Well, here's a post that no one who took the test today is going to like, but hopefully someone reading this who is taking the test tomorrow (who shouldn't be on SDN right now
) will take some of this advice and will do well.
I don't think today's test was much worse that any AAMC practice test. Granted, there were some parts that I struggled on, but we all do the same on our practice tests. The problem is, test anxiety causes a lot of people to flub an exam because we freak out.
This was my second time taking the MCAT, so my anxiety levels were both up and down for two main reasons. First, they were down because I've already taken the exam, got rocked, and now have studied in a better manner, so my confidence was up. My anxiety level was up because this was my second time, and I'm almost 30 years old. I do not want to take the exam again, more due to the time commitment of studying than the money. As well as I don't want to start medical school in my mid-30's. I needed to do well.
Here are some pointers that hopefully someone can relate to, and will help them do better on the exam tomorrow.
First.... Calm the F down! Freaking out will do you no good. This also means that you need to take it EASY on caffeine. If you're the person who needs 5 cups of coffee and two energy drinks to get started in the morning, drink only the minimum that you need in order to not get a headache. When you're in the exam, one cup of coffee ends up feeling like 10, you can't focus, and your heart it pounding out of your chest. I'm not a big caffeine person (anywhere from zero to two caffeinated drinks per day), and the first time I took the exam, I had half a cup of coffee and a coke that morning. I was freaking the heck out during the test! You don't need stimulation to stay awake when you're in the exam. Believe me. This time I drank no caffeine for two days prior, and no caffeine the morning of, and my heart was still pounding out of my chest when I first sat down.
Here's how to calm down when you're taking the exam. But here's the kicker, if you're over caffeinated/stimulated on anything else, this likely wont work.
Breathe. Take every opportunity you can to take a deep breath and slow down your heart rate. Before you start taking the exam, you have the tutorial, which they give you way too much time to accomplish. Don't skip the tutorial, but don't give it too much effort. Take your time through the tutorial before you begin. Using the tutorial gets your eyes used to the font size (because it was different than the font on my home computer), lets you realize how well your chair is adjusted, and where your paper and pencils are. Using the tutorial also gives you time to calm down. If you skip it, and immediately start, you're starting the test in a state of high anxiety.
When you get to the end of the tutorial, STOP. Breathe. Calm yourself down. Get your heart rate down to a level that you feel good about, then begin.
Starting with your pulse up and adrenaline flowing is detrimental. You get tunnel vision, and lose sight of concepts (or exceptions to known concepts) that are presented in the passages. You end up having to reread areas that shouldn't be that difficult to comprehend. This is especially important with VR and BS, since the passages are meant to confuse you. Verbal is my weak point, so I make sure that I take 5-10 seconds between passages to calm down, and clear my head of how frustrating the previous passage was. That means I wasted about 60 seconds during VR, but it was worth it.
Get back to your chair with two minutes left in each break. Give yourself that time to regroup, refocus and calm down. The last passage is behind you. You will never know which questions you got right or wrong. It's done. Focus on what's coming up.
Second pointer... Muscle memory, when to use it, and when not to. We all know that the test is designed to rush you or make you feel as though you can't complete it, so we don't take the time to stop and think when we have a question that we're SURE we know the answer to, direct from our memory bank. There's a problem with this. The passages in the MCAT are full of situational evidence, and potentially contradictory statements to what we have stored in our head. Slowing yourself down will help with these situations. Slowing yourself down is completely counter-intuitive, but it could save you many wrong answers. Even if the question is completely straightforward (here I'm thinking more Gen Chem and Physics), there may be a lot of new information to you in the passage. Write down equations (even if you know it in your head), and look to see how they relate to the passage. I know I saved myself a few wrong answers by doing this today. The passages in BS are also full of new information to lead you in the right direction, whereas what you have stored in your head may be correct in MOST senses, it may not be correct as it relates to the passage.
Lastly... Let bygones be bygones. Remember that psycho crazy ex-girlfriend/boyfriend that you dumped three months after you knew it wasn't going to work out? Remember how much time you spent kicking yourself for not leaving that piece of trash sooner? The MCAT is full of those situations, in the form of questions. A question may irritate you to no end, but you still spend 5 minutes on it, for one point. If you can't figure it our after 60-90 seconds, you've spent too long on it. Give it your best guess, mark it, and move on. There are a lot more easy questions on the test that ridiculously hard ones, so if you spend too long on a question that you're never going to feel confident about, you've robbed yourself of time on others. Even worse, you may run out of time, and miss out of 5+ easy points that you could have had in the bank, because you spent too long with your psycho ex... errr, I mean spend too long on that annoying question.
That being said... Good Luck! Calm down, focus, know when to pull the trigger on a question, know when to refer back to the passage, and let bygones be bygones.
Stupid confirmation thing. That's the only reason why I'm here right now. Is that a joke or what??
