Hi
@315507 -
Hang in there! Realistic practice exams are a critical part of MCAT prep, because to do well, you have to both know your science
and know how to take the MCAT. So your first practice exam is going to be more of a jumping-off point than a predictor of your ultimate outcomes. The key is to review your practice exams carefully and identify
action points for improvement.
A starting point is to identify, for every question you were even a little bit unsure of, what you needed to know to get the question right and
how you had to go about solving it. That is, did you have to rely on outside knowledge or did you have to get information from the passage? How did you have to apply it? For computation questions, how can you solve them most effectively, and how can you improve your own process? Additionally, you want to understand both why the correct answer was correct
and why the incorrect answers were incorrect, because that will help you learn to pick up on common patterns in trap answers. As you review, try to identify specific lessons that you can take away from the questions/passages and translate those into action points. These can relate to content (for example, you might need to review some specific o-chem/physics content in more depth), strategy (for example, you might make a note about avoiding extreme answer choices in CARS or tweak how you approach passage reading/highlighting), or even little process tricks like writing out calculations carefully to avoid so-called "silly" mistakes or pausing to take a deep breath before doing a new passage.
Best of luck & wishing you a productive review!
