions here on TBR physics passages. Are these passages aimed to be a bit difficult? I'm scoring 10+ overall per chapter, but the AAMC practices just seem ridiculously easy for physics based passages to anything in TBR physics.
 
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parthenon89: your strategy actually works. thanks so much.

i just reviewed electrostatics and electromagnetism section.
but i feel like they are missing about the thumbs rule and also magenetism in loop, or solenoid.
does anyone agree
 
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snipermonkey said:
parthenon89: your strategy actually works. thanks so much.

i just reviewed electrostatics and electromagnetism section.
but i feel like they are missing about the thumbs rule and also magenetism in loop, or solenoid.
does anyone agree
Click to expand...


snipermonkey, I agree they are missing that topic. And surprisingly, they actually ask a question that requires that concept in one of the passages.

Also, did anyone get rocked by Section 6 passages in Physics? Damn, I can't seem to buy a right answer for that section.
 
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Mbeas said:
I actually did well on that section; sections 8 and 9 however, are my ENEMIES
Click to expand...

Haha, 8 & 9 are actually my strongest since I am an engineer. Oh well at least we know which sections to work more on.
 
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snipermonkey said:
parthenon89: your strategy actually works. thanks so much.

i just reviewed electrostatics and electromagnetism section.
but i feel like they are missing about the thumbs rule and also magenetism in loop, or solenoid.
does anyone agree
Click to expand...


no problem man, how are you scoring now compared to before?
 
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G. Chem Ch. 2
Phase II: 33/39 = 85% ~ 13

G. Chem Ch. 3
Phase II: 29/40 = 73% ~ 11

Physics Ch. 3
Phase II: 23/31 = 74% ~ 11

O. Chem Ch. 2
Phase II: 27/39 = 69% ~ 10

Making calculations under time pressure is still an issue for me in chemistry.

I probably won't post scores here for a while since I'm gonna have to substitute SDN minutes for NBA Finals minutes. I picked the absolute worst time to study for the MCAT... Lakers in the finals and the World Cup about to start. Shoot me.
 
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hey mighty
same here. NBA finals + NHL Finals + World Cup soon.
and taking the mcat on august 4th?
good bye MCAT lol
i just did 3 sectionsof electrostatics & Electromagnetism.
i got 22/27 right. idk how it converts to
but i got rocked in the first section...
🙁
 
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snipermonkey said:
hey mighty
same here. NBA finals + NHL Finals + World Cup soon.
and taking the mcat on august 4th?
good bye MCAT lol
i just did 3 sectionsof electrostatics & Electromagnetism.
i got 22/27 right. idk how it converts to
but i got rocked in the first section...
🙁
Click to expand...

I swear it reflects poorly on my planning as a sports fan... even though i stopped watching the NHL after the Sharks went down 😡 At least we know after early-mid July we'll be free of distractions. Unless you follow the WNBA...
 
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Physics:
section 1: 6
Section 2: 10
Section 3 phase I: 9

Chemistry:
section 1: 8
section 2: 11
section 3 phase I: 11
 
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Hey do you guys understand Section3, problem 5 from the gen chem book? I read the explanation and understand everything until it starts to say "the value of x can be no larger than 0.5..."
 
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Okay, so the change in volume is denoted by x. If all of the volume of CO2 was converted to CO and O2 then it would be 1.5 times more than what you started with, or what you started with (1) plus x (.5 in this case). The problem is that not all of the CO2 will ever be converted since it is in equilibrium, so the value will be greater than one since the reaction proceeds to equilibrium but less than 1.5 since you can't convert it all.

hope this helps,

-LIS
 
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LostInStudy said:
Okay, so the change in volume is denoted by x. If all of the volume of CO2 was converted to CO and O2 then it would be 1.5 times more than what you started with, or what you started with (1) plus x (.5 in this case). The problem is that not all of the CO2 will ever be converted since it is in equilibrium, so the value will be greater than one since the reaction proceeds to equilibrium but less than 1.5 since you can't convert it all.

hope this helps,

-LIS
Click to expand...

excellent, i got it now

thanks a lot
 
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jkhanh said:
Im following sn2's study guide, and i guess im not learning the content as great as i should be, cuz im averaging 7-9 in all sections =x.
Click to expand...

Don't worry too much about low scores. When I was doing TBR, I did every other passage in each section and consistently was around 8 or 9. Then 3 weeks before the real exam I took 4 AAMC exams (3,8,9,10) and I got 30, 34, 36, 35 respectively. So obviously I did better than the TBR passages. I just got back my real score and it was a 34 which I'm pleased about.

Long story short, TBR passages are DIFFICULT. Don't sweat low scores, try to learn from your mistakes and stay positive. Also, I would recommend not even scoring those passages because all it will do is frustrate you. I do think they are great prep books though so just stick with it.
 
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Sometimes BR cracks me up. Seriously.

Ochem Ch. 7
"Despite our best efforts to track the MCAT and incorporate information they release about the exam, there will be some topics we miss. If you plan on memorizing all the information in our materials, you will be fine for the most part."

lol. So I may be ok if I memorize all of the most dense prep material on the market. I feel good now.
 
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Don Draper said:
Sometimes BR cracks me up. Seriously.

Ochem Ch. 7
"Despite our best efforts to track the MCAT and incorporate information they release about the exam, there will be some topics we miss. If you plan on memorizing all the information in our materials, you will be fine for the most part."

lol. So I may be ok if I memorize all of the most dense prep material on the market. I feel good now.
Click to expand...

Yea last night I was working through a passage when I came across an answer choice that said "cannot tell from the information in this passage (never pick this!)" and had to take a few seconds to laugh it off.

Thank you Todd for random moments of comic relief.
 
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Todd is awsome and his lectures include more comic relief than the books.
How did everyone do on the BR CBTs vs. AAMC 7-10?
 
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I wasnt going to do the BR CBTS
but since a lot of people here are talking about it,
it seems like its a good investment?
 
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I got something close to a 6 on phase II of the Metabolic pathways chapter. Don't worry too much about it. Just focus on post game.
 
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TheMightyBoosh said:
I got something close to a 6 on phase II of the Metabolic pathways chapter. Don't worry too much about it. Just focus on post game.
Click to expand...


yeah but i'm consistently getting only half right, these passages seem so over the top, because I'm doing EK 1001, and I get close to 80 percent of those right.
 
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Has anyone ever got their scores for the TBR CBTs sent to them? Ive been using the conversion chart, but it would be nice to have a score sent, especially if the numbers fall within a range (11-12 or 13-15).
 
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TheMightyBoosh said:
I got something close to a 6 on phase II of the Metabolic pathways chapter. Don't worry too much about it. Just focus on post game.
Click to expand...

👍

Passages are for learning, not for score scaling.

If someone comes on here and says, "yeah I'm missing them all" or "no, I get them all right", neither matters. Drill drill drill. Do the passage again a week later and get them all right. Do other passages.

Assessment time is during your FLs.
 
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WTF, I just got a 7 VR on TBR 5. I missed 6 on ps so 13-14, 10 on bio (one passage killed me) so thats 11-12 and then got killed on VR. I basically ran out of time but I was pretty much guessing on everything anyway. Ive found that confidence is bad for my verbal...

Anyone else find the VR on test 5 pretty insane?
 
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I wanna buy TPRH books for science review and verbal
i've posted on for-sale forum as well.
but no one has contacted me.
how should i buy them
also, how expensive r they.?
(just a random question)
 
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Can someone post the answer to #6 on CBT 5? Its not letting me see it online...

Thanks!
 
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anyone else find the acid base chapter AMAZING?

i read it today and just giggled my ass through the whole thing.
 
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