Getting a lot of questions wrong with practice questions

[arc5005]

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Hi there...so I've been working on the Biology passages from the TBR review books, and even after reading the review sections (which isn't all review for me), and then doing the passage I'm noticing that I'm only getting about 50% of the questions correct. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, or if there are any other suggestions on what I should be doing to be doing better. My MCAT is in april.

also I feel like I never learned a lot of this stuff that I am reading in passages. The questions from this book (TBR) are making me extremely nervous.

 

[aldol16]

Are these questions based on content review/recall or are they MCAT-style passages? If the former, I wouldn't worry too much - go over the information you missed again. The MCAT doesn't emphasize content recall too much anymore so it's more important that you can reason from basic content knowledge.

 

[Chromium Surfer]

Me too!! I am not at home right now but if you are using the new TBR books I believe in the front that they say if you get about half of them right then you will score above the national mean for bio. But this has been bothering me a lot too because while I know some of the content the passages trip me up. While it is possible to reason through some of the questions it seems that for a decent amount of them you have to have some outside nuanced knowledge of a biology concept that isn't stated in the passage but necessary to sufficiently answer the question. @aldol16 I have seen you post that you should have a 7/10 understanding of content with 9 or 10 being PHD level so 7 is fairly high. With that being said how does that translate to bio, since there is so much information out there? I find that with the ochem sections in TBR I can reason my way through a lot of it and I attribute this to having a good teacher but with bio I have had different classes with varying teacher quality.

@BerkReviewTeach could you share some insight into the TBR bio books and how to interpret scores and attack the passages?

 

[arc5005]

Me too!! I am not at home right now but if you are using the new TBR books I believe in the front that they say if you get about half of them right then you will score above the national mean for bio. But this has been bothering me a lot too because while I know some of the content the passages trip me up. While it is possible to reason through some of the questions it seems that for a decent amount of them you have to have some outside nuanced knowledge of a biology concept that isn't stated in the passage but necessary to sufficiently answer the question. @aldol16 I have seen you post that you should have a 7/10 understanding of content with 9 or 10 being PHD level so 7 is fairly high. With that being said how does that translate to bio, since there is so much information out there? I find that with the ochem sections in TBR I can reason my way through a lot of it and I attribute this to having a good teacher but with bio I have had different classes with varying teacher quality.

@BerkReviewTeach could you share some insight into the TBR bio books and how to interpret scores and attack the passages?

OMG. thank god someone else understands my frustration. I have been nervous stressed out wreck this week due to struggling with these passages. I only skimmed the beginning, and did not catch that part regarding that about half of them correct means above national mean. I have not yet bought the other books, but I plan to study physics next I think.

Edited: Also, it feels like I just never learned some of this stuff. Like I understand the review, but then the questions are so much more reasoning and logic-based. ugh.

 

[aldol16]

Me too!! I am not at home right now but if you are using the new TBR books I believe in the front that they say if you get about half of them right then you will score above the national mean for bio. But this has been bothering me a lot too because while I know some of the content the passages trip me up. While it is possible to reason through some of the questions it seems that for a decent amount of them you have to have some outside nuanced knowledge of a biology concept that isn't stated in the passage but necessary to sufficiently answer the question. @aldol16 I have seen you post that you should have a 7/10 understanding of content with 9 or 10 being PHD level so 7 is fairly high. With that being said how does that translate to bio, since there is so much information out there? I find that with the ochem sections in TBR I can reason my way through a lot of it and I attribute this to having a good teacher but with bio I have had different classes with varying teacher quality.

Again, don't get tangled up in the nuanced details. You need to understand the major concepts and understand them well. Random details aren't going to come up without context and even if they do, studying all the extra details for an extra month won't really help you remember it. I have said that someone with a 7/10 depth on all the topics covered on the MCAT outline should score in the 520+ range. But what's more important for the average test-taker is analytical abilities. Having a 7/10 depth in those topics doesn't guarantee a 520 if you have no analytical reasoning skills. The return on your investment in analytical reasoning ability far outstrips the marginal returns you get by studying more and more obscure topics.

 

[arc5005]

Again, don't get tangled up in the nuanced details. You need to understand the major concepts and understand them well. Random details aren't going to come up without context and even if they do, studying all the extra details for an extra month won't really help you remember it. I have said that someone with a 7/10 depth on all the topics covered on the MCAT outline should score in the 520+ range. But what's more important for the average test-taker is analytical abilities. Having a 7/10 depth in those topics doesn't guarantee a 520 if you have no analytical reasoning skills. The return on your investment in analytical reasoning ability far outstrips the marginal returns you get by studying more and more obscure topics.

Do you have recommendations for improving analytical and reasoning abilities? Just practice?

 

[aldol16]

Do you have recommendations for improving analytical and reasoning abilities? Just practice?

Practice. Practice with MCAT-style analytical passages where they give you data in the passage and ask you to analyze it. Khan Academy also has some good passages like this for bio and psych/soc. You can also read the scientific literature (if you haven't been already) - Nature and Science have a variety of high-impact articles from various fields so you're bound to find one that interests you if you're a scientist at all. When reading these articles, try to look at the data and interpret it for yourself first before reading it. That helps you develop your data analysis skills, which are essential for the MCAT.

 

[Chromium Surfer]

Again, don't get tangled up in the nuanced details. You need to understand the major concepts and understand them well. Random details aren't going to come up without context and even if they do, studying all the extra details for an extra month won't really help you remember it. I have said that someone with a 7/10 depth on all the topics covered on the MCAT outline should score in the 520+ range. But what's more important for the average test-taker is analytical abilities. Having a 7/10 depth in those topics doesn't guarantee a 520 if you have no analytical reasoning skills. The return on your investment in analytical reasoning ability far outstrips the marginal returns you get by studying more and more obscure topics.

Thanks for the input! I guess its just hard distinguishing between what a foundational concept is versus what is just an extraneous minor detail. Do you have any thoughts on that? Maybe the concepts that show up repeatedly in practice tests? Or should I basically just match up what shows up on the content outline with what is in the prep books?

 

[arc5005]

Me too!! I am not at home right now but if you are using the new TBR books I believe in the front that they say if you get about half of them right then you will score above the national mean for bio.

Do you think being above the national mean for bio is enough?

 

[aldol16]

Thanks for the input! I guess its just hard distinguishing between what a foundational concept is versus what is just an extraneous minor detail. Do you have any thoughts on that? Maybe the concepts that show up repeatedly in practice tests? Or should I basically just match up what shows up on the content outline with what is in the prep books?

As you're reviewing, try to think about the bigger picture - where glycolysis fits into metabolism as a whole, for example, and how gluconeogenesis from the liver plays a role in metabolism. Concepts won't be tested directly but will be applied in answering passages. For example, nobody is going to ask you what Hess's law is but you might need to apply it in the context of a coupled biochemical reaction.

You should get a sense of what the concepts are by going through representative practice passages (AAMC for sure, and I recommend Khan Academy personally for B/BC and P/S).

 

[Chromium Surfer]

Do you think being above the national mean for bio is enough?

Honestly I'm not sure. I want to score at least a 127 haha. That's why I tagged berkreviewteach to see how the difficulty of their bio books translates to the real deal.