Help: AAMC MCAT Practice Test

[umee1989]

So for the past month I've been using EK books to review not really read in detail but briefly get an over view on topics that I need a refresher on. I never took a test prior to doing that. I just took a full test and got:
Practice Test #3 the free one.
26 9PS 9VR 8BS

which I feel is quite bad because everyone seems to say that #3 is easiest. My exam is scheduled for the 1st of September. Just need thoughts and suggestions on what to do to raise my grade. I was planning on taking 1 exam every other day and review in between. And what you guys think about my first practice score whether it's poor or ok or whatever. Be honest. Trust me being nice wont help me out

Thank you!

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[SixStringPsych]

Taking 1 exam every other day will be tiring and you won't have enough exams to last you until your test. You should use the EK 1001 books to nail down your content, and use TBR passage based questions for Physics and Chemistry to get you more familiar with MCAT format.

I love the 1001 books I stand by them so far in getting my PS and BS scores up slowly but surely.

 

[tttgo]

depends on what you're aiming for. I would say a 30+ is doable. I got a 11/10/8 on aamc3 like a month ago. now, a month later, I could probably score 30+ on the real thing. 12/8/10 on gs5 yesterday. Need to take another aamc to be sure though. Sounds like you didn't spend enough time on content. I've done 2/3 of the tbr books and have studied since may. You're short on time, so I would just reread stuff in ek that you're weak in. no point in buying tbr when the time could be better spent on cbts.

 

[V5RED]

EK is a skimmed/cliffnotes version of what you need to know for the MCAT. It rarely goes deeper than what you need, and when it does, they specify that the particular section is extra stuff.

You lightly skimmed the already skimmed version of study materials and you are surprised you got a bad score?

That may work for some of the super brains on this forum that claim to have put in a month of light review and got a 30+, but usually even well above average people need to bust their asses over multiple months to break a 30. You need to work a lot harder than you have if you expect a 30+.

edit: I found AAMC3 to be much easier than the other AAMC exams I took. I had to put in a ton of studying and practice after AAMC3 to manage to keep my later practice scores close to my score on AAMC3.

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

Like V5RED already said, EK is the cliff notes of MCAT prep materials. You can't skim through it because everything less than vital has already been trimmed out of those books. As a result, it's unsurprising you got a bad score. Even if you had read them seriously from cover to cover the EK books are still only best used by people who are already strong in their pre-reqs and only need a quick refresher, or for people unwise enough to give themselves less than three months of study time. You might be better off with something more thorough like TBR or TPR.

Also, I'd disagree with the sentiment that AAMC 3 is easier than all the others. I haven't really noticed any major differences in difficulty between any of the AAMCs. It's also worth pointing out that people's scores usually go up after AAMC 3. For example, my AAMC 3 score was 31 and my average on AAMC 8-10 is 37.

 

[umee1989]

Yea I will go back and read over some material I'm weak in. I'm applying next cycle do you guys reccomend I take exam in September still or cancel and schedule it early next year? And if I decide to take it sept 1 how realistic is it to bring my grade to a 30+ with the really short time remaining ?