How many days before your exam

[Hopefuldoc22]

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did you see the greatest score improvement and how long were you studying before?

I've been studying for the past 7 weeks, my test is on august 16th. i haven't really seen a score improvement. I'm getting ridiculously nervous. my scores for aamc 3 and 4 have been crap before.

i've been studying so hard too, idk what I'm doing wrong.

 

[V5RED]

Have you actually completed the content review materials you have?

Which materials are you using?

How did you review the material? (ie passive reading, multiple readings, writing out notecards, diagramming systems, etc)

Aside from in-chapter problems, what type of practice problems have you been using? (ie TBR passages, EK 30-min exams, EK 1001, McGraw Hill 500, etc.)

How have your scores been on practice material versus AAMCs?

What grades did you earn in the prerequisite classes?

 

[Hopefuldoc22]

yea i finished reading EK and Kaplan. Right now I'm using EK 101 verbal passages, and the 30-minute exams. I find those extremely challenging and scoring in the 6-8 range for the sciences. Aside from problems, i did the kaplan end of the chapter ones and the EK ones.

My average for AAMC 3 and 4 is like 21, and my kaplan full length average is like 23. Verbal absolutely kills me, i get like 5-6's on them. on AAMC 4 for BS, i got wrecked. absolutely wrecked on it. i got a 5 -___-. i did see an improvement on ps which i hit a 10 on. i think i can get that to an 11-12 at some point.

my point is, i have like 45ish days. i want to hit at least 30. I'm trying my absolute best and i feel like just crying right now.

im gonna take AAMC 5 next week. if i don't at least see some improvement across the board, i have no idea what i should even do at that point.

i have a 3.6 gpa and a 3.4 gpa. honestly at this point i was hoping to get better senior year grades, get around a 33+ and be competitive for an allopathic admission and would take a DO admission (which i don't have a problem with)

 

[V5RED]

When you practice, do you read the explanations for the questions you answered incorrectly? If so, do you understand the explanations?

The reason I asked for your grades in the prerequisites as opposed to your GPA is I was curious as to whether you were walking in with a strong background in these classes or not.

I got all A's in my prerequisites, so my background was strong, but still some of the topics were poorly covered or not covered at all in my classes(for example, fluids and optics). For those topics, I definitely could not have learned them simply by looking at review books. I used resources like Khan Academy and other YouTube videos along with the EK 1001 series and TBR passages to get a lot of practice.

 

[kasho11]

If you are not getting 9's and 10's in the science sections most likely your knowledge base is weak. Finish your content review and go over your weak areas every day until they are your strong ones. Verbal can take a while but the key thing to remember with verbal (and really BS too) is to always think about WHY the author is telling you this, WHY they are explaining things. That should help keep their main idea in mind.

Keep at it, I struggled at a certain score for a while and then after 2 more months of light content review I shot up 6 points and then it just kept going up.

 

[Hopefuldoc22]

so whats my best strategy at this point? review all the materials again???? i only have 45ish days left :/

do you think the aamc practice tests provide all the content/topics for the sciences that you should know for the actual mcat? that is if i go through all the aamc's, understanding all the mistakes and content for those exams, will that be enough? or do i have to go through all the subject books again?

 

[V5RED]

so whats my best strategy at this point? review all the materials again???? i only have 45ish days left :/

do you think the aamc practice tests provide all the content/topics for the sciences that you should know for the actual mcat? that is if i go through all the aamc's, understanding all the mistakes and content for those exams, will that be enough? or do i have to go through all the subject books again?

Questions you have yet to answer that would help in advising you:

When you practice, do you read the explanations for the questions you answered incorrectly? If so, do you understand the explanations?

How did you review the material? (ie passive reading, multiple readings, writing out notecards, diagramming systems, etc)

What grades did you earn in the prerequisite classes?

As far as what you need to know, there are pdfs on the AAMC website detailing all the required knowledge.
https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/mcat/preparing/

 

[Hopefuldoc22]

When you practice, do you read the explanations for the questions you answered incorrectly? If so, do you understand the explanations?

yea i have, and at least for aamc #3 i read and understand the explanations, and did some heavy post game analysis. I retook aamc 3 missed 2 questions out of 144 for what its worth.

How did you review the material? (ie passive reading, multiple readings, writing out notecards, diagramming systems, etc)

i read the material once via kaplan and the other time via ek.

What grades did you earn in the prerequisite classes?
roughly speaking
Gen Chem: A/B+
Physics: A/B
Orgo: b/B-
Gen bio/cell bio/genetics: A-, B, B

do you think the aamc exams are each different in the sense that they all cover different topics to the point where aamc exams 3-11 cover all the material you need to know? IS understanding all the solutions to the aamc 3-11 enough to do well or do you think you need additional knowledge? I find it hard to believe that the aamc exams are randomly chosen, instead they choose questions that are of high yield. is that a fair assumption?

 

[V5RED]

When you practice, do you read the explanations for the questions you answered incorrectly? If so, do you understand the explanations?

yea i have, and at least for aamc #3 i read and understand the explanations, and did some heavy post game analysis. I retook aamc 3 missed 2 questions out of 144 for what its worth.

How did you review the material? (ie passive reading, multiple readings, writing out notecards, diagramming systems, etc)

i read the material once via kaplan and the other time via ek.

What grades did you earn in the prerequisite classes?
roughly speaking
Gen Chem: A/B+
Physics: A/B
Orgo: b/B-
Gen bio/cell bio/genetics: A-, B, B

do you think the aamc exams are each different in the sense that they all cover different topics to the point where aamc exams 3-11 cover all the material you need to know? IS understanding all the solutions to the aamc 3-11 enough to do well or do you think you need additional knowledge? I find it hard to believe that the aamc exams are randomly chosen, instead they choose questions that are of high yield. is that a fair assumption?

Understanding why your choices were wrong is a good thing. It means that at least you are able to comprehend what is being tested in a given question.

If all you did for content review was read the chapters, I suggest you go through the chapters again and make notes on things you are told are important for the MCAT. I like to make my own flash cards for the high yield facts that EK points out. This would seem especially important given your performance in the prerequisite courses. You might want to also consider watching some review videos like those found at the kahn academy.

You should also pick up more practice materials and work until you are regularly doing well on questions you have not yet seen.(ie not on old practice materials)


As to your questions:
No. You can not assume that all the material that you need to know is covered in AAMC 3-11. These are practice exams, not study guides. The study guides that I linked to earlier contain all the topics you are required to know. The point of them is to test whether your studies have been broad enough such that you would do well on a random gathering of topics from the AAMC topic lists(study guides).