- Joined
- Apr 5, 2009
- Messages
- 391
- Reaction score
- 3
Good lord, its finally over. After the month of studying 6-8 hours a day its over. Went into the test with a lot of confidence the day before but by the time I got to the testing center I was shaking. The science portion was calm, cool and collected for me, but the 2nd half was nasty.
Bio - 23 😀
GC - 22
OC - 21
TS - 22 🙂
RC - 21
QR - 16 : /
AA - 21
PA - 19
Biology - Kaplan BB, CliffsNotes AP Bio, old bio notes from Freeman text - Wow. I was mentally not prepared to look at my report and see a 23 there. I was constantly getting 18s and 19s on both TopScore and Kaplan. The questions were so out there, too. It really covered a broad range of topics and was much harder than practice tests. Still, it had WAY less classification questions than in TopScore.
GC - Overall, I was pretty satisfied with how this went for me. Believe it or not, this was my worst subject a week ago before I went on a study blitz with MCAT ExamKrackers, which is an AMAZING study tool.
OC - Thought I might even do better than this in orgo, since I felt most confident with this subject. I read through my old Carey textbook, MCAT ExamKrackers section and flashcards of all the reactions I made a year ago. The questions were very straightforward.
RC - one really tough passage and two easy ones that were near and dear to my heart. LOTS of search and destroy. Thankfully not too many tone problems IMO. By this point in the exam I was starting to feel nausious from all the tension and sweating. Weird I know, but I've never been this nervous about a test in my life.
QR - Oy, not very proud about this one. By this point in the exam, I felt like crap and I couldn't think straight. Not to say that I was going to get any higher than an 18 here anyways. Besides, it didnt bring my AA down too much.
PAT - So I was cruising along and I got to cube counting. BOTH my dry erase pens decide to stop working, so I spend 17 minutes on cubes crying as I had to scratch in tally marks for cubes, lol. Other than that, it was pretty fair overall.
Study materials used : textbooks, Cliffsnotes AP Biology, Kaplan DAT BB, TopScore Pro, endless flashcards, MCAT ExamKrackers audio osmosis tapes, MCAT ExamKrackers books
I would highly reccommend buying Cliffsnotes because it was a nice broad look at Bio, moreso than the Kaplan BB... which was still a pretty good resource anyways. Also, go find a torrent for the audio osmosis and the ExamKrackers books. Find a way to download them and not pay for it, b/c it would have cost me $300 bucks. They're amazing review tools, even better than Kaplan BB IMO. Finally, I would also reccommend you go to TopScore's site and buy their product for 50 bucks. Definitely worth the money for a comfortable testing simulation than is pretty much spot on. My only gripe about this is that the Angle Ranking questions in TopScore were NOWHERE near as hard as the real thing. I lost alot of time doing those and my PAT was meh.
On another note, my world has been opened to new schools with this good DAT score. As of now, I'm applying to Tufts, BU, VCU, UW (WA resident), Temple, Maryland, NYU and USC. I'm thinking I may drop USC and Temple b/c I feel I'm a pretty good candidate at UW, VCU, BU and Tufts. BTW, I have a 3.21 GPA, though it is from UVA, which is not bad, IMO.
I was thinking of maybe applying to Columbia and PENN. Any thoughts?
Bio - 23 😀
GC - 22
OC - 21
TS - 22 🙂
RC - 21
QR - 16 : /
AA - 21
PA - 19
Biology - Kaplan BB, CliffsNotes AP Bio, old bio notes from Freeman text - Wow. I was mentally not prepared to look at my report and see a 23 there. I was constantly getting 18s and 19s on both TopScore and Kaplan. The questions were so out there, too. It really covered a broad range of topics and was much harder than practice tests. Still, it had WAY less classification questions than in TopScore.
GC - Overall, I was pretty satisfied with how this went for me. Believe it or not, this was my worst subject a week ago before I went on a study blitz with MCAT ExamKrackers, which is an AMAZING study tool.
OC - Thought I might even do better than this in orgo, since I felt most confident with this subject. I read through my old Carey textbook, MCAT ExamKrackers section and flashcards of all the reactions I made a year ago. The questions were very straightforward.
RC - one really tough passage and two easy ones that were near and dear to my heart. LOTS of search and destroy. Thankfully not too many tone problems IMO. By this point in the exam I was starting to feel nausious from all the tension and sweating. Weird I know, but I've never been this nervous about a test in my life.
QR - Oy, not very proud about this one. By this point in the exam, I felt like crap and I couldn't think straight. Not to say that I was going to get any higher than an 18 here anyways. Besides, it didnt bring my AA down too much.
PAT - So I was cruising along and I got to cube counting. BOTH my dry erase pens decide to stop working, so I spend 17 minutes on cubes crying as I had to scratch in tally marks for cubes, lol. Other than that, it was pretty fair overall.
Study materials used : textbooks, Cliffsnotes AP Biology, Kaplan DAT BB, TopScore Pro, endless flashcards, MCAT ExamKrackers audio osmosis tapes, MCAT ExamKrackers books
I would highly reccommend buying Cliffsnotes because it was a nice broad look at Bio, moreso than the Kaplan BB... which was still a pretty good resource anyways. Also, go find a torrent for the audio osmosis and the ExamKrackers books. Find a way to download them and not pay for it, b/c it would have cost me $300 bucks. They're amazing review tools, even better than Kaplan BB IMO. Finally, I would also reccommend you go to TopScore's site and buy their product for 50 bucks. Definitely worth the money for a comfortable testing simulation than is pretty much spot on. My only gripe about this is that the Angle Ranking questions in TopScore were NOWHERE near as hard as the real thing. I lost alot of time doing those and my PAT was meh.
On another note, my world has been opened to new schools with this good DAT score. As of now, I'm applying to Tufts, BU, VCU, UW (WA resident), Temple, Maryland, NYU and USC. I'm thinking I may drop USC and Temple b/c I feel I'm a pretty good candidate at UW, VCU, BU and Tufts. BTW, I have a 3.21 GPA, though it is from UVA, which is not bad, IMO.
I was thinking of maybe applying to Columbia and PENN. Any thoughts?
