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For startes, I want to thank everyone here who has helped me through this process. This is an increadible and supportive community and I'm glad to be a part of it. Now, on to my scores:
PAT: 17 (52.4)
QR: 14 (26.8)🙁🙁🙁🙁
RC: 19 (53.9)
BIO: 23 (97.9)
GC: 19 (72.4)
OC: 21 (87.6)
TS: 21 (92.4)
AA: 19 (75.3)
This was my second time through and the first time through my scores were 14, 17, 21, 21, 20, 16, 19, 19 (in the same order).
I applied to indiana, michigan, detroit mercy, case, louisville, kentucky, and howard. I gratuated with a bachelors in biology in may with a cGPA of 3.973 and a sGPA of ~3.9 (I dont know what it is excatly, but I got a B+ once and an A- in a lab). Also, I recieved an email today stating that I have been accepted to (and will enroll in) a one year masters in biology program offered at my university.
What do you think? Am I okay or should I apply to more schools (if so, which ones)? I really dont want to retake b/c this was my second time through and a thirt try may look bad. In addition, an october retake may be way too late for this cycle and I dont want to waste another year. I guess I'm just afraid that schools will look at that 14 and trash my application. 🙁
As for the sections and how I studied...I used the destroyer, kaplan blue book (a great paperweight, IMO), topscore, achiever, and crack dat pat.
PAT: I dont know what went wrong here. I was practice testing 18s in crack dat pat and topscore, and 16-17 in achiever. The angles were a pain, but the cubes and hole punches were super easy. Pattern folding and keyholes werent bad, but TFE was difficult.
QR: I ran out of time...I dont know what else I can say. I've never gotten anything lower than an A in a math class, and got a a 720 in my GREs. I'm good at math...just not today I guess. I used the destoryer to study. The problems in the real thing were long and drawn out calculations. The destoryer gave me a good base but I guess I needed to be quicker with the calculations. Definitely more difficult than anything I had encountered. The range of my practice test on achiever and topscore was 16-23.
RC: Make sure you read the passage! There is no way to skim and answer the questions correctly. I gave myself 20 mins/passage...10 minutes to read, and 10 minutes to answer questions. Like everyone else has said, a lot of "tone" questions. Also, some answers were rephrased so they were not exactly as they were listed in the passage. I never scored lower than a 20 on the practice tests.
BIO: Not bad...pretty straightforward. I had a slide to look at and identify and a few really weird questions I had no idea about. One questoin wasnt directly from the achiever, but I got it wrong on my first try through so I made a note of it and researched it later...sure enough, there was a question about it on the exam. I practice tested in the 16-18 range.
GC: Not a lot of calculations...know your fundamentals. Destroyer does a pretty good job. Practice tests were in the 16-18 range.
OC: Destoyer is awesome for this section! I improved my score by 5 points...which is spectacular. Know the reactions and explantions in this book and you'll be fine. Practice tests were in the 18-19 range.
As for my study methods/time...I studied for about 4 weeks. 2-3 hrs/day for 3 weeks and 5-6hrs/day last week. I took a lot of practice tests last week which is why the time commitment went up. I went through the destroyer twice. The first time through I made notecards of what I thought was important and what I got wrong. If I didnt know it, I made a notecard. I ended up with about 350 cards (100 for each of the sciences and 50 for QR).
Let me know if you have any more questions.
PAT: 17 (52.4)
QR: 14 (26.8)🙁🙁🙁🙁
RC: 19 (53.9)
BIO: 23 (97.9)
GC: 19 (72.4)
OC: 21 (87.6)
TS: 21 (92.4)
AA: 19 (75.3)
This was my second time through and the first time through my scores were 14, 17, 21, 21, 20, 16, 19, 19 (in the same order).
I applied to indiana, michigan, detroit mercy, case, louisville, kentucky, and howard. I gratuated with a bachelors in biology in may with a cGPA of 3.973 and a sGPA of ~3.9 (I dont know what it is excatly, but I got a B+ once and an A- in a lab). Also, I recieved an email today stating that I have been accepted to (and will enroll in) a one year masters in biology program offered at my university.
What do you think? Am I okay or should I apply to more schools (if so, which ones)? I really dont want to retake b/c this was my second time through and a thirt try may look bad. In addition, an october retake may be way too late for this cycle and I dont want to waste another year. I guess I'm just afraid that schools will look at that 14 and trash my application. 🙁
As for the sections and how I studied...I used the destroyer, kaplan blue book (a great paperweight, IMO), topscore, achiever, and crack dat pat.
PAT: I dont know what went wrong here. I was practice testing 18s in crack dat pat and topscore, and 16-17 in achiever. The angles were a pain, but the cubes and hole punches were super easy. Pattern folding and keyholes werent bad, but TFE was difficult.
QR: I ran out of time...I dont know what else I can say. I've never gotten anything lower than an A in a math class, and got a a 720 in my GREs. I'm good at math...just not today I guess. I used the destoryer to study. The problems in the real thing were long and drawn out calculations. The destoryer gave me a good base but I guess I needed to be quicker with the calculations. Definitely more difficult than anything I had encountered. The range of my practice test on achiever and topscore was 16-23.
RC: Make sure you read the passage! There is no way to skim and answer the questions correctly. I gave myself 20 mins/passage...10 minutes to read, and 10 minutes to answer questions. Like everyone else has said, a lot of "tone" questions. Also, some answers were rephrased so they were not exactly as they were listed in the passage. I never scored lower than a 20 on the practice tests.
BIO: Not bad...pretty straightforward. I had a slide to look at and identify and a few really weird questions I had no idea about. One questoin wasnt directly from the achiever, but I got it wrong on my first try through so I made a note of it and researched it later...sure enough, there was a question about it on the exam. I practice tested in the 16-18 range.
GC: Not a lot of calculations...know your fundamentals. Destroyer does a pretty good job. Practice tests were in the 16-18 range.
OC: Destoyer is awesome for this section! I improved my score by 5 points...which is spectacular. Know the reactions and explantions in this book and you'll be fine. Practice tests were in the 18-19 range.
As for my study methods/time...I studied for about 4 weeks. 2-3 hrs/day for 3 weeks and 5-6hrs/day last week. I took a lot of practice tests last week which is why the time commitment went up. I went through the destroyer twice. The first time through I made notecards of what I thought was important and what I got wrong. If I didnt know it, I made a notecard. I ended up with about 350 cards (100 for each of the sciences and 50 for QR).
Let me know if you have any more questions.
