seth03 said:
I was just wondering if you guys think it would be a bad idea to not sleep at all the night of august 17th, and then on august 18th sleep at like 3 or 4 pm until 6a.m on test day....giving you a huge amount of sleep without having to take sleeping pills that make you groggy in the morning. it makes sense to me but at the same time it seems like it would be too harsh on your body for some reason to do this. any thoughts?
lol.
i acutally did that when i took my mcat. i was a night owl through my entire academic life, so i was naturally worried and followed the scheme you mentioned. funny thing is that i could not get any sleep the day before the big day, despite of that. i think i was too excited(in a happy way) to to take mcat;studied like a demon, knew i was gonna rape it.
took 3 benedryl plus nyquil around 2-3 am but still could not fall asleep.
so i got out of the bed around 6 in the morning, pondering whether i should even take the test. Took 3 spoonful of instant coffee crystal(powder?), went to the test site. i medicated myself with coffee and tyrenol pill during each break and drank 2 large cups of black coffee instead of the well-packed-healthy-bowel-friendly-devised-3-weeks-prior-to-testday-sandwich during lunch break.
anyway, all i remember about that test day are blurred images of myself going to vending machine near the test room, buying frappuchino swallowing tyrenol pills along with it. however, for some reasons i still can remember the sudden primordial urge to empty my bladder during the verbal section, as if it is happening right now.
at the end of bio section, i seriously thought i was gonna collapse and growled like a mad man which obviously drew some unwanted attentions. at that moment, i thought there was no way i would not have alot of mistakes and decided to void it when the protoor gives the chance. unforturnately, i was so tired i forgot to void it, remembering this only after getting in subway.
although i did good(99.9%), i was disappointed since it was not my target score. still i cannot tell whether i could have scored higher even if i have slept the night before the mcat.
but one thing is/was clear. Dont do that ****. i probably scored as high as i did because i studied upto the point where answering mcat question was more like a conditioned response rather than intellectual one.
unless, you are confident that you will score and scored around 40 range consistently on your practice dont do that. if you just focus too hard on sleeping well the night before, chances are, it will work against you. seriously the silent chant of "i need to go to sleep, i still have x hours to sleep" will keep you awake as well as any annoying/loud latino music you hear here in bronx.
if for some reason you could not fall sleep the day before the big day, you will miss any rest you had two days before.
my advice is just dont get too fixated on any aspect of test taking, which includes a good night sleep before the day. spend the last one week as if
you are on vacation with no plan. just try to respond as much as you can to your bodily needs and dont try to control it too much.
p.s. oh yeah, just dont forget to release all your bodily urge(primordial type) at least couple nights before. i am not into the ki/gi stuff but if you get horny during the test that would suck big time.
