How indicative are the AAMC self-assessments?

[zeroufies]

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I have never taken a semester of biology yet, and I scored a 77% on the AAMC self-assessment by remembering stuff from high school, eliminating choices based on the passage, and the fact that I have worked as an EMT and ER Scribe at the same time for the past two years, in which I learn a lot about the biological processes of the human body. Should I keep taking practice tests to build up my knowledge of biology? I have unused accounts for Kaplan, EK, and PR, so there is a plethora of tests I can use for sure. How much I can trust these self-assessments? I was expecting to totally bomb the biology assessment because I never took a semester of it. Thank you for all your advices.

 

[mrh125]

They're good because official AAMCs are basically your bible for the mcat (no other source has closer questions to the real deal than them), but if you've done any of the older AAMCs exams (3, 6R, and 4R I believe) you might have seen the passages and your results might be skewed. Your work and context of bio as well as good reasoning (sometimes a lot of the information you need to know comes from the passage, but i've found if you the content well often times you can answer many questions w/o the passage) probably helped lot, as well as the fact a sizable portion of mcat bio is physiology. I would do some content review on bio though just to give you an idea of all the topics covered on the mcat (see: https://www.aamc.org/students/download/85566/data/bstopics.pdf). Use that list to look up material you might not know well, as well as the review book of your choice.

Definitely go through a lot of questions like Examcrackers 1001 for the bio portion of the exam though because there are a surprising number of little nitpicky things you may be tested on so knowing every detail you can will help.

 

[zeroufies]

Haven't done any of the older AAMC exams yet. Also, do you think it is safe to take the exam on May 30th considering that I get my application verified on the first day?

 

[mrh125]

IDK about that, but I do have one more tip. Go through all the content review you can, review problems, practice tests that aren't aamcs exams, and aamcs self-assessments before hitting the official AAMCs exams or use the aamcs exams sparingly. The official aamcs exams are pretty much the most important and indicative material you can use, and you really don't want to take them too early. At the same time dont cram them at the last possible moment you will need some time to reflect on the mistakes you made. I blew through way too many aamcs exams early on and that meant my average provided me no idea about how I would do on the real thing.

 

[Pacna]

I'll just say that I think they're pretty good. I experienced a bump of 4 whole points on the actual MCAT, but they were evenly distributed. I think the discrepancy was due to me taking the actual test more seriously, but who knows?

 

[BK2681]

How do most people utilize the Self-Assesments? Do you take them cold-turkey without doing any content review? I've been doing a quick content review before I take a Self-Assessment and have been scoring in the mid 80s. I've only done the Biology, Chemistry, and O-Chem assessments so far. When I say quick content review, I mean like an hour or so of quickly reading/skimming the Exam Kracker's books, just to refresh on the major concepts and formulas. My MCAT is May 31st. Do you think scoring in the 80's on the self-assessments that I've taken so far is a sign that I'm on the right track for a May 31st MCAT? I haven't taken an AAMC test yet. My plan was to do a detailed review of subjects I'm weak on based on the results of the Self-Assessment tests and then drill AAMC tests.

 

[Cinclus]

I hit my exact AAMC average; I took three of them.

 

[mehc012]

I think people are blurring the distinction between the AAMC exams and the Self-Assessment packages here.

 

[deanthedream17]

AAMC self assessments are good for just extra practice. Most of the qs for Bio are too easy with not enough experiment passages.