Is it normal to feel like a ***** at first?

[FutureD0C17]

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I'm roughly 50 hours into review and feeling completely overwhelmed, not only by the amount of material, but the complexity of the questions. Today was especially rough and I ended up just calling it a day after getting beat up by EK physics and the TBR BIO section 8 questions.

I'm shooting for an August test but at this point I wanna push it to next year! I guess I'm wondering how normal this is and when should these types of questions become more familiar/comfortable? Losing motivation fast after grinding away all week...

EK and TBR typically correspond to a ~9 and 125 but man do I feel dumb 😱

 

[Terror Billy]

You just gotta grind bro, everyone starts at different baseline levels, with time and dedication you'll get there. I started probably around an average baseline going in (maybe even lower) but with practice you'll get better. Once you finish the arduous content review it comes down to taking practice exam after practice exam, in time you'll see improvement even if you feel stagnant at first. When you're feeling lazy and don't understand a topic/want to just watch your screen go onto Khan Academy, they have videos that cover literally everything. Overall, just be productive but also give yourself breaks to stay mentally fresh.

 

[theonlytycrane]

yes 🙂 it's a long hazy road for most of us during the content review stage, but take a break and stay at it! The material will slowly come together- don't stress about mastering it by a certain date / # of hours

 

[Terror Billy]

***yeah also note DO NOT TRACK YOUR HOURS. It gives you a false sense of security, just do work and measure how much you've done by testing yourself on how much you actually know.

 

[FutureD0C17]

Funny you say that because I have an excel SS setup tracking everything. You tend to hear about the magical "300 hours" and I bet that is hurting b/c I'm thinking more about the hours than the actual efficiency of the work.

Overall, I may have been a bit naive before the beastliness of this exam was exposed this week. Will keep grinding away.

 

[ojy77511]

I feel ya bro. I felt ******ed when I started off... But youll get there grind on~~


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[summergirl]

Funny you say that because I have an excel SS setup tracking everything. You tend to hear about the magical "300 hours" and I bet that is hurting b/c I'm thinking more about the hours than the actual efficiency of the work.

Overall, I may have been a bit naive before the beastliness of this exam was exposed this week. Will keep grinding away.

FYI that magical 300hr thing is a myth. It just simply doesn't cut it for the new MCAT. For example, most people would aim to do at least 8 FLs before attempting the real thing (the more the better but ~8 seems to be coincidently what most people are able to fit into their schedule). At 7.5 per FL, plus at least 7.5 for reviewing each FL, you are looking at at least 15h/FL. 15x8=120. So you are left with 180 hrs to learn first year bio, orgo, gen chem, phy, psych, sociology, biochem, and verbal?? That's a little more than 20 hours per subject. Just not likely to happen.

 

[sleepyhead22]

Yes it's normal. I hadn't taken any prerequisites in the past 5 years and I really struggled at first. Just keep trucking and you'll get there. I got really discouraged and kept calling myself stupid and realized that wasn't helping at all. A positive outlook has helped a lot, along with just keeping going. I look back at some of the gen Chem stuff i was really confused by and now just by looking at it over the last few months periodically, I feel a lot better about it. Just keep doing practice problems. Also EK 30 min exams are extremely difficult so don't get down on yourself about your score on those.

 

[Dr. Jan Itor]

Only at first...?

But really, don't pay too much attention to the scores on those passages. My EK scores on the 30 min exams were a good 4-5 points below what I got on the individual sections of the AAMC stuff.


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[Petrichor1]

honestly, I regret not taking my test on may because after I pushed the test back I crashed and burned. I don't really know how to study anymore with so much going around. At this rate, I am just waiting to see what I score the first time around.

 

[Scrubs101]

I've been studying for close to 4 months now, my scores are increasing on my FLs but I'm still constantly doubting myself and feel like I know absolutely nothing.. I'd hope this is normal lol.


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