MCAT Help

[MedSchool123090]

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[ModernAlchemist]

Hey guys, I’m currently a junior at an ivy. I have a 3.99 GPA, research experience, extensive clinical experience, am actively involved in a community outreach program, am a T.A. for Neuroscience, etc. Basically, I think I have a pretty solid application. The only issue is the MCAT. I’m planning on taking the MCATS in June and just took my first Kaplan diagnostic test. I didn’t study very much prior to taking the test (maybe a few hours here and there) and ended up scoring a 24 (9 Bio, 9 Physics, and a 6 Verbal). Any advice to improve, particularly for verbal? As far as physics and bio goes, I got questions wrong that I know I knew at one point so hopefully I can get those scores up after studying. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Hey, welcome to SDN!

It would be very helpful for you to check out the "stickied" threads at the top of the MCAT forum here. They provide most if not all of the information you're asking for and will probably even be better responses than are offered in this thread. Your questions are very typical of someone who just took their first diagnostic. As a quick summary, the unofficial (non-AAMC) diagnostics aren't very good indicators of how you'll do on a real test because they are designed to give you a low score so you will be convinced to take their course and it also helps them maintain their guarantee policy. For verbal, two books that are very important to get are ExamKrackers 101 Verbal (amazon.com) and The Princeton Review Hyperlearning Verbal Workbook (ebay or the for Sale forums on SDN). Verbal is about practice. If you need help with a strategy, there are some very good ones in the stickied threads I mentioned. Good luck!

 

[ridethecliche]

As many others will tell you, the diagnostics serve to scare you.

It's like "OMG I DID SO BADLY NOW I MUST TAKE THE COURSE", then you take the course and do well and it's like "OMG KAPLAN MADE ME ACE THE MCAT ERRYYYBUDDY TAKE THEIR COURSE ITS 4AWESOME!".

If you want a true baseline, take the free AAMC course in a week or so.

A 24 on their diagnostic is pretty good. Many people score in the high teens.

Edit: Dammit. Looks like someone is more distracted than I am...
😉

 

[MedSchool123090]

Hey guys, so I made this thread almost two months ago and I just took kaplan's full length 1 today. I got a 32 (12 PS, 11 Bio and 9 Verbal). I'm really happy with the improvement considering I only did 2/3 of the content review thus far. I do have a question though... I ran out of time for verbal and was wondering if you guys had any suggestions? I tried to passage map based on Kaplan's method but realized that there was no way I would finish in time so I stopped halfway through... any recommendations?

Thanks!

 

[ridethecliche]

Hey guys, so I made this thread almost two months ago and I just took kaplan's full length 1 today. I got a 32 (12 PS, 11 Bio and 9 Verbal). I'm really happy with the improvement considering I only did 2/3 of the content review thus far. I do have a question though... I ran out of time for verbal and was wondering if you guys had any suggestions? I tried to passage map based on Kaplan's method but realized that there was no way I would finish in time so I stopped halfway through... any recommendations?

Thanks!

Get the EK verbal book and 101 passages book and see if that helps you out.

 

[liveoak]

what does, "at an ivy" mean?

 

[Rabolisk]

If you really have a 3.99 at an Ivy, you'll do fine in the MCAT.

 

[feipar]

based on your profile, diagnostic and Kap FL 1, I think you will be averaging very well on the remaining Kp FL and AAMC FLs.

don't read too much into kaplan verbals. they are shorter but more convoluted and ask combination detail inference questions rather than main idea / sub idea - inference questions. So you basically have to look for a specific statement in order to make the right inference, rather than just the overall idea.

 

[ridethecliche]

what does, "at an ivy" mean?

"I'll take troll for 500 please."

 

[liveoak]

"I'll take troll for 500 please."

oh relax. "at an ivy" just sounds funny.


i should say "at a big 12"