I scored a 21 on 3 practice tests in a row, test day is june 5th :(

[memsak00]

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The problem is I dont know what else there is to study. Ive been through quite a few different study materials and put anything i didnt know or answered incorrectly on flash cards. I went through the kaplan books, absorbed their material and did their practice problems, i went through coursesaver.coms videos, i went through the examkrackers books and absorbed their material, i did all the old AAMC written exams, the longform kaplan exams, I even went to the trouble of downloading a general bio, general chem, general physics and organic chem textbooks. With those, I looked at what subsections I was getting anything incorrectly, and incorporated anything on those subjects into my collection of flashcards. I have just under 1000 flashcards now, which I go over either the day of a practice test or the night before. I know almost all of them before I flip them over. Now i'm doing the new AAMC tests, 26 here, 27 there, 24 over there. Bam, 21, 21, 21.

It just seems like every test there is a significant chunk of material ive never seen before and that is what I get wrong. Either that or its some weird twist or trick with all clues leading to the answer I go for, the wrong one. I just don't know what else to do except shell out 1600 for a prep course. Either that or try berkeley review books, which a friend recommended. In any event, test day is less that 2 weeks away so I have no time for anything else but to keep on my current schedule and hope for luck. I'm also doing the kaplan bootcamp free event thing for some last minute test taking tips.

Just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on my situation. Like, I guess I have time for a retake, I'm just dreading doing that.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

Essentially you're going to either skip june 5th or void.

 

[Plecopotamus]

The problem is I dont know what else there is to study. Ive been through quite a few different study materials and put anything i didnt know or answered incorrectly on flash cards. I went through the kaplan books, absorbed their material and did their practice problems, i went through coursesaver.coms videos, i went through the examkrackers books and absorbed their material, i did all the old AAMC written exams, the longform kaplan exams, I even went to the trouble of downloading a general bio, general chem, general physics and organic chem textbooks. With those, I looked at what subsections I was getting anything incorrectly, and incorporated anything on those subjects into my collection of flashcards. I have just under 1000 flashcards now, which I go over either the day of a practice test or the night before. I know almost all of them before I flip them over. Now i'm doing the new AAMC tests, 26 here, 27 there, 24 over there. Bam, 21, 21, 21.

It just seems like every test there is a significant chunk of material ive never seen before and that is what I get wrong. Either that or its some weird twist or trick with all clues leading to the answer I go for, the wrong one. I just don't know what else to do except shell out 1600 for a prep course. Either that or try berkeley review books, which a friend recommended. In any event, test day is less that 2 weeks away so I have no time for anything else but to keep on my current schedule and hope for luck. I'm also doing the kaplan bootcamp free event thing for some last minute test taking tips.

Just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on my situation. Like, I guess I have time for a retake, I'm just dreading doing that.

postpone your test until you're scoring much better. in addition to normal test day anxiety, you're now going to have the ghost of these scores looming over you on test day, making you that much more distracted/anxious & further hindering your success.

 

[memsak00]

Essentially you're going to either skip june 5th or void.

If i take a test, Ill have a score. Princeton review and kaplan guarantee a higher score or your money back. I need a score. Its very unlikely Ill score lower than a 21.

 

[Plecopotamus]

If i take a test, Ill have a score. Princeton review and kaplan guarantee a higher score or your money back. I need a score. Its very unlikely Ill score lower than a 21.

why do you need A score?
who cares how unlikely you are to score below a 21, when a 21 in and of itself is a problem?
the test prep people can't erase your prior score.

don't do something stupid

 

[memsak00]

why do you need A score?
who cares how unlikely you are to score below a 21, when a 21 in and of itself is a problem?
the test prep people can't erase your prior score.

don't do something stupid

It boils down to this. I know Im going for the test prep course either way after they release this score. Assuming I achieve a 21-22 on this test, I dont lose all 2000 dollars I can barely afford If they cant help me reach at least a 25-26 on my retake, an acceptable average score. If I try the test prep course and its, like everything else Ive tried, its a waste of time, which I heard was the case for some people who have tried it, I dont lose my cash money.

 

[EgyptKing21]

You want to hear a shocker. I was averaging 21-22 on my practice exams the week before my MCAT. Guess what? I somehow managed to pull a balanced 28. Mind you my highest verbal score on the practice exams was a 6 (pulled a 9; I was in shock when I saw that). I could be an outlier but if you feel you have truly given it your all (did all the exams, studied them thoroughly, mastered all necessary concepts, etc.), go ahead an take it, miracles do happen IMO.

FYI, I also never took a prep class.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

If i take a test, Ill have a score. Princeton review and kaplan guarantee a higher score or your money back. I need a score. Its very unlikely Ill score lower than a 21.

Kaplan will give you a pretest. PR will give you a AAMC as a base.

There is no need to take the real thing.

 

[radkat101]

Postpone your test and start berkely review. Don't waste your money on a prep course. The guarantee means nothing, they just give you a difficult diagnostic. A 21 shows a serious lack on content knowledge so even if you have been studying a lot you are doing something wrong. Hopefully you haven't used up all of the practice AAMC tests, you should have stopped doing them after you got a 21. Buy the berkely practice tests and use those instead along with the prep material.

 

[Dreamstoo]

why do you need A score?
who cares how unlikely you are to score below a 21, when a 21 in and of itself is a problem?
the test prep people can't erase your prior score.

don't do something stupid

Exactly. Do not try to do that just to get a refund from a test prep company. Despite scoring decently with a 23 without studying initially on a diagnostic, I got rocked in verbal and bio. I convinced myself I won't take the MCAT until I got 2-3 practice tests in a row that were at least 28+.

 

[chizledfrmstone]

It just seems like every test there is a significant chunk of material ive never seen before and that is what I get wrong. Either that or its some weird twist or trick with all clues leading to the answer I go for, the wrong one.

You haven't mastered the material and you're reviewing stuff you already know.

 

[Strudel19]

You need to score higher than a 21.

 

[Goro]

Concur.

Essentially you're going to either skip june 5th or void.

 

[yanks26dmb]

For what it's worth, I took Kaplan review for the LSAT about 7 years ago. Scored a 150 (equivalent of MCAT 25) on my first attempt after review. This was 4 points below my baseline. Refused to take the course with them again even though it was going to be free...studied on my own, and ended up with a 164 (equivalent of MCAT 33). Bottomline, you don't NEED a prep course to help you get a good score. Honestly, I think they're are a giant waste of money and time..

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

For what it's worth, I took Kaplan review for the LSAT about 7 years ago. Scored a 150 (equivalent of MCAT 25) on my first attempt after review. This was 4 points below my baseline. Refused to take the course with them again even though it was going to be free...studied on my own, and ended up with a 164 (equivalent of MCAT 33). Bottomline, you don't NEED a prep course to help you get a good score. Honestly, I think they're are a giant waste of money and time..

You largely don't. That being said using experience with Kaplan is a bad idea. I personally can say that Kaplan was a poor class because it did not even review potential pit falls. They didn't care that over 80-90% of your class couldn't answer the work book's question. They said here's the answer and here's why, none of the necessary well lets try to work on figuring out why you're doing it wrong that other programs put money into.

Simply put Kaplan is only a good program if you're already scoring a 28+ on your first mcat as the course largely earns its renown through its online question banks, but not it's teaching. So in the end, Kaplan will not teach you what you need to know, nor has it spent any money researching what questions are important and truly high yield despite having sections in their books that report high yield material.

So, if you can, do TBR. If you cannot, do Princeton Review as they will teach you enough to get you to a high score.

 

[DocWinter]

Take it from a MCAT repeat

Moving forward with June 5th is a bad idea.

Listen to the head, not the heart and take a prep course, the Berkeley review or something else over 2-3 months of study.

 

[HinduHammer]

You largely don't. That being said using experience with Kaplan is a bad idea. I personally can say that Kaplan was a poor class because it did not even review potential pit falls. They didn't care that over 80-90% of your class couldn't answer the work book's question. They said here's the answer and here's why, none of the necessary well lets try to work on figuring out why you're doing it wrong that other programs put money into.

Simply put Kaplan is only a good program if you're already scoring a 28+ on your first mcat as the course largely earns its renown through its online question banks, but not it's teaching. So in the end, Kaplan will not teach you what you need to know, nor has it spent any money researching what questions are important and truly high yield despite having sections in their books that report high yield material.

So, if you can, do TBR. If you cannot, do Princeton Review as they will teach you enough to get you to a high score.

Hi OP, I think you should wait to take your test for two reasons.
1. the mindset of scoring a 21 to get your money back guarantee is, like, fatalistic. your AIMING for a 21 - that's not a good idea, you should be aiming for a 45. Plus, no matter how well you eventually do that 21 ain't going anywhere and med schools will still see it.
2. as far as I understand, the requirements for getting your money back are fairly onerous: they give you so much content and require you to do so much BS that I don't think it would be worth it to try and fight city hall. Plus, I think, they make you take the class twice (and do everything again TWICE) before they give you money back.

Though I haven't taken the MCAT yet, I'm registered for July 12 and heck may even push it back, my advice would be to just practice practice practice practice. If your confident you have the content down (from my shoes it doesn't sound like you do but you're the one saying you do), its gotta be test-taking ability, and I get it the passages are dense and suck, so just gotta practice. Especially time management. Also, Khan's Academy videos.

Also, @serenade I just finished my online kaplan class and I could not agree with you more, the teachers/class are garbage. The large amount of content online in the q bank, practice tests, subject tests, topical tests, etc. is good, was it worth the 2,000 I paid? I don't know, probably not. OTOH, it does make me feel guilty for not studying more, so that helps. Plus the explanations on their questions are pretty decent. But yeah, the class itself was garbage.

Quick question - what are some of the potential pit falls you talk about? Also do you have an idea about how to supplement Kaplans content with anything better in terms of strategy or anything else? I scored a 23 on the kaplan diagnostic (8,12,3), a 31 on FL1 (8,12,11) and a 28 on FL 7 (9,11,8).

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

It's kinda hard to answer a question like that when most of the mcat is designed as a giant pit fall. Lol

 

[crazy87]

So is your AAMC average around a 23-24? As you know, the MCAT is partly about luck: what is going to show up on the test? Are there topics you are awesome at? Or that you don’t know that well? If it’s the latter on actual test day and your # of topics you don’t know is large, you’re kind of screwed. I think it’s just about covering all your bases (topics) as fully as you can, knowing that you won’t be an expert on all of them. It’s about how comfortable you are. I personally would suggest not taking it. Get better at the topics you missed on all the exams, especially the 21’s. Work smarter not harder. If your current study practices led you to a much lower than desired practice test scores on AAMC, change something. If it’s that these questions are just tricky, I still think it goes back to the subject matter. If you know a topic inside and out, it becomes harder and harder for the questions to be asked in such a way that you get them wrong. If these 21’s were on like a Kaplan or PR test I’d say ignore it, but because it’s AAMC and that’s supposed to be the best score predictor, I say wait another month or so to take it.

 

[tripl3s3v3n]

What is your breakdown? The test is really not so much content oriented as it is testing your ability to reason through the questions and find the answers. Your time may be better spent on universal test taking strategies rather than on memorizing content. I would go back over your test and really analyze the questions and your reasoning for answering the way you did to see if that's the problem. Good luck.