I'm regressing

[Tallia1]

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Hey all. I touched on this on another thread, but basically I took the old MCAT, got 13 on verbal. Did awful on everything else. So i'm retaking the new one. I'm struggling so much with verbal. I just got the AAMC question packs for verbal. Did 60 questions and they were beyond difficult. Is something happening in my brain for me to regress so badly in verbal. Old test I never even touched verbal except on practice tests. Now every practice test is killing me on verbal, and now these question packs.

 

[preeeeeeemed]

This is common with verbal - happened to me. Went from scoring 11,12 to 8, 9. Then scored 11 on my actual MCAT.

You need to give yourself a few days of a breather, go back to basics - remember what made you so strong on verbal in the first place. You'll be fine.

 

[XxThaDoggxX]

There is a forum section specifically for MCAT discussions, you will probably get much faster and more detailed responses there.

 

[Tallia1]

There is a forum section specifically for MCAT discussions, you will probably get much faster and more detailed responses there.

I actually find that the responses are very few and sparse there. I would gladly put my question in that forum if I could receive answers there.

 

[Tallia1]

This is common with verbal - happened to me. Went from scoring 11,12 to 8, 9. Then scored 11 on my actual MCAT.

You need to give yourself a few days of a breather, go back to basics - remember what made you so strong on verbal in the first place. You'll be fine.

That's the thing- I would just read the passages and answer them- nothing in particular made me strong in them. Has this new MCAT been made more difficult?

 

[breezy16]

That's the thing- I would just read the passages and answer them- nothing in particular made me strong in them. Has this new MCAT been made more difficult?

I found that I was weak on particular questions, but never had the chance to study for my VR (just did a fair amount of practice questions) and really alleviate the issue.
For instance when they asked me what the author was feeling? I hate those questions because I tend to see things in multiple lights and would have two answers for those questions (I think I'd choose how I'd feel more often, hence why I got them wrong) or I'd try and answer in my head/make snap judgments before reading the questions.
All bad things to do on the VR.
Try and tamp down your inherent weakness because you may have a test that does very little of it or a tremendous amount of it. (Hence my variation in scores from 8-13 on my practices)

 

[ace_inhibitor111]

There was a big shift in the way verbal questions were asked in between tests 7 and 8 (or was it 8 and 9? Somewhere around there). IMO verbal has gotten a lot more straightforward compared to the section packs. For CARS in particular, the AAMC has added some questions that require little to no knowledge of the actual passage, and also added more questions about diction and grammar. Your performance on the section packs are probably not indicative of how you'll perform on the current CARS.

 

[Mad Jack]

When I saw the thread title, I was like, "damn, I know being a premed can be rough, but wtf is this thread going to be about? Is op wetting the bed or requiring a security blanket or something?"

The question packs, as others have said, aren't very representative of the material, so I wouldn't stress out too much.

 

[Tallia1]

There was a big shift in the way verbal questions were asked in between tests 7 and 8 (or was it 8 and 9? Somewhere around there). IMO verbal has gotten a lot more straightforward compared to the section packs. For CARS in particular, the AAMC has added some questions that require little to no knowledge of the actual passage, and also added more questions about diction and grammar. Your performance on the section packs are probably not indicative of how you'll perform on the current CARS.

So these question packs aren't current? I thought they were designed for the new MCAT ?