How was the July 24th MCAT?

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It was nothing like any of the AAMC practice tests IMO.

My advice to you if you haven't taken one yet, study your butt off...

That test better have a giant curve on it or I'm not getting in to med school.

I suffered burn out last week, and I've had a terrible migraine since last Monday or so, so maybe that has something to do with it.

But I just got served.

PS: Wow...It was hard...I finished in time, but it seems like each passage was really, really difficult.

VR: I smoked it and finished with about 5 or 6 minutes left.

Writing: One easy, one stupid

BS: Intense...That was to be my ace in the hole section, and it served me badly. I finished just in time though, but I'm not confident in my score at all.


Does everyone come home like this?
 
It was a little harder than AAMC exams, with the occasional freebies and wtf questions.

PS - I felt good about this. I know I guessed on about 5, but about half were solid answers. Harder than AAMC 👍

VR - Nothing outstanding. Everyone says the passages are long, but I found them to be about the length of EK verbal 101 passages. About the same difficulty as AAMC. 👍

WS - Chill. Both were easy to come up with solid examples for. 👍

BS - Argh...I was banking on this section for support, but things got confusing quick. Much harder than AAMC 👎
 
its funny you mention your headache.. i got one the day before i took my mcat and it took about a week to go away👎
 
For the last 5 to 7 days, I haven't been able to do anything at all.

I've never had a headache in my life either...which is weird...

They suck.
 
I thought the PS section was easier than AAMC, though about 3-4 were tricky. Wierd how not alot of topics were covered both in PS and BS. BS lots of focus on the passage, which was different from AAMC. Verbal sucked as usual, but nothing suprising.
 
I'll tell you how it is.

It's OVER.

PS I thought was a little better than AAMC
VR About the same as AAMC
BS very different from AAMC, probably a little harder.
WS 1 ok, 1 easy
 
PS: a little harder than the aamc's, or maybe just a little different....either way, don't expect the test to be like the aamc exams...oh and I barely had any gen chem in mine

Verbal: I personally didn't like many of the passages. In terms of the length, I wouldn't say the passages were extremely long. But long enough that I ran out of time and had to guess on the last questions.

Writing: Straight forward

Bio: I didnt find this section bad at all actually. I did have a few that I had to guess on, but most of the time, I was able to narrow the choices down to two before having to guess

Overall, its the MCAT. It naturally sucks. Just study hard, continue to do the AAMCs, do tons of problems, and pray for the best🙂
 
PS - extremely hard, difficult concepts with a few long calculations. barely had enough time, made a couple of uneducated guesses (i pray that first passage was experimental). i had lots of angular momentum which i hate, optics was easy though. PS is usually my best section, i'll be happy with a 7 on this crap.

VR - surprisingly not bad. had a few minutes left, passage length was the same as AAMC. this was usually my worst section and i would barely finish on AAMC.

WS - normal

BS - interesting to say the least. had to make a couple of guesses but most were educated guesses. didn't feel too bad about it.


overall - not too good. nothing like AAMC except for VR. expecting mid-20s 🙁
 
I thought EK said no angular momentum on the MCAT?!?!?!?

haha YES! I thought the same thing. In any case, I thought the question just required a little manipulation and the formula was practically given.
 
haha YES! I thought the same thing. In any case, I thought the question just required a little manipulation and the formula was practically given.

angular momentum really pissed me off

what did u think about the first passage (if u had it), something about 57Fe. it really threw me off and i found myself guessing
 
just got back.

PS- Mostly chem, and few physics topics (id say mostly optics and fluidics). Not bad. I usually have trouble with this section, but id say it went fairly well. It was the only time i actually finished with usable time to spare and check over probs.

VR- fair. some interesting passages, some dull and tricky. Id say it was of average difficulty, not too hard, not too easy either. they say if you leave VR feeling really good, you probably fell for all of the traps.

BS- Woah! VERY passage based, testing little knowledge about BS. A lot of molecular genetics, which was cool, but the questions were all pretty tough and required good understanding of the passages and diagrams. I had almost no orgo. I think one passage and a question.

This BS section really took me by surprise.
 
just got back.

PS- Mostly chem, and few physics topics (id say mostly optics and fluidics). Not bad. I usually have trouble with this section, but id say it went fairly well. It was the only time i actually finished with usable time to spare and check over probs.

VR- fair. some interesting passages, some dull and tricky. Id say it was of average difficulty, not too hard, not too easy either. they say if you leave VR feeling really good, you probably fell for all of the traps.

BS- Woah! VERY passage based, testing little knowledge about BS. A lot of molecular genetics, which was cool, but the questions were all pretty tough and required good understanding of the passages and diagrams. I had almost no orgo. I think one passage and a question.

This BS section really took me by surprise.

i only had one passage on optics and i dont remember fluids 😕. do they have different forms?
 

damn i think i got screwed with a harder form then. i love optics and fluids but instead got angular momentum, hard atomic and nuclear stuff, and i cant even remember what.

pretty much no electricity/magnetism or gen chem which i also like 🙁

PS was my strongest section on Kaplan FLs and AAMC, but had to do a whole lot of guessing today (educated and uneducated both), which is making me feel like s*** right now
 
Overall, I thought the test was definitely harder than the AAMC Practice Test. I think its natural to think that we did horrible, which I am sort of thinking. The biggest difference I saw was in the Verbal. My verbal was much longer than any of the AAMC practice tests I took. I would say that they were probably a paragraph to a paragraph and a half longer on average. I also thought the question difficulty was much more difficult today. I was making 11-12 on my Verbal section and normally finishing with about 5 minutes left. However, today I barely finished in time. I felt I did much worse on this section. Overall, I just feel that the entire test was much harder than the practice tests. The only consolation I have was that if the version I had was harder for me, it was harder for everyone and the curve will reflect that. Anyway, my girlfriend had a bottle of crown waiting for me when I got home and I actually came to SDN first! What a loser ha ha. Anyway, good luck with your scores. I'm going to go partake.
 
Well, I thought all of it was hard. I, too, hope there is a massive curve. I really wanted to void the test, but I didn't.

PS- Heavy on the physics. A couple of tricky questions, but most of the answers were straight forward or in the passage.

VR - This is my weak spot, so I thought it was hard. I finished, but there were a few questions I just guessed and moved on. The passages were similiar to EK 101, but the questions and answers were LONG. I had to reread many of them.

BS - Very passage centered. A few stand alone questions threw me off (structures?? STRUCTURES??? 😡 ). Only 1 org passage - thank goodness - but it was still hard.

I'm just glad it's over. Now we wait 30 days... 🙁
 
Those of you who were consistently scoring 12+ on PS should not be discouraged by a difficult test. Typically because everyone gets served on the PS, if you have a more solid background then others, then your educated guesses are often better then theirs.

Have some faith.
 
PS: Absolute anal bombardment...i feel like I got nuked on the first passage and it was downhill thereafter.....angular momentum...wtf...

VR: hard as usual...sigh...passages more interesting than some

BS: As expected, very experiment based, not a lot of outside knowledge but still some are needed....felt like some were very either way depending on what the test makers were thinking...

essays: had a little fun with this one, and just spoke out of my butt
 
PS: Absolute anal bombardment...i feel like I got nuked on the first passage and it was downhill thereafter.....angular momentum...wtf...

VR: hard as usual...sigh...passages more interesting than some

BS: As expected, very experiment based, not a lot of outside knowledge but still some are needed....felt like some were very either way depending on what the test makers were thinking...

essays: had a little fun with this one, and just spoke out of my butt

guess we had the same form lol

one more thing to add to my anal bombardment - our testing center's AC was broken (just imagine 30 computers and 30 people in a small enclosed room) - one girl left crying
 
turtle01- i think you and i are the only ones who had the same version... what anyone else think of the chem-centered version today?
 
The exam just had a different feel to it than the AAMC- overall much less outside knowledge, much more comprehension.

PS- very few calculation. As far as passages there was one on optics, astronaut, couple of gen chem (no electrochem).

VR- I didn't find passages to be long- they seem longer because of the font, but took about the same time to read. Overall the questions were much more straight forward than practice exams.

Bio- Very passage intensive, I remember only 1 orgo passage (breakdown of fats). Bio passage were pretty conventional.

Was anybody else unable to sleep last night?
I went to sleep at midnight and couldnt get a minute of sleep so my brain was fried the whole time.
Good luck to everyone.
 
PS- a little difficult. Little chemistry. Finished just in time (actually guessed on the last two)

VR- Easy, but no time left over/

BS- only 1 orgo passage!! But, I was pressed for time.

Both PS and BS were a bit more difficult than AAMC. All three sections were longer and left less time to review afterword. Do you agree?
 
Okay, I thought the test was a lot harder than the practice exams I took....but also:

WTF....if I checked the "mark" box on the bottom of the page, did that just count that answer as incorrect?

Here's what I did (I thought I read the tutorial correctly, but maybe I didn't):
After each page of the PS section I clicked on the "mark" button on the bottom of the screen before clicking "next". Stupid me, I thought that this meant my answers were solidifyed. Instead, did it count all of those last questions on each page wrong? I'm really confused...the last thing I need is to have missed 7 or so answers on an already difficult section. ARGH!!
 
My take on it -

PS: I thought this whole sections was just different - hard and different. If i bombed a section its going to be this one. I straight up guessed on like 5 becuase i was running out of time.

VR: First passage was hard the rest were reasonable, length of passages was okay, and i finished with the same amount of time i have on all my practices.

BS: Seemed like a mix between an AAMC and Kaplan section, some were very straight forward, a few were very confusing in the wording they used..decent section though.

WS: did fine..wasnt worried about it at all.
 
damn i think i got screwed with a harder form then. i love optics and fluids but instead got angular momentum, hard atomic and nuclear stuff, and i cant even remember what.

pretty much no electricity/magnetism or gen chem which i also like 🙁
me too, i was pissed, crazy ass potentials and speeding electrons and ****..
 
NJDIF- I'm pretty sure I had the test that Premed86 had, the astronaut, a bike thing, etc. Anyway it was easy i thought, no long calculations but a few ones that tried to trick you into thinking they were.
 
PS: W T F was this? This was the MCAT right? Took 8 AAMC tests. My forte every time. Expected at least an 11 on this. I will be shocked if I got a 7 on the real thing. I usually finish the practice tests with like 20 mins left, ran out of time here, had to randomly guess on like 5. I don't remember ANY concepts being tested, just like 100% calculation and reading a few tables. Like 85% physics.

VR: Finished earlier than expected. Thought it was on par with the earlier AAMCs.

BS: Incredibly easy. I hardly had any organic. Majority of the test was genetics.

Writing: Cake. Wouldn't be surprised if I got a T. Doesnt' matter 🙁


To those preparing for the real deal, you have no idea what it feels like once you start the PS section. Meditate before you start. It def. cost me some time.
 
Hello: I took the afternoon section and just got back. My reactions:

Physical - extremely physics-heavy. way too much focus on electromagnetism and atomic physics. And, the biggest shock, angular motion, as mentioned upthread! I love physics, but this was really tough for me. There were several very difficult calculations, and 2 I just could not think for, at all. It seemed, though, that the easy questions were really easy and the hard questions were really hard - not much in between: I dunno how that's gonna affect the curve.

Verbal: Straightforward. Passages slightly longer but, on the whole, infinitely more interesting than anything I had for practice. But, the questions for the very easy questions were particularly tricky. I enjoyed these, but that says nothing about my score (obviously). In practice, the ones I thought were inscrutable I did best on, so go figure.

Writing: Straightforward: no one cares about this score (within reason) so it's forgettable. I find all their writing samples to be incredibly similar and interchangeable.

Biological: One orgo passage out of 7 and like 3 discretes. The chem major in me died a little today. All questions were uber-passage based. And almost every passage seemed to be based on experiments (I scrolled down to see the source for all the passages, and most were recently published papers in major journals.) The passages seemed inscrutable at first, and so I would quickly zoom through the questions for any latent discrete ones, and in almost every passage, none were to be found. But, after reading the passages and reasoning through them the questions were passable. However, at first glance they seemed very tough. Also? there was like no neuro, endocrine, CV/respiration. curious, no?

Overall: a very biased exam that, in all honest opinion, did Not cover everything. To my mind the MCAT is one of the most un-standardized tests because its emphasis is not evenly distributed (when you have passages in your questions, you are easily limiting your scope of topics covered, especially with the newer, shortened version). For that reason I find the exam to be very unfair (yeah yeah, that's an old argument. sorry). I don't mean that the questions are unreasonable, but it's just that if you got questions on what you knew you were fine but if not you got screwed. and because the scope is small you got royally screwed. I just wish it was not so limited (see, an AP exam is much more balanced so it's a better, in my opinion, standardized test.)

hope that helps future takers. lesson: dont put all your eggs in one basket. or maybe, do: if your basket gets chosen you win the jackpot.
 
Okay, I thought the test was a lot harder than the practice exams I took....but also:

WTF....if I checked the "mark" box on the bottom of the page, did that just count that answer as incorrect?

Here's what I did (I thought I read the tutorial correctly, but maybe I didn't):
After each page of the PS section I clicked on the "mark" button on the bottom of the screen before clicking "next". Stupid me, I thought that this meant my answers were solidifyed. Instead, did it count all of those last questions on each page wrong? I'm really confused...the last thing I need is to have missed 7 or so answers on an already difficult section. ARGH!!

I think 'mark' means your answer isnt solidified, so you can refer back to them later, but it doesnt count your answer as wrong.
 
wow...premed86 and turtle...just think that if we would have showed up to the testing site a few minutes earlier or later and we would have gotten their PS!!! (in all seriousness, good luck to all!)
 
SOO GLAD IT'S OVER!!! My thoughts:

PS: This section was pretty ridiculous. I def have the same passages as most of you, Optics, Fe57, Astronaut psg, angular momentum. I really hope the astronaut/angular momentum one was experimental, b/c i ran out of time and found myself guessing on this entire passage practically.

VR: This wasnt so bad. It was really on par with EK101 and AAMC practice. I had psgs on photosyntehsis stuff in plant, frued, detective novel, coal burning, native americans, and thats all i can remember. (It's allowed to say this as long as I don't go over specific questions right?)

BS: I thought bio was really hard. only 1 orgo psg on fatty acids. the rest was bio experiments and passage based questions, with little outside knowledge required, which made it hard.

Overal, it was def hard but as long as you all thought it was hard too, they'll be a nice curve right? haha :laugh:
 
PS: Not so much harder as the AAMC as much as tricker in which the way they word the questions/answers.

V: Hell. One passage on "poetry and looking at the past" threw off my timing. I finished the section, but I had to rush.

WS: Piece of cake.

BS: Very passage oriented. I like these type of questions that do not rely on rote memorization.

Overall: We shall see.
 
I dont know how much we can elaborate on here, but I had the astronaut question, bike question, and a soil question on PS, I see people saying Fe57 with those as well but I don't remember having that.... Is this possible?
 
i know what you mean, i had the astronaut passage, but no Fe57 or soil passage. i feel like a lot of us had the same BS section though
 
wow...premed86 and turtle...just think that if we would have showed up to the testing site a few minutes earlier or later and we would have gotten their PS!!! (in all seriousness, good luck to all!)

huh?
are you saying your passages depend on when you get there??
In my center, you were assigned a seat, so it seemed your passages were pretty much set in stone.
 
Hello: I took the afternoon section and just got back. My reactions:

Physical - extremely physics-heavy. way too much focus on electromagnetism and atomic physics. And, the biggest shock, angular motion, as mentioned upthread! I love physics, but this was really tough for me. There were several very difficult calculations, and 2 I just could not think for, at all. It seemed, though, that the easy questions were really easy and the hard questions were really hard - not much in between: I dunno how that's gonna affect the curve.

Verbal: Straightforward. Passages slightly longer but, on the whole, infinitely more interesting than anything I had for practice. But, the questions for the very easy questions were particularly tricky. I enjoyed these, but that says nothing about my score (obviously). In practice, the ones I thought were inscrutable I did best on, so go figure.

Writing: Straightforward: no one cares about this score (within reason) so it's forgettable. I find all their writing samples to be incredibly similar and interchangeable.

Biological: One orgo passage out of 7 and like 3 discretes. The chem major in me died a little today. All questions were uber-passage based. And almost every passage seemed to be based on experiments (I scrolled down to see the source for all the passages, and most were recently published papers in major journals.) The passages seemed inscrutable at first, and so I would quickly zoom through the questions for any latent discrete ones, and in almost every passage, none were to be found. But, after reading the passages and reasoning through them the questions were passable. However, at first glance they seemed very tough. Also? there was like no neuro, endocrine, CV/respiration. curious, no?

Overall: a very biased exam that, in all honest opinion, did Not cover everything. To my mind the MCAT is one of the most un-standardized tests because its emphasis is not evenly distributed (when you have passages in your questions, you are easily limiting your scope of topics covered, especially with the newer, shortened version). For that reason I find the exam to be very unfair (yeah yeah, that's an old argument. sorry). I don't mean that the questions are unreasonable, but it's just that if you got questions on what you knew you were fine but if not you got screwed. and because the scope is small you got royally screwed. I just wish it was not so limited (see, an AP exam is much more balanced so it's a better, in my opinion, standardized test.)

hope that helps future takers. lesson: dont put all your eggs in one basket. or maybe, do: if your basket gets chosen you win the jackpot.

One reason I plan on taking it more than once unless I get lucky the first time.

It really all depends on what form you get and your abilities on that form.

I still think with a hard section there will be a generous curve so scores will come out the same or close to it. I think the key is not to lose focus and think through it the best way possible. The top should still be the top since the scaled score comes from other test takers.

I just pray I get the Gchem PS and not the Physics!!!!:scared:

One reason I wish there was a program that everyone that wanted MD could go through (a premed, nationally standardized program). If you do good, you get to go to Med school. I think that one test should not have so much weight.

:luck: to all MCAT takers.
 
i have to assume that different computers have different versions. they sat us today according to when we signed in
 
I'm really upset about my performance today.

There were several discretes that I had no idea what they were talking about, and usually I'll only get 1 wrong / test, and thats due to a simple mistake. Both PS and BS had a lot of things that were never covered in Kaplan.

What bugged me the most was that in BS there was only 1 ochem passage, and 5/7 of the rest were on the same freaking topic! Nothing at all on respiration, digestion, exocrine, endocrine, or circulatory. Usually I can check every one of my answers on PS and BS. I wasn't even close to that today.
grr...

I wouldn't be surprised if my score dropped 7 or 8 points from my practice.
 
Soccerpunk, I had the exact same test as you.

Any of you guys that had the 57Fe...dude...that was a hard passage.

So, I have a question guys: I keep hearing about experimental passages. What exactly are you talking about?

Do they throw out one passage in each section or something?

Like, do they just not score that section or what?
 
My BS was ridiculous. I had noting on endocrine, kidney, circulatory, digestive ... ugh. PS was okay, VR pass's were way longer than AAMC practice tests, more similar to EK and Kaplan passages in difficulty.

Praying for a big curve.
 
i agree...i think physical sciences i ended up guessing a lot (some educated...some "pray to god it turns out right")
i walked out thinking that i mite not get more than a 6
 
I don't know my series number... do people find that out on test day or with their score report?

Hopefully this post is completely PC in regards to AAMC confidentiality, I'll try my best.

This test is more of a concentration/stress-management test than anything else. If you are calm, you will remember info from content review. If you're nervous or angsty, then it will be tough to read the passage and recall content at the same time. The only thing that saved me on this exam, despite the meager amount of study time I put in, was remaining calm. I went in with a "whatever happens, I'm determined enough to retake this thing if I must" attitude and it's probably what got me any of the points I did manage.

PS - I thought it wasn't too bad, dare I say easy... because that could mean that I fell for all the traps. It was okay, fair.

VR - Passages were interesting, thank goodness for no extreme philosophical passages, the passages are at least 1-2 paragraphs LONGER than AAMCs so time was a big issue... best thing is to make sure you finish practice tests at least 5 mins early.

WR - I love writing, my examples were whack haha My examples were funny, but I won't reveal them. I even made one of them up... it was only partially accurate but no one will know because its not well known. Writing section was more like a break before biology than anything else. Just want a decent score, average is fine.

BS - so many experimental passages, it required less content than I expected.

Who knows, I'm afraid to say anything was easy or hard or even ok. Things are out of my hands now, all I know is that I did my best. I will be extremely happy with anything 30 and above.


Tips for future MCAT takers
* The timer does wait for you if you're late a few minutes after break, you won't lose time from the next section

* The lockers at Thompson Prometric (where I took it) are fairly large, I fit in a Vera Bradley regular size tote without having to take anything out.. if that gives you an idea on the locker size.

* Take your breaks! I saw a lot of people skipping their breaks and finishing early, I thought it was a bad idea.... rushing through the test or skipping breaks just to "get it over with" is not a good idea.

* Bring some tylenol or whatever you use to get past a headache, just in case. I was so glad I slipped in a tylenol pack 2 mins before I left home on a whim. When a small headache seemed to arise after verbal, tylenol was right on hand for me to take. It probably did its job during writing and I felt okay enough to get through BS.

* Keep your eye on the clock. I spent too long on discretes and one passage in the BS section and found myself feeling a bit rushed. Luckily, I finished a minute early but only because I had to constantly remind myself that the clock was ticking.

* Instead of using the "mark" function, write down the #s you want to come back to on your answer sheet. I made three sections for each part of the test... PS (a column "d" for discretes, "p" for physics, "c" for chem) and BS ("d", "b", "o").. that way, in the minute or two I had left - I could go straight for the discretes and then move to my weaker of the two sections and then the last. And it was okay if I ran out of time while rechecking my answers because I answered all the questions the first time around.

* On my last BS passage, I had 5 mins remaining for 5 questions. I went ahead and checked "A" for all of them before attempting to answer them. That way, if time runs out - at least I have made guesses for that last remaining passage. Time didn't run out luckily, but it was reassuring to randomly bubble them in - then start answering.

* Five and a half hours of staring at a computer screen with dim room lighting can take its toll on your eyes. Closing my eyes before each section and massaging my eyes really helped. I also took a small breather and closed my eyes for a few sections if my eyes became hazy or I started seeing spots haha Those few seconds lost are still valuable.


Okay, maybe I'm rambling at this point. Hope this is somewhat helpful. Now I'm ready to enjoy vacation and stay away from anything MCAT related until August 23rd. Not really worried about my score in this 1 month wait, there's nothing I can do now. Well unless I do some James Bond-ish superhacking, um AMCAS peoples if you're reading this - I'm just kidding.

Goodluck to everyone, I hope we all get the scores we want :luck:
 
Hey congradulations all!! its over:laugh:

as for the my thoughts:

P.S. the discretes were a bit tricky and couple of ? on the passages were tough but the rest was cake. prolly was my worst section tho

V.R. much easier than i though, on philosphocal passage but easy to understand

w.s. thank g*d for the easy prompts

B.S. was cruising until the last 3 passages. Very Very confusing and detail heavy passages, but i think it was ok.
 
there are 14 different tests on test day...so I think we do get similar passages, but there may be slightly different questions regarding each passage or just 1 different passage per exams but thats what I learned during my princeton review training session to teach
 
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