March 24th MCAT....advice??

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Cottonwood13

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Hello,
I completed a Kaplan course in January and was planning to take the exam for the first time at the end of January. Due to some anxieties, I postponed the exam after taking my 2nd Kaplan full length and scoring a 28. Since then, I have taken the next 3 kaplan exams scoring 36 on each. Each section hovered around 12.

Several weeks ago, I started taking the AAMC exams. I have taken 7,8, and 3 in that ordrer. AAMC#7 scored a 36-PS: 10, VR: 15, and BS 11. AAMC 8 scored a 31- PS 10, VR 10, BS 11. AAMC#3 scored a 29-PS 10, VR 10, BS 9. Obviously I'm pretty disappointed by how my Kaplan exams have been converting. Clearly my 15 on verbal on test 8 was a fluke so my AAMC exams have been sitting at around 30 but I really hate to see them decline.

I'm planning to take and review each AAMC exam, practice 3 verbal passages daily from EK101/kaplan, practice 30 discrete BS/PS questions from the AAMC official guide and Kaplan, and read each BS/PS chapter from kaplan again (although I've been reviewing the material off and on since I postponed the exam).

Please provide any suggestions for additional study techniques and whether or not you think it's possible to raise my practice exam scores by test day. I'm hesitant to postpone the exam again since I feel like I've used up important AAMC exam materials, but I am not comfortable taking the exam with a predicted score under 30.

Thanks for any help!

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Hello,
I completed a Kaplan course in January and was planning to take the exam for the first time at the end of January. Due to some anxieties, I postponed the exam after taking my 2nd Kaplan full length and scoring a 28. Since then, I have taken the next 3 kaplan exams scoring 36 on each. Each section hovered around 12.

Several weeks ago, I started taking the AAMC exams. I have taken 7,8, and 3 in that ordrer. AAMC#7 scored a 36-PS: 10, VR: 15, and BS 11. AAMC 8 scored a 31- PS 10, VR 10, BS 11. AAMC#3 scored a 29-PS 10, VR 10, BS 9. Obviously I'm pretty disappointed by how my Kaplan exams have been converting. Clearly my 15 on verbal on test 8 was a fluke so my AAMC exams have been sitting at around 30 but I really hate to see them decline.

I'm planning to take and review each AAMC exam, practice 3 verbal passages daily from EK101/kaplan, practice 30 discrete BS/PS questions from the AAMC official guide and Kaplan, and read each BS/PS chapter from kaplan again (although I've been reviewing the material off and on since I postponed the exam).

Please provide any suggestions for additional study techniques and whether or not you think it's possible to raise my practice exam scores by test day. I'm hesitant to postpone the exam again since I feel like I've used up important AAMC exam materials, but I am not comfortable taking the exam with a predicted score under 30.

Thanks for any help!

First of all, you need to be confident. It sounds like your scores get worse when you start to stress. I also want to say something - there is NO way a 15 in verbal is a fluke. You're obviously incredibly good at verbal. You need to relax, and that verbal score will jump again. The fact that you got a 36 shows that you know the material. You need to do practice - it sounds to me like your biggest problem is anxiety (not trying to be rude, just the honest truth). You need to do lots of practice, and feel comfortable. You have a month to just chill. Take a day or two off, clear your head, and then get back to it. You KNOW the material. JUST RELAX!
 
Since I posted those scores I've taken AAMC 4 and 5 which were: PS 10, VR 11 BS 11 and PS 9 VR 9 BS 10. I've been reviewing the subjects in which I missed the most points and doing Kaplan practice sections on those subjects. I've been continuously studying VR by taking kaplan passages and doing EK 101 exams (I'm getting 11s EK101).

Any advice is much appreciated
 
I would use EK materials over Kaplan for the rest of the time and get all AAMC tests in as they (EK) are concise and you don't have that much time left. You seem to be in pretty good shape otherwise though.
 
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