I got a 12 on my Physical Sciences section first round (retaking though). Is your issue that you can't do the calculations/don't know how to do the type of problems or that you're not understanding what they're asking of you?
There are times when I don't understand what they're asking me; other times I come across a question and I have an
idea on how to set the problem up, but I always tell myself "THAT'LL TAKE TOO LONG TO SOLVE IT THAT WAY!!!! YOU'RE OVERTHINKING IT!!!!". In your past experience, is that how some calculations go sometimes? That is, the only
shortcut is the long and tedious route? lol
Stoichiometry or dimensional analysis requires an essential understanding of units. If you can get the simple problems down, and its the lengthy calculations that are getting to you, then you just need to learn to take smarter risks at estimating and rounding numbers. The MCAT, sometimes unlike test prep books like TBR, is more generous in separation of answers to reward smart rounding. If you have the concepts down, I wouldn't worry too much about the numbers, just try to get an intuitive feel for ratios and such. For example, if you have a super complicated fraction like 437/93 ... round it to 450/90 or 5, and know its a little bit less than 5 since you rounded the numerator up and the denominator down.
I hope that helps and addresses what you were concerned about...
P.S. EK Verbal and Math book has a whole chapter on mathematical intuition and Kaplan has about half a chapter for it. TBR doesn't really focus on it, so you may want to try and expand your resources.
34 days is plenty of time, you can do it!!
I'm usually good at estimating, but sometimes, the set up is what gets me. Sometimes just thinking about how to set up the problem, feels like an eternity that I could be using for other questions that may be harder. Like in my question for sciencebooks,
in your experience, do some problems just have multiple steps and there really is
NO SHORTCUT? I always feel like there should
be a shortcut though, since people have said on here that the calculations should be relatively simple.
For most passages in TBR, I set my countdown timer for as many questions as the passage has. For instance, if there are 5 questions, I set it for 5 minutes, which will include reading the passage first/analyzing diagrams, etc.
This is how I do all my science passages. For all the organic and biology sections, I do well to finish since there are barely an computations, but there are times in the physical science passages where I cut it too close and/or just have to make blind guesses. When I say "blind guesses", I mean I
try to use process of elimination, but I don't feel secure. I guess that's how it is sometimes though....
sciencebooks and member232, do you think my timing goals are unrealistic?
Do you think I should set
all my passages for the same time, 7 minutes? I set up my timer like this because I feel it will simulate the pressure I will have during the real exam and force me to think faster (if that's possible...I get kind of creative sometimes on my scratch paper haha).
