Feeling overwhelmed...Advice Appreciated

[AFALI]

Hey guys,

Long time reader first time poster. I've got exactly one month until the mcat, (writing it 09/07). I've been studying part time about 4 hours a day with one day off per week while working on my masters dissertation which is due the same week as my mcat. I'm about 60% of the way through content review. I'm feeling a bit depressed with my practice scores and overwhelmed ( AAMC 3- 25, AAMC 9- 25). I'm ok with the verbal (11 both times) but just cant seem to get physics and chem down. Any advice would be appreciated.

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[OCDOCDOCD]

If you're not finished with content review then you're wasting practice tests by taking them. You shouldn't be taking any practice tests until after you've finished all of your content review. Up until then you should be doing practice passages for the particular subjects you're studying at the time. Right now your practice test scores are uninterpretable since there's no way to know how many more questions you would have gotten right had you reviewed all the material.

 

[AFALI]

I took the first one as a diagnostic. Its been 5 years since I took the intro bio/chem/physics courses and needed to know where I stood. I just took #9 more to gauge how well I knew what I had covered, and if my mark was super crap, to consider delaying. To be honest though it felt like the majority of physical sciences were from the chapters I hadn't covered. I guess I'm really stressed out about trying to juggle two major things within 3 days of each other and doing poorly on both.

 

[illinichief89]

actually I find that doing practice before content makes the content review more lucid. But yea, dont use up real AAMC practice tests, that is a waste. But definitely use anything else for practice. Notice what problems give you trouble and then go back and content review that stuff. Sometimes when you do the practice problems and read the answers, the answers will make the concepts clearer to you

 

[ES2]

actually I find that doing practice before content makes the content review more lucid. But yea, dont use up real AAMC practice tests, that is a waste. But definitely use anything else for practice. Notice what problems give you trouble and then go back and content review that stuff. Sometimes when you do the practice problems and read the answers, the answers will make the concepts clearer to you

Make sure you know all the equations, the units for those equations, etc. You should be able to show how Newtons relate to Joules relate to work relate to power, as a start. I think content review is pretty important Physics/Chem, but you don't necessarily have to spend a lot of time doing the content review for this section. A good week and a half will get you through start to finish.