How completely do you have to bubble in your answer?

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Hello. I've been unfortunately conditioned to bubble in my answers completely to cover the entire area of the circle on scantron exams. I've been doing this since my really anal period in high school and it's something I haven't really practiced doing otherwise. But I found that my meticulous attention to bubbling in is taking quite a bit of time (right now I'm setting aside ten full minutes on each section just for bubbling in). How fully do you have to bubble in those circles? I mean is it good enough to have like 50%-60% of the bubble filled in, or do you need like 85%-100%? It would probably cut my times out significantly if I didn't take such a long time filling in those bubbles. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />

Kinda silly but kinda serious.
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You've taken how many multiple choice exams in your life?

Just bubble in the freaking answer and try to not be a perfectionist about it!
 
Hey, same problem here! I finish so much later on scantron tests then everyone else because it takes me forever to fill in the bubbels. I think they are stupid, their not even real bubbles, they look like flying saucers to me:
__ --- __
|__( 1 )__|
---

Do you have to cover the entire thing, or just the lengthy part? My teacher in first grade yelled at us for doing it wrong and I have been paranoid ever since. Stupid things.
 
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I was reading in a jounal that if a bubble is filled in 81.2234675423% then the answer will be counted. Just make sure not to make it 81.2234675422% or less, in which case your answer will not be counted and you will never get into medical school!
 
I'm too paranoid to do anything other than bubble in the entire circle. Have you tried using a blunt pencil end instead of a sharp/pointed pencil tip??
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by edogg:
•I was reading in a jounal that if a bubble is filled in 81.2234675423% then the answer will be counted. Just make sure not to make it 81.2234675422% or less, in which case your answer will not be counted and you will never get into medical school!•••••:clap: <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" /> :clap: I LOVE your answer! <img border="0" alt="[Lovey]" title="" src="graemlins/lovey.gif" />
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by edogg:
•I was reading in a jounal that if a bubble is filled in 81.2234675423% then the answer will be counted. Just make sure not to make it 81.2234675422% or less, in which case your answer will not be counted and you will never get into medical school!•••••Dude, are you sure? What journal was it? Actually, I just read that the new scantron machines have been designed to count an answer if the bubble is at least 79.4685897395% filled in. That's quite an improvement over the previous 81.2234675423% standard that the old machines were operating under. Taking this increased efficiency and extrapolating it over 219 questions on the MCAT, the average test taker will save .37695 seconds!!!
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by Papa Smurf:
• •••quote:•••Originally posted by edogg:
•I was reading in a jounal that if a bubble is filled in 81.2234675423% then the answer will be counted. Just make sure not to make it 81.2234675422% or less, in which case your answer will not be counted and you will never get into medical school!•••••Dude, are you sure? What journal was it? Actually, I just read that the new scantron machines have been designed to count an answer if the bubble is at least 79.4685897395% filled in. That's quite an improvement over the previous 81.2234675423% standard that the old machines were operating under. Taking this increased efficiency and extrapolating it over 219 questions on the MCAT, the average test taker will save .37695 seconds!!!•••••That's because you rounded up Papi! The actual time saved will be .3769456 seconds!
 
Garsh...you two have too much time on your hands!! :p
 
Are these numbers from peer-reviewed journals?

In any case it seems that the number is somewhere around 80%. That will save me quite a bit of time!

Now, a related question:
If you go past the borders of the circle, how much do you have to mark up the outside areas before it causes problems in score reporting? These bubbles are fairly close to each other, and I can't keep that shiz inside the bubble every single time. Every so often I fill in a bubble completely only to have a small part of it go outside the bubble and a little bit onto the next bubble. Now, erasing this stray mark takes a very long time on this timed test. So how much is too much outside the border?
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by Schoolboy:
•If you go past the borders of the circle, how much do you have to mark up the outside areas before it causes problems in score reporting? ... So how much is too much outside the border?•••••A recent publication stated that any stray marks that are more than .0356821cm outside the circle will be interpreted as an incorrect. Sucks for you bro. Honestly, and I'm not saying this to be mean, but if you put in half as much time studying for the MCAT as you do obsessing about these things, you could get a 40 easy!
 
Actually I used to have the same problem. What I ended up doing was just "dotting" the circles - really the "dot" only takes up about 5% of the whole circle. Just a brief push in the center of the bubble. Then after I've "dotted" all my bubbles I connected the "dots"...with real heavy lines...with a blue crayon I snuck into the testing center. Saves a lot of time and it works.

PS - I also wrote my essays in the same crayon. Then I highlighted (with a contraband highlighter) all the big words I had used in my essay.

Hope this helps. Take care.
 
Thank you Papa Smurf I will take that as a compliment. :p
 
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Darwin are crayons allowed at the test? It would be cool to draw organic structures in color.
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by Darwin:
•Actually I used to have the same problem. What I ended up doing was just "dotting" the circles - really the "dot" only takes up about 5% of the whole circle. Just a brief push in the center of the bubble. •••••Now when you say push do you mean like the push dots as in when you vote for president and remove the dot?

Originally posted by Papi Smurf:
•A recent publication stated that any stray marks that are more than .0356821cm outside the circle will be interpreted as an incorrect. •
I concur. The data that I was able to dig up through my intense internet search and independent analysis came out to be exactly .0356821cm as Papi Smurf previously posted.

For that reason it is absolutely ESSENTIAL that you bring a reliable metric ruler with you to the MCAT. If you do stray outside of the circle immediately put down your pencil, pick up the ruler and make absolutely sure that the stray mark does not exceed the preset limit.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
hey ucla2000,

i will follow your advice about the ruler just in case i run out of eraser during the exam.

people here are so helpful!
 
Hahaha, you freaks!! What a great morning laugh!

<img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" />
 
UCLA2000...LOL!

Yeah...that's a great idea! Turn those little bubbles into chads...lol.
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by Darwin:
•UCLA2000...LOL!

Yeah...that's a great idea! Turn those little bubbles into chads...lol.•••••Yeah just be careful not to double punch, or leave any hanging chads!

Darwin how you been bro? Hear back from any more schools? Where you gonna end up? Send me a pm!
 
I had a lot of trouble finishing the practice MCATs on time (in fact, it never happened). I started using a pencil that was all graphite (i.e. no wood casing). I dulled the tip to make give it as large a surface area as possible, and that helped to shave 1-2 minutes off my time for each subtest. You can find these pencils at most art supply stores.

Make sure that they are number two pencils. "B" pencils areabout the same, but my test proctor said she couldn't say for sure that it would be ok, so I had to use my mechanical pencil on the actual MCAT. Ironically, I finally finished on time.

Good Luck
 
Man Schoolboy, just hope and pray you don't get any passages about being gullible on the MCAT, cause the bubbles pertaining to that passage only have to be filled in 56.4234% of the way.

Just fill in the bubble as much as you can - but don't be anal about making it perfect.

Now go study!!
 
The above statistical data agree with my recent studies as well...Here is my most recent paper.

Souljah et al, Bubbling accuracy. Archives of Anal Test Takers 24(7), 233-236.

In addition to measuring bubbling accuracy, we also studied the effects of arm hair and its correlation with increased wind resistance. We found that hairy arms increased the time it took to go from the 'hand on the forehead wtf' position to actually filling in the bubble with the decided upon answer. We concluded that nairing your arms the day before the MCAT (or any scantron exam for that matter) will provide you with an added 0.0000043567 seconds for the 85 minute exam, and 0.0000043568 seconds for the 100 minute exam. Another finding showed that trimming your fingernails and then filing them was correlated with better 'pencil grip' which also increased available time for answering by 0.000000000234 seconds. Filing alone was not found to be significantly related to bubbing efficiency.

conclusion: we have shown that there are many different preparatory maneuvors that one can undergo in order to shave nanoseconds off their exams. in light of this impressive study, we ask that all test takers stop being so damn anal and just fill in the stupid bubbles as best you can while realizing that the time difference is insignificant.
 
The above statistical data agree with my recent studies as well...Here is my most recent paper.

Souljah et al, Bubbling accuracy. Archives of Anal Test Takers 24(7), 233-236.

In addition to measuring bubbling accuracy, we also studied the effects of arm hair and its correlation with increased wind resistance. We found that hairy arms increased the time it took to go from the 'hand on the forehead wtf' position to actually filling in the bubble with the decided upon answer. We concluded that nairing your arms the day before the MCAT (or any scantron exam for that matter) will provide you with an added 0.0000043567 seconds for the 85 minute exam, and 0.0000043568 seconds for the 100 minute exam. Another finding showed that trimming your fingernails and then filing them was correlated with better 'pencil grip' which also increased available time for answering by 0.000000000234 seconds. Filing alone was not found to be significantly related to bubbing efficiency.

conclusion: we have shown that there are many different preparatory maneuvors that one can undergo in order to shave nanoseconds off their exams. in light of this impressive study, we ask that all test takers stop being so damn anal and just fill in the stupid bubbles as best you can while realizing that the time difference is insignificant.
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by souljah1:
•We found that hairy arms increased the time it took to go from the 'hand on the forehead wtf' position to actually filling in the bubble with the decided upon answer. •••••LMAO!!!! <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" /> Can anyone top that??
 
:D glad to know i got some laughs out of that one. i couldn't help but display some sarcasm on this thread. yeah, you know what i mean about the hand on the forehead thing right? you know, you are taking your exam and you look at the person next to you and their palm is plastered to their forehead in an attempt to transfer some energy from the 'third eye' or something like that to their writing hand. i just had the vision so i went with it. have to admit, i was laughin like a little kid as i wrote it. :D
 
One thing that ocurred to me is that we have thus far concentrated on the quantitative analysis of how much of a bubble needs to be filled in. I don't know about you guys, but I'm not like Dustin Hoffman's character in Rainman, who is able to count the number of toothpicks that fell to the ground just by observing it. That is, my powers of perception do not allow me to distinguish the fine detail between a bubble that is 79% filled in versus 80%. Furthermore, since metric rulers distinguish between millimeters, and assuming that a bubble is approximately 3-4 millimeters, measuring the area of the shaded portion with such a ruler would lead to a very high margin of error. It appears clear to me now that I need some sort of qualitative measure of how much of the area of the bubble is actually filled in, such that I can distinguish between insufficient coverage and sufficient coverage in a relatively quick period of time, in a qualitative manner. Has anyone such a method?
 
Schoolboy, something tells me these posts are gonna be a lot less funny when you get your scores back bro! :p Now hit the books!
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by locitamd:
•Man Schoolboy, just hope and pray you don't get any passages about being gullible on the MCAT, cause the bubbles pertaining to that passage only have to be filled in 56.4234% of the way.

Just fill in the bubble as much as you can - but don't be anal about making it perfect.

Now go study!!•••••That's exactly the problem! I am too anal about shading the bubbles perfectly which takes up too much time. I want to be less perfectionist and shade in only the amount that will maximize my time solving problems instead of filling in the bubbles. This thread was created to facilitate my goal.

Now that you understand my intention, do you have suggestions for me? :)
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by Papa Smurf:
•Schoolboy, something tells me these posts are gonna be a lot less funny when you get your scores back bro! :p Now hit the books!•••••You know what, that might be true. :(
Don't worry though. I'm fooling around a lot but I'm still doing a lot of studying. :) Keep in mind that my goal for this thread isn't solely to provide humor. There is in some sense a real question behind the (attempted) humor. I mean when you look at the instructions for the scantron, they tell you that circling the outside is insufficient, putting a little dot in the center is insufficient, and the only example they give of a sufficient mark is one which completely and perfectly shades the bubble. I just want to have some idea of how much is enough for the machine to pick up.
 
You guys are great!

Schoolboy, if you drink a couple of shots before your mcat, you will be a lot less concerned about filling in the bubbles.
 
If I drink shots I think I'll be less worried about taking the test, let alone filling in the bubbles. :wink:
 
DAmn this is the funnniest shiznit I ever seeen hahahahah. Its hella Tiziight!

Pizzzaint
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by Schoolboy:
•hey ucla2000,

i will follow your advice about the ruler just in case i run out of eraser during the exam.

people here are so helpful!•••••dang...ur hilarious....u should replace scooby as favorite funny person of SDN
 
Schoolboy,

I think you are in the wrong field buddy, screw med school and the MCAT..we could use your analytical ability in the legal profession!!
 
This should be moved to the lounge, I almost missed the best thread I've read thus far!!!!
 
UPDATE!!!!

I've been practicing my bubbling in techniques. I've found from trial and error that the most effective method for shading quickly is to fill in the middle with a zig-zag type pattern, then proceed to the edges in a circular pattern. That allowed me to shade in most of the bubble in a relatively quick amount of time. After a quick evaluation, the bubble area was shaded to my satisfaction with this technique.

The average time for bubbling in was about 5:30 minutes for the verbal section, and not much more for the physical and biological sciences section, probably about 6 minutes. I attribute this to what I call "shading momentum" which is the product of the velocity of fine motor movements times the mass of the pencil.

I hope this helps others who are struggling with getting the timing of shading ready for the MCAT. But as usual, your mileage may vary.

:)
 
LOL! This is too funny! <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" />

On a serious note (and I'm not being a smart-ass....really), I used a mechanical pencil and I liked it better because a dull point feels like you're not coloring it in enough.

JUST MAKE SURE YOU USE #2 LEAD INSIDE OF THE MECHANICAL PENCIL ! Good luck ! :wink:

•••quote:•••Originally posted by SeeGulz:
• I had to use my mechanical pencil on the actual MCAT. Ironically, I finally finished on time.•••••
 
school boy

I had a similar problem when I was studying for the MCAT.

Plus the bubbles on the real MCAT are elliptical and not circular thus there is no symmetry which makes the bubbling effort much more troblemsome.

I think by a simple modification of your bubbling method you could easily shave off 0.0002 seconds. All you have to do is start on the outside of the bubble and bubble inwardly until the oval is completley filled. This method also elimantes the dreaded stray marks which have forced people to void their exam.

Test out my method and report back to me.
 
As recently discussed in the chatroom, bubbling time is increased by 1.2824 seconds if one takes the time to give the inevitable sniffer in the room an evil eye. Before MCAT day, one should complete a practice exam with at least one person in the room who will either have or fake a runny nose for the 5.5 hour duration, with no tissues in sight. Thus, the MCAT-taker will be classically conditioned to undergo habituation to the sniffing sound. The sniffer should vary the sniffs, making them either small and very frequent or lengthy and very loud. Practice is optimized if the MCAT-taker does an exam with at least 2 sniffers, just to be sure.

At lunch, the MCAT-taker should go up to the inevitable sniffer and slap the perpetrator many times with a large trout, sufficient enough to knock him out. This not only takes out the sniffer but offers a very therapeutic stress release. The more sniffers the better.
 
PelicanMan brings up a VERY good point, not to be overlooked.

•••quote:••••Plus the bubbles on the real MCAT are elliptical and not circular thus there is no symmetry which makes the bubbling effort much more troblemsome.•••••Imagine my dismay after tending obsessively to similar details in my MCAT preparation to find, when the scantron was passed out the morning of the exam, that the bubbles were a completely different shape!!! Not circles, but ovals!?! <img border="0" alt="[Wowie]" title="" src="graemlins/wowie.gif" />

All my effort and exasperating attention to shaving nanoseconds off my time was shot all to hell! I was not prepared AT ALL, and actually lost time trying to recouperate my composure after the shock. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />

On the plus side, the 'real' scantrons in use by MCAT provide much more space between bubbles and between lines than my practice scantrons; which, SchoolBoy, you'll be glad to know, as it will make your use of ruler and eraser much easier. You can even afford to bring a rather blunt eraser without worrying that you'll inadvertantly erase part of the bubble above or below.

Good luck, SchoolBoy, god knows you're gonna need it. :wink:
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by leorl:
•As recently discussed in the chatroom, bubbling time is increased by 1.2824 seconds if one takes the time to give the inevitable sniffer in the room an evil eye. Before MCAT day, one should complete a practice exam with at least one person in the room who will either have or fake a runny nose for the 5.5 hour duration, with no tissues in sight. Thus, the MCAT-taker will be classically conditioned to undergo habituation to the sniffing sound. The sniffer should vary the sniffs, making them either small and very frequent or lengthy and very loud. Practice is optimized if the MCAT-taker does an exam with at least 2 sniffers, just to be sure.

At lunch, the MCAT-taker should go up to the inevitable sniffer and slap the perpetrator many times with a large trout, sufficient enough to knock him out. This not only takes out the sniffer but offers a very therapeutic stress release. The more sniffers the better.•••••I totally agree with leorl on practicing with a few "sniffers"....

Oh man, the damn sniffers. I had such a problem with this one guy, whom I also dubbed, "THE SNIFFER". I took Kaplan last year and he would always sit near me when we took practice tests and I don't know how many times I wanted to tell him to grab a f*CK!NG tissue or I'd kick his teeth in. I was so happy to find that he wasn't in my actual classroom the day of the MCAT.

Hey people, take care of yourselves, for god's sake! :D
 
Should you circle clockwise, or use a "counterclockwise swirl"? <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" />
 
bump. So Street Philospher, what bubbling method did you employ? :wink:
 
I changed an answer in the last minute and realized that there was a little smudge. I asked the proctor, if I could just erase the smudge a little bit, but I wasn't allowed.
The smudge had about 1.222293 mole of Carbon within the area of 1.11929 mm^2.
That makes about 1.222293 *6.02*10^23 Carbon molecules.
Should I be ok?
Should I give you the density?
 
just fill it in all the way
 
I used a bubbling strategy that worked well for me on the actual MCAT: fully bubble in answers I was sure of, fill in guesses only 50%. After I rushed thru the section, I went back to either erase the guess (saving 50% erasing time) or complete the bubble. Moreover, if I ran out of time, I could easily rely on my guesses by completing the requisite 31.223%, which, on average, took only 20-30 seconds to do (assuming 30-40% guessing)...plenty of time to complete the section after the "one minute" announcement.

aloha
 
bump for a good laugh (also..this is the thread that got me addicted to sdn)
 
hahaha I remember that thread!
 
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