Guessed on too many questions on the mcat

[Globalcitizen88]

I wrote the MCAT yesterday and definitely guessed on a lot of questions. I've been studying for at least 8 months now and have gone through Kaplan Books, Exam Kracker Books, and Khan Academy (Although I've only taken 2 practice test. 1 TPR diagnostic with a 494 and a Kaplan with a 498). I was expecting a 510 on the real thing with the last Kaplan Score but now, I don't even know if my score will exceed my diagnostic.

For C/P: Guessed (randomly one letter) on 15 questions. Probably got 60% of the questions I actually answered correct. Hoping for a 125..
For CARS: First 5 passages, I felt like were too easy but still spent to much time and think I probably answered 85%+ (if not 90%) correct. (I answered 70% correct on Kaplan and those passages were MUCH harder) But I'll say I got 27/31 questions right. Last passage had 7 questions so I did that when I realized I had 10 min. but it was very convoluted. I'll say 4/7. I then randomly guessed on 3 of the passages completely. That was about 15 questions, so if I probably got 3-4 right. That means I probably got 60% right on CARS. Do you know what that number translates to.
Bio: I just kept on rereading the passages like 3 times cause I couldn't understand what they were testing. I ended up only finishing 70% of the test (probably with 70% accuracy), and guessing on the remaining 30%, so I'm probably looking at 50% right. Can a 50% get at least a 125?
Psych: My only saving grace probably. I was consistently getting 70-75% in this section on both my practice tests from TPR and Kaplan (which was a 126 on those exams). Finished every question (though had like 20 seconds the answer the last one). Really hoping for a 129 on this one given my TPR and Kaplan scores.



What can I do in the future to not run out of time? Like if I had unlimited time, I can probably get 127 on C/P, 130 on CARS, 129 on P/S, and 128 on B/B for an ideal score of 514-ish

Does a sub 500 or near 500 score hurt me even if I do better (510+) on the next exam with. better time management (I probably didn't do enough practice exams). None of the schools I'm intending to apply to average exams. All look at either the most recent or highest score.

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[Vladimir7]

Take more than 2 practice tests.

 

[Blanky]

Start studying and take NS1-6 and then AAMC FL 1-3. Properly review each exam for a week or longer before taking another practice.
495-496 is my guess for your score. You are miles off from a 510.

 

[mellie0]

Hey friend. I'm so sorry you went through this horrible MCAT experience. I can imagine how you're feeling now.

What's done is done, but why did you choose to have this test graded?! You knew how much you guessed and you still didn't void the exam. Voiding it would have been the best solution here, no doubt.

But well, there's nothing we can do about that now. Next time, PLEASE void if you know for a fact that you ran out of time/guessed on a lot of answers.

My recommendation for next steps is:
1. Please don't dwell on it. Learn from this mistake and move on. There's literally nothing you can do about it now.
2. Take a million more practice tests. This would not have happened if you would have taken more practice tests in real testing conditions, with timing and everything. Practice does make perfect, and the more you practice, the better you'll get with the timing and the more you'll know yourself and how you think/act. Take at least 10 practice tests in full-length before your next MCAT. Practice individual sections too, and time yourself.

You'll be fine. Many people take the MCAT twice and get into med school just fine. I'm one of them and at a Top 5 med school now, if that helps chin up!

 

[Globalcitizen88]

Thanks for your words of encouragement @mellie0. I mainly didn't void because I at least wanted to see how well I did and cause I know that the schools in my state all look at the most recent/highest score (although Idk if they can see all scores or if its like the SAT where you can choose which schools you want to send your scores to).

I definitely know I need to do more practice tests but what about content review? Could a low score also mean I'm not good on my content? (Although I realized after taking the test that I might have only struggled on content for 5-10 of the questions in each section).

 

[mellie0]

I mainly didn't void because I at least wanted to see how well I did

This is personal choice, but I would have never done this.

although Idk if they can see all scores or if its like the SAT where you can choose which schools you want to send your scores to

Exactly for this reason. They can see all of your scores; you can't choose which ones to send.

For me it would not have been worth it to have a low score on my file literally forever, and have all the schools I apply to see it, just to "know how well I did." Literally not worth it.

And yes, many schools look at the highest score, but it's not as black-and-white and you may think it is. They don't completely disregard the lower score. It's still there and they can see it. It's not the same someone who got a 514 the first and only time around, as someone who got a 501 and then got a 514. Can they both get into med school? Absolutely. But one is at an advantage score-wise as they did it once and did it right. For the other, adcoms might pause and say "but look at that previous 501 though..."

I don't know which state you're from; maybe you're from a state like MS that has a really high acceptance rate for in-staters. But in general, what I've said still applies.

I definitely know I need to do more practice tests but what about content review? Could a low score also mean I'm not good on my content? (Although I realized after taking the test that I might have only struggled on content for 5-10 of the questions in each section).

Do both! I would probably do 20-30% content review and 70-80% practice tests if I were you. I think doing more practice tests is much higher yield than doing extra content review. Much of the MCAT is learning how to read the text and extract the answers from the text itself than a content-based exam.

 

[Lucca]

More practice exams, and def have all the AAMC written materials done before taking the real thing.

 

[Catalystik]

Can a 50% get at least a 125?

Factors that makes it impossible to answer this question are that you don't know how many of the questions are being tested for future exam use and were never meant to be counted and how many questions will be removed when the test is "normed" because too many test takers either missed them or got them right.

 

[Wahkoon]

What can I do in the future to not run out of time?

Practice tests under actual test conditions (no pausing, no breaks aside from the scheduled ones, and no cheating)

You said that you studied for 8 months, but only did 2 practice tests, neither of which were AAMC. This tells me you could benefit from more direction. I highly recommend you go over to the MCAT sub-section here on SDN and look at some of the study plans to either copy or give you an idea on how to structure your studying. That being said, focus a lot less on content review. The bulk of your studying should be coming from practice questions (AAMC, UWorld) and practice exams (AAMC, NextStep) – I personally think Kaplan and TPR are the worst exams available, but some people swear by them.

Could a low score also mean I'm not good on my content?

Possibly, but more often than not people do poorly because lack of practice and familiarity with the exam. Ideally, you would be reviewing concepts after you complete practice problems. Going through UWorld and AAMC material will provide you with thousands of questions to review and covers a wide range of content. But at a certain point you have to accept that you won't know every concept and it is not a good use of your time trying to do so. On that note, I thought the Premed95's anki deck was excellent in reviewing high yield content for the exam.

 

[PlsLetMeIn21]

It is natural to think you did poorly right after taking the MCAT. I felt unsure on at least five questions, probably more, on each section and it ended up going okay, well in fact for everything but CARS. Try not to stress about things you can't control. If you have to repeat the exam, then so be it. Don't worry how taking it again will affect your chances, because if you scored low this time you have to take it no matter whether schools average your scores or whether they take your latest.

The important thing is to have a better plan. Studying for 8 months is overkill and it's likely you forgot what you studied early on if you didn't reinforce it with passages. Study for 4 intense months and focus on high quality practice. You studied with Kaplan books and it went horribly it sounds. Don't use Kaplan again, it didn't work for you. Some people say U World. For me, nothing beat TBR for teaching me how to think and solve questions quickly. The thing about TBR that might be perfect for what you need is that they break homework up into phases and you are timed on two of their three homework sets for each chapter.

Keep your chin up and have a better approach this next time. You have to do AAMC section banks.

 

[Globalcitizen88]

I will definitely try more practice exams. Kaplan and examkracker weren't horrible. Its just the MCAT provided a lot "less content" than I expected. Like maybe only 20% of questions were direct questions related to material, 40% were application based on knowledge, and 40% you can find/infer the answer from the passage

 

[PlsLetMeIn21]

I will definitely try more practice exams. Kaplan and examkracker weren't horrible. Its just the MCAT provided a lot "less content" than I expected. Like maybe only 20% of questions were direct questions related to material, 40% were application based on knowledge, and 40% you can find/infer the answer from the passage

That sounds like my exam as well. You could extract things from the passage for about half of it. You had to understand the basic gist of the passage and recognize graphs and terminology to do this. But maybe half of the questions required knowledge beyond the passage to do them, almost like they were meant to be stand alone questions. You needed to connect different unrelated concepts on many of the questions. I personally think you can only master this by doing passages and challenging questions. I hated some of my homework phases at the time, but those ultimately made the MCAT go as well as it did.

 

[PlsLetMeIn21]

I'm curious how you did. Did you score higher than you thought you would?