If you decide to retake in Jan, how will you do it?

[r2cole1]

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Yes the question is a bit premature and though I am burned out completely at the momment, I know some others are uncertain of their performance and begining to wonder the same thing. What will you do different if you decide to retake in January? I personally don't think I could have prepared much better when it came to having the actual material down. I was never able to perfect my timing in the PS or the more recent aamc verbals. Despite satisfactory practice scores, working faster would have allowed me to rack up a few more precious points for a truly great score, so that would definately be a focus of my study next time around. I also sort of neglected my Kaplan practice tests because I was low on time and assumed that they were not worth it because of their difficulty. I think my prep next time, god forbid I have to retake, will consist mostly of talking tests and maybe stepping up the content by buying something like kaplans 45 or something.

 

[H0tSh0tZ1627]

I personally don't think I could have prepared much better when it came to having the actual material down.

What I've come to realized, as what people have been telling me, is that the MCAT doesn't test material or content. It doesn't really test any advanced science knowledge at all.

What it tests is critical thinking, and how you can apply basic science knowledge that even high school students might know, to solve higher end problems. The trick to doing better on the MCAT is to keep taking practice tests, as many as you can.

I took about 15-20 practice tests over a span of two months, and that I have to say, prepared me more than anything, just because I knew everything to expect on the test.

Critical Thinking > Content

 

[poly800rock]

What I've come to realized, as what people have been telling me, is that the MCAT doesn't test material or content. It doesn't really test any advanced science knowledge at all.

What it tests is critical thinking, and how you can apply basic science knowledge that even high school students might know, to solve higher end problems. The trick to doing better on the MCAT is to keep taking practice tests, as many as you can.

I took about 15-20 practice tests over a span of two months, and that I have to say, prepared me more than anything, just because I knew everything to expect on the test.

Critical Thinking > Content

i somewhat agree, especially with physical, thats what i learned before i took the mcat, but i had the same approach coming into bio and you can't critically think through recombinant frequency, i don't care who you are! but for the most part, i do agree wholeheartedly it is a critical thinking exam, and you'll find that out with the more practice tests you end up taking

 

[choklad]

i somewhat agree, especially with physical, thats what i learned before i took the mcat, but i had the same approach coming into bio and you can't critically think through recombinant frequency, i don't care who you are! but for the most part, i do agree wholeheartedly it is a critical thinking exam, and you'll find that out with the more practice tests you end up taking

I think first of all you should still master the material VERY well and then you could maximize your critical thinking ability.

I would definitely make sure I get a good handle on that so I won't forget those simple electromagnetic formulas again ...

 

[sotired]

i agree...i spent so much time on aamc tests, when the PS on the real mcat reminded me so much of kaplan which I quit looking at after FL #3.

 

[deleted21595]

i agree...i spent so much time on aamc tests, when the PS on the real mcat reminded me so much of kaplan which I quit looking at after FL #3.

The idea in testing on the MCAT is to see whether you can diagnose a patient's ailment in a short amount of time by sifting through all the small talk. This is the equivalent of dealing with an MCAT passage that deals a lot of fluff that requires that you extract a small detail to work into your larger knowledge of the subject tested.

Officially, of course, the MCAT is purely a correlative measure of performance in M1/M2 and USMLE 1.