Hello there! My MCAT is setup for June 21st and I am studying Kaplan material 8-14 hrs 6 days a week until that time. Here's where I am at:
Kaplan Diagnostic: 23 (7P, 7V, 9B)
* This was after week 1, or just 1 week from today
Kaplan FL 1: 25 (8P, 6V, 11B)
AAMC 3: ?
As the above suggests I am going to be taking the AAMC 3 exam here shortly to see the difference between my scores. I think the main reason I performed so badly on the FL1 was because I was stressed about timing and was naive in thinking that passage mapping was actually going to reduce the time I spend on questions, when in reality it felt like I actually took MORE time to map them out on paper.
So, I will post my results tonight/tomorrow for comparison. Just to throw it out there, I took the FL 1 yesterday, so I have not studied much at all in between these.
Wait what? Are you using their On Demand? And you completed 2/3rd of the material in two weeks? If this is the case, I would push my test date back, take a the full three months to study as intended by Kaplan, and work to get my score as high as possible.
Also, IMHO Kaplan FL test =/= AAMC FL test. Yes, the Kaplan ones are nice to get you used to sitting for 5.5 hours, but they are not really all that representative of you score due to the crazy curve they use. Also, I would probably consider AAMC 3 not all that representative of the rest of the AAMC exams and especially not the current MCAT being administered.
You really need more time to study between test too. Taking Kaplan FL1 and then AAMC 3 the next day is not really going to do you much good. You need to take time to review the test (yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it can be done the same day if you are spending 14 hours a day) but it should really probably be done the next day or two to really be able to step back and understand the questions and what you did right or wrong. Also, you will burn yourself out if you take more than 2-3 FL's a week.
Its the only way to survive!
Yeah I could hypothetically order EK VR through amazon and get it here quick... but I don't have the cash. I am going to do the Q-Bank material for VR, and also work through the 6 VR practice exams. Hopefully in the 250+ questions they have for VR I will learn to improve my skill somehow.
Skill... thats just it really. Verbal is nothing but learning how to read the passage quick and not fall for those logically correct answers. What makes me mad is when I select an answer which I match up directly from the passage, and then the explanation telling me why i'm wrong states "it is apparent that the author was disagreeing with this statement, not agreeing"
Again here, I would suggest you find a friend then that has the EK verbal 101. Kaplan FL is extremely different from AAMC in the way they ask questions and the type of questions they ask. Everyone seems to agree, and so do I, that EK has the best verbal review. I highly recommend tracking this down especially if you want to get above an 8 or 9 on the real deal.
Just my two cents. Also, if you do a post history search on me, I just took the MCAT and have not got my scores back, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Everyone has their own way of studying and maybe this will work for you as it has worked for some in the past.
