Finally, My Breakdown 6/27/2013

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lr2014

lr2014

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Hello everyone!
So I just arrived from Prometric and I have to say that I did better than I expected. My scores are not like the ones people normally post here but I still wanted to give you some idea of how was my experience. Here we go:

PAT - 19 😎
RC - 20 👍
BIO - 19 😳
GC - 21 😎
OC - 20 👍
QR - 15 😡 👎
TS - 20
AA - 19

PAT: HORRIBLE! There were 20 minutes left I still was on the hole punches 😱 Keyholes were super weird. Some of the choices were really hard to differentiate because in some a little curve was the difference (Harder the CDP). TFE wasn't too bad but still, some figures had a mess of dashed lines which made it super hard, some were easy though (around the same as CDP). Angle ranking made me want to punch the monitor, some were extremely hard to differentiate and in most of them I used the choices to narrow down the answer. Hole Punching was a mixture of hard and easy ones. one or two of them had like 5 folds and although I got the hang of it through the LOS method in CDP for some reason I didn't use it (felt that I was going to lose time doing it). Cube counting was easy ( waaay easier than CDP), and Pattern folding wasn't so hard (IMO easier than CDP).

USED: CDP/Achiever

Reading Comprehension: English is not my first language (learned it 5 years ago) and the three passages weren't too hard, 95 % of the questions were Search and Destroy, although I had to do a bit of math in one of the questions but nothing crazy like Achiever RC.

USED: Achiever but only took 2 practice tests and they were useless.

Biology: I was AMAZED by how easy and straightforward were the questions, I was expecting a lot of application questions but there was only one, only 2 questions on plants and 2 or 3 of Ecology.

USED: Destroyer, Cliffs, bit of Barrons, Chads', Kaplan BB, QVault, and Bootcamp, The last two were good predictors of my score. Will post my practice scores later.

General Chem: I was expecting to do horrible here, all my practice scores were around 17-18 (Bootcamp). Know the trends, Acids/Bases, atomic structures, etc. There was no nuclear chemistry, no gases, no crazy stoichiometry, everything was straightforward. There was only one question that was set up.

USED: Destroyer, Bootcamp, Achiever, Kaplan BB, Chad's

Orgo: The same as Gen Chem pretty straightforward, Chad was great here, know EAS, acidic and basic structures, nomenclature, the reactions that allow shifts and all that jazz. No obscure reagents. I was expecting to do better here compared to Gen Chem but it was the other way around :laugh: . I was getting around 18-19 on BootCamp. Make sure you read the question well when they ask you to rank stuff, they were asking me which one was more stable in increasing order and I was putting it the other way around. After this I had like 5 minutes left to check my marked Bio questions.

USED: Destroyer, Bootcamp, Achiever, Kaplan BB, Chad's

QR: My nemesis! I have ALWAYS been bad at math. I'm really slow and just thinking about it made want to cry. I have to say that this section wasn't so crazy but still I was slow and marked a bunch of questions which I had no idea how to even set up. Not so much trig but the only two trig questions were hard in my opinion. WHY on EARTH do we need Trig for DS? When I was doing that section I just wanted to jump on a time machine and go to 2015 when all that crazy stuff is gonna get removed. There were inequalities, a little bit of stats (means ) and a lot of word problems. 😡

USED: Destroyer, Bootcamp (predicted my score lol), Chad's.

Prep Materials:

Chads: Amazing, it will refresh anything you need to know and beyond.
Achiever: waste of money and time IMO, I don't feel it prepared me in any way for my test given it was super hard. I got an 11 on one of the Gen Chem sections lol.
QVault: Bought only the Bio section and it was great, there was 1 question on the test that kinda looked like one on QVault.
CDP: pretty good to get the basics down, it will help you with timing.
BootCamp: Ari made a great job with this, I recommend this over Achiever.
Kaplan BB: Meh! read it if you want to but Cliffs/Barrons were better.
Cliffs: Amazing, I complemented it with Barrons and it helped to refresh my Bio.
Destroyer 2011: Really good for practice, I did it 2 times and I think it helped a lot, Bio was good but there are too many questions on which the answer was E so I didn't like that.

Overall Experience:

I arrived around 7:30 am and Prometric was still closed, I was the second one to get checked in after a med school student that was going to take his Step 1 exam. The room was super cold and when I asked the lady if I could use my jacket she said (in a funny accent) that it wasn't acceptable. But with my sympathetic nervous system at its maximum I adapted to the cold pretty fast. I got the break and went running to pee, I came back, changed the laminated paper sheets and still had some time left. After I finished QR my heart was pounding like crazy but when I saw my science scores I was relieved (my QR score was like a slap on the face). Overall my testing experience wasn't bad, I am just glad I am finished. I studied from May 6 until yesterday and I am pretty satisfied with my results. Who knows? Maybe I will have to retake it because of QR, I just hope that is not the case given that most people do worst on the second try. Good luck to those who will take it soon, you can do it!

LATE UPDATE: FYI, I applied to 14 schools, got 12 interviews, went to 5 of those and got into all of them 😀. Avg scores are not the end of the world...
 
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lr2014 said:
Hello everyone!
So I just arrived from Prometric and I have to say that I did better than I expected. My scores are not like the ones people normally post here but I still wanted to give you some idea of how was my experience. Here we go:

PAT - 19 😎
RC - 20 👍
BIO - 19 😳
GC - 21 😎
OC - 20 👍
QR - 15 😡 👎
TS - 20
AA - 19

PAT: HORRIBLE! There were 20 minutes left I still was on the hole punches 😱 Keyholes were super weird. Some of the choices were really hard to differentiate because in some a little curve was the difference (Harder the CDP). TFE wasn't too bad but still, some figures had a mess of dashed lines which made it super hard, some were easy though (around the same as CDP). Angle ranking made me want to punch the monitor, some were extremely hard to differentiate and in most of them I used the choices to narrow down the answer. Hole Punching was a mixture of hard and easy ones. one or two of them had like 5 folds and although I got the hang of it through the LOS method in CDP for some reason I didn't use it (felt that I was going to lose time doing it). Cube counting was easy ( waaay easier than CDP), and Pattern folding wasn't so hard (IMO easier than CDP).

USED: CDP/Achiever

Reading Comprehension: English is not my first language (learned it 5 years ago) and the three passages weren't too hard, 95 % of the questions were Search and Destroy, although I had to do a bit of math in one of the questions but nothing crazy like Achiever RC.

USED: Achiever but only took 2 practice tests and they were useless.

Biology: I was AMAZED by how easy and straightforward were the questions, I was expecting a lot of application questions but there was only one, only 2 questions on plants and 2 or 3 of Ecology.

USED: Destroyer, Chads', Kaplan BB, QVault, and Bootcamp, The last two were good predictors of my score. Will post my practice scores later.

General Chem: I was expecting to do horrible here, all my practice scores were around 17-18 (Bootcamp). Know the trends, Acids/Bases, atomic structures, etc. There was no nuclear chemistry, no gases, no crazy stoichiometry, everything was straightforward. There was only one question that was set up.

USED: Destroyer, Bootcamp, Achiever, Kaplan BB, Chad's

Orgo: The same as Gen Chem pretty straightforward, Chad was great here, know EAS, acidic and basic structures, nomenclature, the reactions that allow shifts and all that jazz. No obscure reagents. I was expecting to do better here compared to Gen Chem but it was the other way around :laugh: . I was getting around 18-19 on BootCamp. Make sure you read the question well when they ask you to rank stuff, they were asking me which one was more stable in increasing order and I was putting it the other way around. After this I had like 5 minutes left to check my marked Bio questions.

USED: Destroyer, Bootcamp, Achiever, Kaplan BB, Chad's

QR: My nemesis! I have ALWAYS been bad at math. I'm really slow and just thinking about it made want to cry. I have to say that this section wasn't so crazy but still I was slow and marked a bunch of questions which I had to idea how to even set up. Not so much trig but the only two trig questions were hard in my opinion. WHY on EARTH do we need Trig for DS? When I was doing that section I just wanted to jump on a time machine and go to 2015 when all that crazy stuff is gonna get removed. There were inequalities, a little bit of stats (means ) and a lot of word problems. 😡

USED: Destroyer, Bootcamp (predicted my score lol), Chad's.

Overall Experience:

I arrived around 7:30 am and Prometric was still closed, I was the second one to get checked in after a med school student that was going to take his Step 1 exam. The room was super cold and when I asked the lady if I could use my jacket she said (in a funny accent) that it wasn't acceptable. But with my sympathetic nervous system at its maximum I adapted to the cold pretty fast. I got the break and went running to pee, I came back, changed the laminated paper sheets and still had some time left. After I finished QR my heart was pounding like crazy but when I saw my science scores I was relieved (my QR score was like a slap on the face). Overall my testing experience wasn't bad, I am just glad I am finished. I studied from May 6 until yesterday and I am pretty satisfied with my results. Who knows? Maybe I will have to retake it because of QR, I just hope that is not the case given that most people do worst on the second try. Good luck to those who will take it soon, you can do it!
Click to expand...

congrats on being done...one question...did you tryt to set up the grids for hole punching? did the test center not allow it?
 
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Eugeniager said:
congrats on being done...one question...did you tryt to set up the grids for hole punching? did the test center not allow it?
Click to expand...

I did set up my grids but never used them because of time and because somehow I didn't feel like using them (IDK why I had this feeling). I did it on the time I had left from the sciences.
 
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Congrats on being done, I know it's a good feeling 👍 The only thing I'd do is call your prospective schools and make sure the QR won't hinder your application. I know it's the least considered section but as far as I know many schools have absolute cutoffs. Otherwise GJ 😎
 
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for science section, how many Qs were about experimental or laboratory related topic (for all 3 sciences)?
 
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Congrats on your scores!

For the biology question, would you say everything that you see there was recognizable? Or was there at least SOMETHING you were like WTF? I HAVE NO CLUE AT ALL?

Did all the bootcamp, qvault, and readings from cliff's and barron's helped?
 
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aznnytezx said:
Congrats on your scores!

For the biology question, would you say everything that you see there was recognizable? Or was there at least SOMETHING you were like WTF? I HAVE NO CLUE AT ALL?

Did all the bootcamp, qvault, and readings from cliff's and barron's helped?
Click to expand...

Yes, everything was pretty much recognizable, I was surprised, I was waiting for a ton of application questions. Nothing out of the blue, everything you mentioned helped.

Eugeniager said:
I have another question....how were you scoring on your first round of destroyer? Thanks 🙂
Click to expand...

Well, I did super bad the first time, 50 % right for Orgo and Gen Chem. Then I did it 3 weeks later and I got like 85% right. For Bio I got most of the questions right, QVault helped a lot for Bio
 
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How thorough did you go through Destroyer?

If you had to do it again, how would you change your study habits and what would you have focused more on?
 
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Xo1991 said:
How thorough did you go through Destroyer?

If you had to do it again, how would you change your study habits and what would you have focused more on?
Click to expand...

Clearly I could have focused more on math but I wasn't going to risk the sciences on doing so. Like I said before, I went 2x over the Destroyer, I marked the ones I got wrong and went over them again. Don't memorize the questions, just understand them and their concepts, specially Gen Chem which can be a little confusing at first.
 
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what about for the sciences, any advice for what you would have done better now that you've taken the real thing?
 
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Overall great job. Most schools dont care much about the QR and have a min on 15. I did bad on the reading last year and that they do care 🙁.
English is also not my 1st language and I am a average reader. Would you say the stories were really in depth, if I tried reading them about 3 paragraphs at a time would I be able to pick out most of the questions.

I have been trying this strategy (3 paragraphs then 5 questions). I like to keep it organized because if I do S&D I get so lost and then panic -_-

also if you could share the Qvault scores that would be awesome. I am going through that right now and scoring around 18-20 for first 3 tests and was wondering if there is a point increase or something... so hard to break that 20 barrier for me right now.
 
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vash429 said:
Overall great job. Most schools dont care much about the QR and have a min on 15. I did bad on the reading last year and that they do care 🙁.
English is also not my 1st language and I am a average reader. Would you say the stories were really in depth, if I tried reading them about 3 paragraphs at a time would I be able to pick out most of the questions.

I have been trying this strategy (3 paragraphs then 5 questions). I like to keep it organized because if I do S&D I get so lost and then panic -_-

also if you could share the Qvault scores that would be awesome. I am going through that right now and scoring around 18-20 for first 3 tests and was wondering if there is a point increase or something... so hard to break that 20 barrier for me right now.
Click to expand...

Well, for reading is just luck and being able to read fast. What recommend is reading the whole passage at the beginning so you just get an idea of where things are (do this on 2 min max) then jump to the questions, you never know if the 2nd or 3rd passage is going to be hard so try to move fast but most important thing is to keep calm. If you get a hard passage, the chances are that other people also found it hard and the curve may help you at the end, just DO NOT FREAK OUT, keep telling yourself that everything is going to be ok. :luck:


EDIT: Oops I forgot to add my DATQvault Practice scores, I only bought Bio though.

BIO
18/20/18/19/20/18/18/19/18/20

qVault Trial tests

Orgo: 18
Gen Chem 19
QR 17
PAT 18
Reading 18
 
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Please don't use grids on the test, it will slow you down on the section where time is king. Just keep practicing with and without the grids and eventually you won't need to use them.
 
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ziafaizipro said:
Please don't use grids on the test, it will slow you down on the section where time is king. Just keep practicing with and without the grids and eventually you won't need to use them.
Click to expand...

I'm assuming we're talking about grids for the hole punches... right? If so, there should be PLENTY of time to make them at the end of the science section. I finished the bio and chem with tons of time left. Make about 25 of them or so on one side of your scratch paper in case you mess up. I'm a very "neat" worker and it would just have been strange not to have them to organize things. Some may think organization is a waste of time, but it helps me to keep things straight... and is also just how I do things best! 🙂
 
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lr2014 said:
Well, for reading is just luck and being able to read fast. What recommend is reading the whole passage at the beginning so you just get an idea of where things are (do this on 2 min max) then jump to the questions, you never know if the 2nd or 3rd passage is going to be hard so try to move fast but most important thing is to keep calm. If you get a hard passage, the chances are that other people also found it hard and the curve may help you at the end, just DO NOT FREAK OUT, keep telling yourself that everything is going to be ok. :luck:


EDIT: Oops I forgot to add my DATQvault Practice scores, I only bought Bio though.

BIO
18/20/18/19/20/18/18/19/18/20

qVault Trial tests

Orgo: 18
Gen Chem 19
QR 17
PAT 18
Reading 18
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info. lol yea keeping calm is the biggest thing here. I have been doing so much running to just relax myself during this studying process.
 
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Glimmer1991 said:
I'm assuming we're talking about grids for the hole punches... right? If so, there should be PLENTY of time to make them at the end of the science section. I finished the bio and chem with tons of time left. Make about 25 of them or so on one side of your scratch paper in case you mess up. I'm a very "neat" worker and it would just have been strange not to have them to organize things. Some may think organization is a waste of time, but it helps me to keep things straight... and is also just how I do things best! 🙂
Click to expand...

Glimmer, not everyone has enough time left after the sciences to draw "grids". Even if we have, the logical thing would be to check our work and make sure we didn't made any mistakes. You and I were lucky but others might not have time so don't generalize. 🙂
 
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