I get the concepts, but how do I improve my score / crack the exam itself?

[Medicinelover25]

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I work full time, but I am very dedicated to take this exam and do well. I spend the last few months reading the exam kracker books and reviewing the material, and I actually understand the concepts and formulas (even for physics, which is my worst area). I did practice problems as well and some of the 30-min exams in the examkraker books. I feel that if I was to take a normal college course exam with all this info I learned/reviewed, I would do so well. I took one practice exam so far and realize that time is my issue. I know how to solve the problems, but it takes me time. Also, being under the stress of a ticking clock, when I read the passages, I sometimes don't fully comprehend what is being asked. But when I go over it again afterwards without the ticking clock, I can actually answer the questions, again by taking my time. So It's not that I don't get the material, but It's the Exam itself that I need to crack. What are some tips? advice? tricks? how did you all improve your scores drastically when you were studying? Thanks 🙂

 

[going2breakdown]

I'm going to return to this post sometime to give my two cents. I need to head to bed right now.

 

[mcloaf]

The most important element is practice. You're already ahead of a lot of people by having a good understanding of the concepts, now you just need to become more adept at applying them efficiently with time constraints.

 

[JingleChips]

I work full time, but I am very dedicated to take this exam and do well. I spend the last few months reading the exam kracker books and reviewing the material, and I actually understand the concepts and formulas (even for physics, which is my worst area). I did practice problems as well and some of the 30-min exams in the examkraker books. I feel that if I was to take a normal college course exam with all this info I learned/reviewed, I would do so well. I took one practice exam so far and realize that time is my issue. I know how to solve the problems, but it takes me time. Also, being under the stress of a ticking clock, when I read the passages, I sometimes don't fully comprehend what is being asked. But when I go over it again afterwards without the ticking clock, I can actually answer the questions, again by taking my time. So It's not that I don't get the material, but It's the Exam itself that I need to crack. What are some tips? advice? tricks? how did you all improve your scores drastically when you were studying? Thanks 🙂

I like to compare the MCAT to the SAT/GRE math sections (except with many more "concepts" to know). You can do decently on both by just knowing all the concepts, but in order to do really well, you need to have practiced enough that when you see question XXX, you instantly know what they're trying to test you on and how they can be tricky about it.

For example, if I see any question dealing with osmotic pressure / bp elevation / fp depression / vp depression, I instantly think of colligative properties / the vant hoff factor, because this is typically what the MCAT "tests" and tries to trick you with in these topics. If I see a question involving a given area in cm^2, I know that one of the incorrect answer choices will most likely be what you get if you convert cm^2 to m^2 incorrectly (which is a common mistake on simple problems).

Alot of times, eliminating answers that you know are wrong will lead you to the correct choice faster than solving the question independently of the answers and then checking the answers to see if any match your answer. Any questions asking for the formula for something, you can do a dimensional analysis of the units to eliminate answers.

Also, try going through the questions and see if there are any questions where you don't really need to the read the passage to answer - or if there are any where you just need to look at a figure. I personally skim the passage briefly, then start answering questions immediately and searching through the passage on a question by question basis for answers that require passage use. If you spend time reading the whole passage first, and STILL need to refer to it (Aside from figures) to answer questions, you're probably losing out on some time. My personal strategy is to answer easy questions as fast as I can without double checking my answers, that way I have extra time to spend on the harder questions that need thought. Any extra time that I have at the end is spent double checking the questions that I breezed through.

 

[going2breakdown]

Take it before 2015. The way to see it is, if you didn't understand the material when you took the class then you need to find a GOOD textbook on the subject and combine that with the content outline AAMC posts on their website. Do that and you'll be fine. Purchase all the AAMC practice tests, or take a class and that will get you all the practice tests.
Good textbooks:
Introductory Chemistry Cracolice
Human Anatomy and Physiology Tortora (Mostly for physiology, only basic anatomy is needed)
Physics Cutnell and Johnson
All the Princeton Review Books come with the course.
If you are scoring in the low 20's I would start with the outline and the textbooks. Be able to do simple problems in all of them. BTW Verbal reasoning is a ridiculously difficult section. Do as many practice passages as you can. Then Practice practice practice. The test is designed to be EXTREMELY difficult if you don't know the material because they set up the passages with information you should already know. Chegg subscription for solutions.

 

[Captain Sisko]

practice for speed. be able to do a ps section in double time, so you can go back and check your work. got me a 15