Help- Should I start for the Aug MCAT Now

[hardworker101]

Hi guys
I need advice from others on wether it is wise to start for the Aug MCAT.
I am in my winter break, after finishing a busy semster. I am getting the feel that instead of relaxing now, i should be hitting the books.
I also have a very busy one next term(biochem, genetics, microbiology, and research). People tell me I should start now for Aug. I have no class for summer, studing all day hopefully, but maybe few hours a day with my research. I am not applying this year, and the summer gives a lot of time. However, do i need to reduce my spring course load and put time for the Aug MCAT.

Please give some advice
thanks

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[psrai85]

Hi guys
I need advice from others on wether it is wise to start for the Aug MCAT.
I am in my winter break, after finishing a busy semster. I am getting the feel that instead of relaxing now, i should be hitting the books.
I also have a very busy one next term(biochem, genetics, microbiology, and research). People tell me I should start now for Aug. I have no class for summer, studing all day hopefully, but maybe few hours a day with my research. I am not applying this year, and the summer gives a lot of time. However, do i need to reduce my spring course load and put time for the Aug MCAT.

Please give some advice
thanks

I'm writing mine in august aswell. It's not early to start. I've started to read some magazines like New republic etc and will do so until august. But i'm going to actually start my preperation in may begining. Every day about 5 - 6 hrs until june end and then do every test i can find..lol.
3.5 months is enough time, i think.

Someone earlier said that u've gotta "peak at the right time". You can't burn urself out. I hope this helps

 

[Cooolguy]

i think you have a lot of time to prepare for the august exam. I am taking the upcoming april exam and I have barely done any work for that. I feel like reading those magazines is a scam dude. Just do a whole bunch of verbal passages and you will be awesome. I started with a 5 on the verbal... now Im still at 5 ( i havent been studying). but the whole point of this is to relax, you have time.

 

[McGillGrad]

Start in May or you will be burned out by the time July rolls around.

Just like the USMLE, you do not want to take so much time that you lose your drive by exam time

 

[McGillGrad]

i think you have a lot of time to prepare for the august exam. I am taking the upcoming april exam and I have barely done any work for that. I feel like reading those magazines is a scam dude. Just do a whole bunch of verbal passages and you will be awesome. I started with a 5 on the verbal... now Im still at 5 ( i havent been studying). but the whole point of this is to relax, you have time.

Verbal is the real measure of intelligence on the MCAT.

Unless English is not your first language (or you read VERY slowly) any score below 8 is functionally illiterate.

 

[Nikki2002]

any score below 8 is functionally illiterate.

ARE YOU SERIOUS??? LMAO!

 

[Twitch]

Verbal is the real measure of intelligence on the MCAT.

Unless English is not your first language (or you read VERY slowly) any score below 8 is functionally illiterate.

Wrong. On both counts.

 

[gujuDoc]

Wrong. On both counts.

Agreed.

I could see saying a 2 or 3 or even 4 is illiterate, but not something like a 7 or 6 which may have been due to a poor day the day of the test or second guessing or test anxiety etc.

I know a friend that got 8 on the VR for the first time they took the MCAT but then went down in that section on the second round, to a 7. It wasn't lack of literacy or even that Eng. was the second language. It was other factors like in ability to focus properly due to feeling down by the PS section. Things like this may happen.

 

[McGillGrad]

Agreed.

I could see saying a 2 or 3 or even 4 is illiterate, but not something like a 7 or 6 which may have been due to a poor day the day of the test or second guessing or test anxiety etc.

I know a friend that got 8 on the VR for the first time they took the MCAT but then went down in that section on the second round, to a 7. It wasn't lack of literacy or even that Eng. was the second language. It was other factors like in ability to focus properly due to feeling down by the PS section. Things like this may happen.

Come on! English is my third language and I hit 13 on my Kaplan full lengths with nothing more than my undergrad degree.

If you are awful at exams then of course you will crash and burn but if you read the questions and have time to answer them then you have mental issues if you cannot hit 8 or above. No outside knowledge besides basic logic is required to answer the questions.

BTW- Verbal is highly correlated with med school success. Much more so than BS and PS. Verbal is med school in a nutshell. It involves taking a lot of information, synthesizing and utilizing it in a short amount of time.

 

[gujuDoc]

Come on! English is my third language and I hit 13 on my Kaplan full lengths with nothing more than my undergrad degree.

If you are awful at exams then of course you will crash and burn but if you read the questions and have time to answer them then you have mental issues if you cannot hit 8 or above. No outside knowledge besides basic logic is required to answer the questions.

BTW- Verbal is highly correlated with med school success. Much more so than BS and PS. Verbal is med school in a nutshell. It involves taking a lot of information, synthesizing and utilizing it in a short amount of time.

At any rate, even if we suppose what you say is right, I don't see the sense of arguing about it, because fact of the matter is regardless of what the correlations say, there are still cases of people getting into medical school with not so uber high Verbal scores.

Also, I did not implicate anything about outside knowledge being needed to do the Verbal. In fact, I never mentioned anything of the sort. The only thing I said was that we should not assume that a person's score that day may have been due to lack of intelligence so much so as it may have been due to other factors that may have caused them to lose focus during the exam. I know for me, I didn't do so well on the Verbal even though I'd been scoring 8-10 with TPR stuff in the spring, not because of lack of intelligence but because I'd totally had no sleep the night before and couldn't even barely keep my eyes open on test day, which was caused by lack of sleep due to anxiety. But like I said, even if we suppose that you are right, I don't see the relevance of arguing about it because believe it or not, while not significantly super high, there are people who have gotten 5,6, and even 7 on their verbal scores in the MCAT and still gotten into medical school. I know a few. For them, English was a second language.