MCAT ADVICE WITH TAKING PREP CLASS

[doctobeapple]

I am posting this message for help, I need advice on the MCAT scores, I adviced students before on getting to medical school and 2-3 students made it, but my knowledge of mcat is limited, currently The student is taking the Princeton reviews class so far in the middle of 3 months class , he has done the 3 tests so far,
test -1- 490
End of 6 weeks, test -2- 498 123,123,126,126
End of 8 weeks, test -3- 490 121,121,124,124

It is disappointed , he is putting a lot of hours to review and get ready for the mcat , class, I don't understand the score starting low, improved then went back to original score, is this mean last test was harder than before or what,
need advice 1- explaining what is happening, second what does he need to do and adjust to be on right track, planning on taking the test in may 2-3 months.

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[Blueprint Med School]

He needs to do a complete review of his content. Sub 500 scores are almost always indicative of a lack of a grasp on MCAT science. He needs to spend at least 1-2 months really reviewing all of the science content on the MCAT before moving on to do practice tests.

How much is he studying? The MCAT is an exam that should require at least 300 hours of efficient, dedicated studying. With where he is right now, I would recommend postponing the test unless he can really crank down in these last 2 months.

Kevin W, MCAT Tutor
Med School Tutors

 

[ThePotatoDoctor]

I would say this student isn't too close to being ready to take the exam. Some students do better with a structured program while others can do their own thing well. It seems after 8 weeks, more structure may be necessary. Content review can slowly bring up the score as the student reviews more. Test-taking strategy can rapidly improve score -- I highly recommend taking a lot of full-length exams to get used to the test more and to focus on trends -- why is the student missing questions -- are they mainly content based or are they reasoning based...

 

[doctobeapple]

Need help, Update on this situation, I do advice the student on and off, after couple of months of hard work and lucky to have this time to study. He made good improvement. he is at 128,122,129,127 , the problem is the CARS at 122 is not changing not even in any test 122 or 123 .
Any advice will be greatly appropriated, he scheduled to take the test in a week unless he postponed and if he does, he doesn't want to postpone more 2-3 weeks to stay focused and still make it this cycle. I saw one of the passages it looks , he is highlighting , may be too much of that and loosing the big picture, it is definitely little bit of everything, focus ,loosing the main idea and drifting loosing the main idea.
Should he postpone or stick with the schedule?

Thanks

 

[doctobeapple]

He needs to do a complete review of his content. Sub 500 scores are almost always indicative of a lack of a grasp on MCAT science. He needs to spend at least 1-2 months really reviewing all of the science content on the MCAT before moving on to do practice tests.

How much is he studying? The MCAT is an exam that should require at least 300 hours of efficient, dedicated studying. With where he is right now, I would recommend postponing the test unless he can really crank down in these last 2 months.

Kevin W, MCAT Tutor
Med School Tutors

Need help, Update on this situation, I do advice the student on and off, after couple of months of hard work and lucky to have this time to study. He made good improvement. he is at 128,122,129,127 , the problem is the CARS at 122 is not changing not even in any test 122 or 123 .
Any advice will be greatly appropriated, he scheduled to take the test in a week unless he postponed and if he does, he doesn't want to postpone more 2-3 weeks to stay focused and still make it this cycle. I saw one of the passages it looks , he is highlighting , may be too much of that and loosing the big picture, it is definitely little bit of everything, focus ,loosing the main idea and drifting loosing the main idea.
Should he postpone or stick with the schedule?

Thanks

 

[GreenDuck12]

Need help, Update on this situation, I do advice the student on and off, after couple of months of hard work and lucky to have this time to study. He made good improvement. he is at 128,122,129,127 , the problem is the CARS at 122 is not changing not even in any test 122 or 123 .
Any advice will be greatly appropriated, he scheduled to take the test in a week unless he postponed and if he does, he doesn't want to postpone more 2-3 weeks to stay focused and still make it this cycle. I saw one of the passages it looks , he is highlighting , may be too much of that and loosing the big picture, it is definitely little bit of everything, focus ,loosing the main idea and drifting loosing the main idea.
Should he postpone or stick with the schedule?

Thanks

Postpone postpone postpone! It's not even a question. That CARS score will be fatal. The hard truth is this student is not ready for the MCAT and is not ready for this cycle.

 

[GreenDuck12]

Also, CARS is one of the section that I tutor the most and it takes a lot of time to see improvement. The lack of improvement over this amount of time is concerning. It is highly unlikely that highlighting is the main problem unless the student is progressing so slowly through the section that he/she/they are unable to answer three passages of questions.

 

[doctobeapple]

Agree with you even he was progressing he was not ready.

New update , the student studied more daily talking about (mid May - July) and worked more tests and was making in 506-507 (with low cars score) .
he did take the test on Aug 1st , his score was disappointing it was 499 (126,122,124,127).
Not sure what to advice and if DO is a possibility , MD is out of the question. A gap year is a must.

Need advice how to approach the studying , he was using Princeton review books

1- should he buy new set of books from another vendor and start fresh studying?
2- How to improve CARS at least 3-4 points so it does not pulling him back ?
3- when should he take the test 6 months from now or 1 year from now ?
4- he sent one secondary before he got his score, and he is getting more secondaries , is it even worth filling them out?

Greatly appreciated your opinions.
Thanks