feeling really hopeless and depressed

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batista_123

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I finihsed all 5 EK books. before doing EK I heard people tell me how much they loved it and how much their scores improved as a result of EK. but when I took all of the exams at the end of the books, I keep scoring 3s and 4s in all subjects. this is terrible. I dont know what to do. What is the next step? should I just forget the $ and pay for TPR? should I buy TPR books and continue studying on my own? I know the answer to everything is "practice" but I am just really confused and hopeless and lost. I dont know HOW I should practice. What should be my next step?
Thanks a bunch. Any suggestions will mean a lot to me.

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Hey, don't give up all hope just yet. I know it may be discouraging to see your practice scores so low, but you can still get through this. The best thing that you can do for yourself right now is to purchase an AAMC practice MCAT exam if you haven't already done so. Buy one of the later CBTs like 8, 9, or 10. When you get it, take the entire exam as if you were taking the real MCATs (no cheating and time yourself). The score you get on these AAMC practice MCATs will be a much better indicator of how you will perform on the real thing as opposed to the EK's practice exams. When you are finished and you have scored it, review the exam in its entirety. The important thing to notice is "WHY am I missing these questions?" There are really two ways to answer this: either it's because you don't have the prior knowledge to answer the question, or you cannot extract the correct answer from the passage. If it's the former, then you should go through your EK material again but more thoroughly this time. Take notes, highlight the material, make flashcards....anything it takes to remember the information. If it is the latter, then the best way to improve your score is to take many practice exams until you are at the point where you are comfortable reading and extracting information from the passage under timed conditions. I did not take any prep courses while studying for the MCATs, so may be other people can help you out there, but I do own several test prep books including Kaplan and Princeton Review. Currently I am using Kaplan more than TPR because it seems to be straight to the point whereas TPR can be a bit wordy.

Once you figure out where you are going wrong, then you will be able to talor you studying to improve on your weakness. However, it will be hard for you to figure out what your weakness is if you don't take a practice test. The best of luck to ya.
 
I agree, take a AAMC CBT practice and see what that gives you. Try the free 3R first. I got the exact same score on that one as I did on the actual paper test that I took last Aug. If you understand the material, than it probably is just that you need to practice taking the actual test, and go over it when you are done to see where your mistakes are.

I am using the EK books also, and If I scored that low, I would go back and repeat the section until I know the answers to every question. Maybe you are rushing thru the books too fast. I don't honestly think that the Kaplan or TPR books are going to be any different for you.

Best of luck!
 
As you are going through the review of each practice test you have taken, ask yourself these 2 questions for EVERY question in that exam.j

1. How would I have to study to have known this was a right answer? Was the answer from something that needed rote memorization? Was it in the passage and you didn't catch on to it? Was is something that integrated various subjects from previous study (such as the passage that shows a circuit and voltage cell in the same diagram)

2. How would I have to study to have known this answer was wrong? Sometimes its obvious, so use your judgement here and don't waste time on the obviously wrong answers that are irrelevant or just way off base. But asking yourself this question helps most in those 50/50 situations where you have narrowed down your answer to 2 possible choices and one is just "better" then the other. Your job is to figure out why.


This is a good method , not only for MCAT, but for all subjects you take/study. Ofcourse, to ask yourself these questions you need a set of practice questions. And I would use the AAMC tests along with answer keys with explanation. Go thru 3 AAMC tests using this method....choose them randomly, say AAMC 3, 6, 10. Don't even bother trying to figure out the right answer on your own. This is a waste of time at this point, and its not what you are trying to do with this method. Just begin with the questions and answer keys in hand.

Then after you finish those, take the other ones timed...and I'll bet your score jumps and your "right answer" intuition also goes up. Not to mention, you will have covered alot of overlapping MCAT topics that were on those 1st 3 tests you reviewed. And you have clarified which concepts they are trying to isolate and test in each question, based on those 2 questions above.
 
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I finihsed all 5 EK books. before doing EK I heard people tell me how much they loved it and how much their scores improved as a result of EK. but when I took all of the exams at the end of the books, I keep scoring 3s and 4s in all subjects. this is terrible. I dont know what to do. What is the next step? should I just forget the $ and pay for TPR? should I buy TPR books and continue studying on my own? I know the answer to everything is "practice" but I am just really confused and hopeless and lost. I dont know HOW I should practice. What should be my next step?
Thanks a bunch. Any suggestions will mean a lot to me.

So how much does TPR pay you to post stuff like that?
 
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