Bubbling

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It takes me FOREVER to bubble one answer.

DO you really have to fill the entire bubble? Any white region inside the bubble is not permitted?

Last time Kaplan messed up my grading I dont know if they scanned someone elses scantron or was it my bubbling skill.
they marked my entire v erbal section as "not attempted" and my answers on the bio section do not match the answers I marked on my question booklet. I also remember marking each bubble on the verbal as well


Oh well I ll go in sometime this week and find out whats going on :rolleyes:

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Nikki2002 said:
please for the love of god do not start talking about pencils again.....ahhhhhhhhh can't take it anymore!!



Seems like you have a story to tell ! Do share...

Anyways, so I totally ignored bubbling my answers on the BS today and the proctor said 5 more mins. .
And those 5 minutes were'nt sufficient for bubbling them up nicely......

Geez, I have to find a 1.0 thick lead pencil now.

I tried to look for "my first pencil' in wall mart, but no luck . ANyone know where I could find that ?
 
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tik-tik-clock said:
Seems like you have a story to tell ! Do share...

Anyways, so I totally ignored bubbling my answers on the BS today and the proctor said 5 more mins. .
And those 5 minutes were'nt sufficient for bubbling them up nicely......

Geez, I have to find a 1.0 thick lead pencil now.

I tried to look for "my first pencil' in wall mart, but no luck . ANyone know where I could find that ?
Just use a normal wooden pencil that is not very sharp. That's what I did, and it worked out fine. FYI, yes, you do need to fill in the entire oval.
 
QofQuimica said:
Just use a normal wooden pencil that is not very sharp. That's what I did, and it worked out fine. FYI, yes, you do need to fill in the entire oval.

Can we use our mechanical pencils or do they have to be the regular ones? Just wondering, I'm not going to use my mechanical one anyway since the lead is so thin.
 
If you go to a teacher supply store, they have tons of those fat pencils. They are all HB so I'm not sure if it's alright for scan trons.

It's crazy how it takes more than 5 minutes to bubble 77 answers!
 
xylem29 said:
Can we use our mechanical pencils or do they have to be the regular ones? Just wondering, I'm not going to use my mechanical one anyway since the lead is so thin.
Yes, you can use mechanical pencils as long as they're #2. I used them, too, to do the figuring in the test booklets. But I did the bubbling with the wooden ones.

Look, guys, pencil choice is not something to stress about. Bring two pencils of your choice to write in your test booklet with (that's what I used the mechanical pencils for), two dull wooden #2 pencils to bubble ovals with, and two black pens for the essays. That's all you need. Now get out of here and go do something more productive than obsessing over pencils. ;)
 
QofQuimica said:
Yes, you can use mechanical pencils as long as they're #2. I used them, too, to do the figuring in the test booklets. But I did the bubbling with the wooden ones.

Look, guys, pencil choice is not something to stress about. Bring two pencils of your choice to write in your test booklet with (that's what I used the mechanical pencils for), two dull wooden #2 pencils to bubble ovals with, and two black pens for the essays. That's all you need. Now get out of here and go do something more productive than obsessing over pencils. ;)
:laugh: geesh Q, that is a lot of writing utensils. :laugh:
 
i bubble as i go along... i think it makes more sense. one thing i learned from my practice test yesterday was that it's better to just bubble in SOMETHING, even if you have no idea, and star it in your book. because if you do it right then and tehre, you can make sorta a educated guess, but if you're running out of time at the end, and you have to go back to the 5 or 6 you totally skipped and just randomly bubbled in B, you don't have as good of a chance of getting those right.


i use a .7 lead mechanical pencil and it works fine for me. dull pencils would annoy me when i'm doing calculations i guess.
 
Oh my God, I cannot actually believe that folks are obsessing over the type of pencil to use or not to use; and how to fill- or not fill-in the oval. These are the very least of my worries. Except you guys are breaking a 40 or more on your practice tests, I think you should have more to worry about than pencil types.
 
You could try bubbling in answers after every passage. It was a happy medium for me between going back and forth between the answer sheet and test booklet after every question and the mad dash to fill in 70+ bubbles within the last five minutes. But I have to agree with other posters, focus more on the material these last few weeks as opposed to stressing over bubbling strategy!
 
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I bubble when I am ready to turn a page. This seems to be optimal to me, compared to bubbling every one as you go or finish the entire session and come back to the first page.
 
QofQuimica said:
Yes, you can use mechanical pencils as long as they're #2. I used them, too, to do the figuring in the test booklets. But I did the bubbling with the wooden ones.

Look, guys, pencil choice is not something to stress about. Bring two pencils of your choice to write in your test booklet with (that's what I used the mechanical pencils for), two dull wooden #2 pencils to bubble ovals with, and two black pens for the essays. That's all you need. Now get out of here and go do something more productive than obsessing over pencils. ;)
Speaking of pencil, is HB pencil same thing as #2?
 
tus said:
Speaking of pencil, is HB pencil same thing as #2?

Yup. Same thing. The HB notation refers to artist's pencil grade scale, it goes from 12F to 12B. F grade pencils are hard, and therefore are not very dark. B pencils are soft and very dark. HB is in the middle on the scale.

I know, I know...I was bored.
 
Anyone remember that thread before the April MCAT where some poster told everyone that the AAMC computers can't scan the sheet if you had used mechancial pencils? I still laugh about that every day! :D
 
superwillis said:
Yup. Same thing. The HB notation refers to artist's pencil grade scale, it goes from 12F to 12B. F grade pencils are hard, and therefore are not very dark. B pencils are soft and very dark. HB is in the middle on the scale.

I know, I know...I was bored.


That kind of follow-through will pay off in the long run. Now get back to the books! :D
 
ChymeChancellor said:
Anyone remember that thread before the April MCAT where some poster told everyone that the AAMC computers can't scan the sheet if you had used mechancial pencils? I still laugh about that every day! :D


I don't know what you are talking about, but I remember my proctor freaked us out about the same thing so I used a regular pencil that Kaplan gave.

I know this sounds dorky, but another poster talked about using the big my first pencils by ticerondoga or what ever that company is called. You can get them at any Staples.

Those things save time on bubbling. I like them.
 
I bubbled every three or four passages...if bubbling is such a problem, make yourself a list of answers, and get a blank scantron and just practice that until you can get it right.

I <3 mechanical pencils :
 
leahmaria said:
I bubbled every three or four passages...if bubbling is such a problem, make yourself a list of answers, and get a blank scantron and just practice that until you can get it right.

I <3 mechanical pencils :

Or print out a sheet of Os from a word document or something...
 
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