Laces out Dan Marino!: MCAT woes

[doctorcynical]

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Does anyone feel like something little caused them to get a bad score. I mean seriously. I think if I got more than3 hours of sleep the night before I would have done way better on the verbal. We are talking a 4 point increase here. Then again who knows. Anyone else feel me?

 

[verbalassasin]

I wish they would release the damn test I took so I could see what I did wrong on that bizzznotch!!!!!!!

 

[doctorcynical]

I know right. I could have sneezed on the test causing a bad scan. The possibilities are endless. Oh well.

Stanford or bust!

 

[Gleevec]

Why the heck would anyone sleep 3 hours the night before the MCAT? Its not as if you can learn enough to alter your score significantly the night before, and in fact, the lost sleep will simply make it harder to recall information you had already learned.

 

[doctorcynical]

Gleevac tone it down. I was nervous the entire night. Have a bit of empathy. Without empathy how do you expect to be a doctor.

 

[PhillyEaglesFan]

In my case, I plopped into bed at 11 pm sharp and didn't go to bed until 3 or 4 am.

Everything turned out fine, though. Tough to feel any kind of tiredness on the morning of the MCAT?

 

[Gleevec]

Originally posted by doctorcynical
Gleevac tone it down.

Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, pot.

 

[TRUE]

Sometimes you can't control how long you sleep. I went to bed at 11, woke up at about 4 and tried to go back to sleep. I started thinking to myself after a while: "If I don't go to sleep, I'm going to fail the mcat...". Over and over and over again. Didn't sleep another wink though I did well enough. Insomnia is no good.

 

[trudgingalong]

Originally posted by Gleevec
Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, pot.

that was hilarious, gleevec... i'm still laughing

i too tried to go to sleep early the night before the mcats but had trouble falling asleep. scored a few pts lower than i had on practice tests, but okay. oh well.

 

[Gleevec]

Oh, Im not dissing anyone who couldnt sleep the night before. Perfectly understandable. Im just being an arse towards doctorcynical.

 

[cornell2004]

forgot to study immunology, and low and behold, an entire section on it. Anything I knew was from freshman year.

 

[trudgingalong]

Originally posted by Gleevec
Oh, Im not dissing anyone who couldnt sleep the night before. Perfectly understandable. Im just being an arse towards doctorcynical.

oh, i know. i just thought your pot, kettle comment was really funny. let's just say i'm pretty easy to amuse 🙂

 

[drdr2010]

yeah something affected my MCAT score.....the marching band was practicing right outside the building. especially annoying to hear the fight song over and over again during the verbal section. i could hardly concentrate on the passages cuz i was singing the words to the fight song in my head!!! everyone was really pissed about it...i think some people from our school wrote to AAMC but i doubt they cared.

 

[nibrocli]

Originally posted by drdr2010
.....the marching band was practicing right outside the building.

hey, i thought that story was just mcat urban legend! you're not my friend's cousin's roommate's girlfriend, are you?

seriously though, what school?

 

[TTSD]

Perhaps the MOST distracting thing in the world..

You know those athletic pants that make shuffling noises when you walk? Imagine someone next to you wearing those pants and has a nervous leg?!! OMG! I felt like dragging him outside the room and beating his head in with a chair. Every other sentence.. *shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle*

 

[MabdulD]

I only slept maybe 4 hours, but it wasn't a problem at all. I did 3 or 4 practice tests on 2 hours sleep, so I wasn't worried about it.

What did annoy me though was the proctor-lady, who was just noisier than any person has a right to be. Reading the newspaper, eating cellophane-wrapped peppermints, walking around.

And then, during the verbal section she made two phone calls. She decided it would be less distracting if she opened the door to the room, and stuck her head out, while talking...as if we couldn't hear her that way.

Consequently, I did worse on my verbal than I had on any of the practice tests, and where I usually finished with 20 or so minutes to spare on the practices, I had less than 5 minutes left over on the actual MCAT.

Thus ends my tale of woe.

I don't think its my MCAT score, though, that's keeping the schools from accepting me. So, I don't think it was that big a deal.

 

[jlee9531]

i went drinking the night before till 4am and just stayed up going over some stuff for the test.

got a double on VR.

sorry doc. are you sure it was the lack of sleep? cause sure i was kinda tired and groggy but come test time that kinda wakes you up no?

 

[ewing]

I got about 4 hours of combined sleep in the *2*nights before the MCAT. I was supposed to take the August MCAT in NYC. So, Thursday night before the MCAT, I'm flying into New York from overseas when the pilot tells us there's a blackout, so we're going to land in Boston and wait until the lights in NYC go back on. So, I just waited around the airport all night Thursday night, because our flight could resume at any moment. Then, same deal Friday. They cancelled the flight on Friday, so I got a hotel room and found a test center in Boston, but I still managed to only get 4 hours for the two nights. I only got 3 points lower than on my most recent practice tests (1 point lower in each section). The funny thing was, I totally fell asleep on the bio section. I normally finish those with like 30 min. to spare, and on the actual test I was bubbling in the last question when the proctor called time. She also had to come wake me up twice. 🙂 It's all good, though. I think having a lower MCAT score has made me seem more down-to-earth and normal...and I had no interest in going to WashU anyway. 🙂