June 18, 2009 MCAT [2PM] Official

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ninjaSurgeon

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Hello,

I've been around SDN for quite a while. I just decided to start a new username as my old one was meaningless to no one but myself.

Although the scores are not up yet, I know us obsessed premeds would type away about our scores once we do get them.

This thread is intended for the 2PM exam.
The 8AM exam thread can be found here:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=648802

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VR 11
PS 9
BS 11
WS M

31 M
(GPA 3.9, 3 years of working as a CNA on a Med-Surg/Oncology unit)

I would really love to get into Johns Hopkins or a comparable school. Does this cut it?
 
well based on MSAR (Medical School Acceptance Requirements) , their acceptance MCAT average is 36 but they don't just ignore applications with lower MCAT. So, with your GPA and experience, I would say to give it a try.
 
Posted this in the June 18th thread, but here goes again:

VR: 11
BS: 12
PS: 13
WS: S

36S.

Pretty stoked. My first time around was a 32T (Sept. 6th '08 test), which is pretty borderline for some Canadian schools (as an OOP applicant), so I decided to take it again and I'm glad that I did.

For how I felt during the test, I actually felt it was waaaay harder than the Sept. 6th test, and I was actually pretty scared that I would get a far lower score. This is a pleasant surprise (especially VR). The S in writing is a slight tad bit disappointing to me (dropping from a T), but I could see that coming a mile away, especially since the ridiculous prompts threw me off a lot (I had the 2PM test).

Just to help out anyone who is taking/retaking, I mostly practiced straight off of the AAMC tests. I have all of them in the old paper format, which is longer, something that I think actually helped (more questions=more practice). Rather than taking an entire test in one sitting, I would only take a section at a time (a section or two per day) and judge how I felt during that section, and then review if I completely effed up some passage. At no time during my studying for the June 18th test did I take a full practice test in one sitting. I felt this was the best way to spread out my resources, and stay into the rhythm of doing MCAT-style questions, and not feel burnt out after doing 10 FLs in a row.

Also, I also had Kaplan tests in my possession, which I also did section by section like aforementioned. I only used these as a complimentary resource to the AAMC, because I don't think Kaplan is a great indicator of score at all, but I did attempt both the BS and the PS, just because they were definitely harder than the AAMC, and that helped during the actual test, which is definitely harder than the AAMC. I will say this though: do NOT take the Kaplan VR. It is completely useless. The MCAT VR is all about inference, and Kaplan VR is by far the opposite: answers are literally stated in the passage. I've always gotten 14-15s on Kaplan VR when I did them back in Sept '08, and I've always straddled a 10 for the AAMC. What I DID use the Kaplan VR for, however, was the passages. After I ran out of AAMC VR to do, I started just reading the Kaplan passages by themselves, and practiced my ability to both stay focussed, and take information from the passage. Again, I didn't do the actual questions, just read the passages.

For those who love statistics, over all of my practices, I found that I usually scored within a range of (both AAMC and Kaplan combined):
BS: 10-14 (never got below a 10, my best score was 14 in AAMC 10R, but my actual average was around an 11)
PS: 11-15 (see above. I usually got 11-12s, but my best score was again in AAMC 10R, where I scored literally perfect - I was shocked.)
VR: 8-11 (see above, I usually straddled a score of 10, had a few 11s, but my lowest was AAMC 8, with 8).

Good luck to anyone planning on taking/retaking, and I hope this was helpful!
 
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