For all the anxious MCAT victims

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medic170

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A buddy of mine that took TPR told me about this email. Apparently scores will be out on June 7. I don't know if someone has already mentioned this, but I had him send me a copy so I could post it. Here is the email:

Dear MCAT Student,

Well, the MCAT is over, and we congratulate you for all of your hard work and tireless effort! Your scores should be available online through AAMC's new MCAT Testing History (THx) Report System at https://services.aamc.org/mcatthx/ on or about June 7th (and by mail on or about June 19th), so relax and trust that the knowledge and experience which you gained over the course of our program allowed you to do your best.

Overall, the April 2004 exam offered very few surprises and was comparable in difficulty to AAMC's MCAT Practice Test 6R; but, as usual, different forms had varying difficulty levels for the subtests. We identified at least five test series-G, K, M, N, and T-with up to three forms in each. Our course materials contained passages and questions which helped to provide valuable practice for, and confidence with, those that appeared on the actual MCAT.

Physical Sciences:

The passages favored G-Chem over Physics, although the free-standing questions (FSQs) were pretty evenly split. Solubility, thermodynamics, radioactivity, atomic and molecular structure, acids/bases, kinetics, and redox chemistry were the most popular G-Chem topics this administration. The most popular Physics topics were waves, simple machines, dynamics, electricity, hydrostatics, and optics. As usual, most of the questions were conceptual or required very simple math. With confidence, a mastery of the fundamentals, and POE, the passage questions could be successfully attacked. In addition, the free-standing questions were generally regarded as very fair.

Verbal Reasoning:

All forms contained the usual nine passages, with passage lengths (about 65 lines)-and overall difficulty level-consistent with AAMC Practice Test 6R. Passage topics included philosophy, history, literary criticism, biology/ecology, economics, political science, psychology, and anthropology. In addition to the usual questions that relied on the passage's main idea and theme, there were questions of the strengthen/weaken and retrieval variety, while new information and inference questions were again very popular.

Biological Sciences:

The split between Bio and O-Chem again heavily favored Biology, and the FSQs also leaned much more toward Biology than O-Chem and offered few surprises. The difficulty of the Biological Sciences section of this April's MCAT was generally regarded as comparable to that of AAMC Practice Test 6R. The most popular Biology passage topics was genetics, followed by neurology, evolution, immunology, and cell biology. The O-Chem again looked intimidating, but the questions were generally considered fair. Multi-step syntheses of organic molecules were again very popular, and a good understanding of reaction mechanisms, stereochemistry, functional groups, and lab techniques was also important. Passages often presented complicated structures and mechanistic steps, but, again, the questions yielded to the analytic techniques you've learned and the practice gained from TPR's diagnostic tests, Workbook, and the Compendium.

Please accept our congratulations for completing this arduous test, as well as our thanks for letting us be a part of your preparation!


All the best,

Sarah B. West
Assistant Director of Student Services
The Princeton Review

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I disagree on their view of the BS section. I made a 12 or 13 on 6R's BS and hardly felt anything near that on the real deal...
 
there it is.....i knew one of my TPR classmates mentioned this email (that i never received, by the way). my god, i hope that's correct. june 7 is practically right around the corner (well, kind of, compared to the 17th or 19th, anyway)!!!!!

hey cerb, i just realized that you have like, 60 more posts than me (as the "cerbernator"). it took you two weeks to demolish my total from 10+ months of posting. bravo! :D
 
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I'm kind of amazed that a major prep program would send out an email like this. I recognize that they're being general in their statements, but the MCAT is very strict about people reporting on the test content (remember that silly line about "not taking any question out of the room in any way shape or form including memorization"? Like what, they're giving out lobotomies after the test??). The "identification" of test forms seems especially iffy.

As I understand it, TPR got in some hot water with the AAMC a few years ago after apparently sending some people in to take the test as spies and report on the content. This seems like sailing uncomfortably close to the wind to me. Seems like a simple congratulatory letter would be enough. (I mean, the recipient has already TAKEN the test. Why does he/she need the breakdown?)
 
yea, TPR has been in hot water with the AAMC in the past (and present, i suppose). its not funny enough that they're still doing what the AAMC told them not to (send people in to "tap" the test; in other words, run to the restroom every 5 minutes to scribble questions down on a piece of toilet paper hidden behind a wall tile), but its just that they're so strident and brash about it.

whatever. i took TPR, and if my april score rocks, then kudos to my illegal friends at TPR. :thumbup:
 
I question the legitimacy of this email for some reason. It just seems hard to believe that TPR got the release date and Kaplan didn't. Furthermore, that would mean someone at AAMC would be leaking info regarding the release date of the scores to TPR.
Believe me, I hope the June 7th date is true, but just find it a little hard to believe. Also, why havent all the TPR students received this notification email? I took kaplan, but I think people that took TPR should email someone at princeton review and see if they get a similar response.
 
pbehzad said:
I question the legitimacy of this email for some reason. It just seems hard to believe that TPR got the release date and Kaplan didn't. Furthermore, that would mean someone at AAMC would be leaking info regarding the release date of the scores to TPR.
Believe me, I hope the June 7th date is true, but just find it a little hard to believe. Also, why havent all the TPR students received this notification email? I took kaplan, but I think people that took TPR should email someone at princeton review and see if they get a similar response.


your doubts are not unfounded. I got the TPR email also and called the MCAT office to inquire about June 7th as a possible date. They completely rejected that possibility and told me June 15 at the earliest (online).
 
TPR... I won't trust them anymore. They told their MCAT students this year that only ONE of the two writing passages will be graded, and we get to choose which one we don't want graded.



Pffff, yeah right.
 
I thought that was old TPR email, sent right after the test. My guess is still June 15.
 
I think I'm going to have a heart attack! God, I hope it went well.
 
It's possible that medical schools get it around June 7th, I heard from several people that schools in general get your MCAT score much earlier.
 
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