MCAT 2015 Official Guide Questions - Have you tried them?

[KungFuPanda123]

I took the Official AAMC 2015 Sample Test. That test was pretty straight forward, and I think my performance on it is pretty accurate of how I expected to do (considering my performance on old AAMC practice tests), EXCEPT for the CARS section which I thought was too easy.

I'm taking the AAMC 2015 Official Guide practice questions right now. I'm finding that these questions are MUCH more challenging than the ones on the Sample Test (the CARS section included)

For reference...
Average scores on old MCAT PS/VR/BS = 13-14/10-12/13-14
Kaplan MCAT2015 Diagnostic (Test #1) PS/CARS/BS/P&S= 68%/79%/69%/72%
AAMC Official MCAT2015 Sample Test PS/CARS/BS/P&S = 91%/96%/86%/80%
AAMC Official Guide Questions PS/CARS/BS/P&S = 93%/87%/90%/77%

Yes, I scored higher on the PS/BS on the Official guide than I did on the Official 2015 sample test, but I was also not timing myself and spent as much time as I needed. What did you guys think of the practice questions in the Official Guide?

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[newbeginnings]

Are those new questions the same as the old AAMC FL's and Self Assessment?

 

[Sir.SavaLottaLife]

I just took the Biology question pack #1, I got 86% correct (103/120) in a total of less than 160 minutes🙂

I would be thrilled only if I knew I could replicate this on the CARS portion of the exam, I know my sciences will be strong but I struggle with verbal because I am a slow reader. I average ~60% on practice passages (from TPRH and EK) often running out of time. It has nothing to do with my logic and critical reasoning (which is what is supposedly being tested) but rather with my ability to comprehend the passage in a limited amount of time.

You seem to be pretty strong in CARS, any tips? I still have until June to take the exam and I still have plenty of practice materials. For all I know you're a strong reader like most CARS/VR geniuses but I am always looking for people who started out weak like me and improved to a respectable score. It seems that everyone I see does not improve much in this area during prep and it is pretty discouraging.

I took the Official AAMC 2015 Sample Test. That test was pretty straight forward, and I think my performance on it is pretty accurate of how I expected to do (considering my performance on old AAMC practice tests), EXCEPT for the CARS section which I thought was too easy.

I'm taking the AAMC 2015 Official Guide practice questions right now. I'm finding that these questions are MUCH more challenging than the ones on the Sample Test (the CARS section included)

For reference...
Average scores on old MCAT PS/VR/BS = 13-14/10-12/13-14
Kaplan MCAT2015 Diagnostic (Test #1) PS/CARS/BS/P&S= 68%/79%/69%/72%
AAMC Official MCAT2015 Sample Test PS/CARS/BS/P&S = 91%/96%/86%/80%
AAMC Official Guide Questions PS/CARS/BS/P&S = 93%/87%/90%/77%

Yes, I scored higher on the PS/BS on the Official guide than I did on the Official 2015 sample test, but I was also not timing myself and spent as much time as I needed. What did you guys think of the practice questions in the Official Guide?

 

[KungFuPanda123]

I just took the Biology question pack #1, I got 86% correct (103/120) in a total of less than 160 minutes🙂

I would be thrilled only if I knew I could replicate this on the CARS portion of the exam, I know my sciences will be strong but I struggle with verbal because I am a slow reader. I average ~60% on practice passages (from TPRH and EK) often running out of time. It has nothing to do with my logic and critical reasoning (which is what is supposedly being tested) but rather with my ability to comprehend the passage in a limited amount of time.

You seem to be pretty strong in CARS, any tips? I still have until June to take the exam and I still have plenty of practice materials. For all I know you're a strong reader like most CARS/VR geniuses but I am always looking for people who started out weak like me and improved to a respectable score. It seems that everyone I see does not improve much in this area during prep and it is pretty discouraging.

CARS is definitely my weakest section (although my practice has consistently been not as bad as my actual MCAT score), so I don't think I'm the person to come to for tips. My point was that the AAMC MCAT2015 Sample test CARS seemed uncharacteristically easy, and it's throwing me off, because I don't think I should have improved that much. I wanted to get others' opinions on it; the official mcat2015 guide questions seemed to be more challenging and more "mcat-like" than the mcat2015 sample test.

 

[KungFuPanda123]

Are those new questions the same as the old AAMC FL's and Self Assessment?

I only really recognized one passage. They pretty much all seem completely new

 

[Sir.SavaLottaLife]

CARS is definitely my weakest section (although my practice has consistently been not as bad as my actual MCAT score), so I don't think I'm the person to come to for tips. My point was that the AAMC MCAT2015 Sample test CARS seemed uncharacteristically easy, and it's throwing me off, because I don't think I should have improved that much. I wanted to get others' opinions on it; the official mcat2015 guide questions seemed to be more challenging and more "mcat-like" than the mcat2015 sample test.

Yeah I've seen several people post their scores on the sample test and I've seen more >90% than one would expect. I am saving mine for June. But you did state that you averaged between 10-12 on old VR test, I consider that pretty solid. I do take it that there wasn't much of a baseline improvement though.

 

[Sir.SavaLottaLife]

I only really recognized one passage. They pretty much all seem completely new

I think he/she confused the "official guide" questions with the "official question packs", much like I did when I mentioned my question pack score. The AAMC says the question packs are from past MCAT's. The word is that most, if not all of them are from the old practice tests and SA (which were old MCATs)

 

[nomdeplume1234]

out of curiosity, how might someone who did not major in biology do well on the Bio section? seems the passages are at a level beyond a 1 year general biology course. But according to the AAMC the passages should be solvable by anyone with the year of Gen Bio. Wouldn't someone who took a bunch of higher level courses have an advantage though? They would recognize most of the stuff and have an advantage in answering the questions, right?

 

[Sir.SavaLottaLife]

out of curiosity, how might someone who did not major in biology do well on the Bio section? seems the passages are at a level beyond a 1 year general biology course. But according to the AAMC the passages should be solvable by anyone with the year of Gen Bio. Wouldn't someone who took a bunch of higher level courses have an advantage though? They would recognize most of the stuff and have an advantage in answering the questions, right?

Yes, it was easier to deal with all of the genetics questions after taking genetics, for sure. But this is only because I had further practice to master inheritance. Those things were covered in my general bio class but the tests only had a few questions on it so I could get away with just knowing the simple stuff with all of the other material learned in that class. Almost all of the material had been exposed to me in freshman bio, upper level classes reinforced some things but they aren't a necessity. They aren't going to ask you about mapping genes or anything.

Possibly you don't recognize some things because the MCAT loves to disguise simple questions as complex things that require a lot of knowledge. A lot of questions can be answered with just reading the passage and just having a basic understanding of biology. At the same time, sometimes they'll give you a passage for a complicated experiment and not even ask you questions that require you to know the experiment.

As for the new test, they will be putting emphasis on understanding the experiment and knowing whats going on. They will be asking question about the way the experiments are designed and this will be a challenge. Also, a good portion of the bio section is biochem, if you haven't taken biochem than you probably wont recognize a lot of things on the official guide questions or the sample test.

 

[goodtime]

Did the sample test have all new passages?

 

[DocPanda]

Out of curiosity, did anyone else felt that the 30 questions for P/C and B/B in guidebook had a similar feel to the section bank though not as dense? Definitely felt harder than the unscored AAMC to me. I did these under timed condition. My percentages were not that far off from each other.