MCAT Retake Advice?

[na1433]

Hey guys,

So I am planning on taking a Masters degree in the Fall starting in late August which is meant to last a year long and I want to retake my MCAT before my classes start. i am graduating from undergraduate next May and this is the third time I am retaking the MCAT and i need to do well since I plan on applying for medical school again right after I do my Masters degree (if I do well hopefully).
The first time I took my MCAT I got a 492 (124/122/122/124), I retook it 2 months later and got a 499 (125/124/125/125). I really need to do well on it this time and I really need advice from people.
I have this tendency of doing badly on teh CARS section, which doesnt make sense to me, and i get frustrated everytime I do a practice section. In general what were good study habits for specific sections that you guys have. I am spacing out the entire summer for this exam so you guys could really help.

Thanks

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[NextStepTutor_3]

Hi there, great question! Here's some quick advice:

- It's totally normal to be frustrated by CARS practice, but practice (and careful review) is the only way to improve in that section. Have you ever tried doing less than a full section for practice? It might be less frustrating/intimidating to work through 2-3 passages per day, as opposed to trying to do an entire section on one day and no CARS practice on other days. Also, don't pay too much attention to the "score" (or number of questions you get wrong) at first. Often, students get really disappointed when they miss most or all questions in a CARS passage, but they could still gain a huge benefit from reviewing the passage and seeing where they went wrong.

- In particular, take a minute and think about how you typically review CARS. Do you just review the correct answer and why it is correct? Or do you also look over the wrong answers you chose? I've always found it less frustrating to focus on why the incorrect answers are wrong - for example, extreme wording, referring to the wrong part of the passage, not fully answering the question, etc. - rather than primarily paying attention to the right answer, which can make it easy to "beat yourself up" too much about missing the question.

- Finally, the most important thing to do when retaking the MCAT is absolutely to do something different from what you did in the past. It looked like you already did this to some extent, since all of your sections improved in the most recent exam compared to your first one. But this time around, try to pay extra attention to what you did in the past, what you felt your weaknesses were, which passage types were most intimidating, etc. Also, a quick way to gain points is to go through any recent practice exams and look for "easy" questions (most test prep companies rate questions by difficulty in some way, or you can just look for simpler, more content-based questions). It's surprising how many points someone can gain just by focusing on getting all of the "easy"/simple questions right rather than spending a large amount of time on the more reasoning-intensive, multi-step questions. Doing this can also help you isolate the content areas you most need to return to as you prep for your retake.

Anyway, wishing you all the best. Good luck studying!

 

[CoffeeintheMorning]

Hey guys,

So I am planning on taking a Masters degree in the Fall starting in late August which is meant to last a year long and I want to retake my MCAT before my classes start. i am graduating from undergraduate next May and this is the third time I am retaking the MCAT and i need to do well since I plan on applying for medical school again right after I do my Masters degree (if I do well hopefully).
The first time I took my MCAT I got a 492 (124/122/122/124), I retook it 2 months later and got a 499 (125/124/125/125). I really need to do well on it this time and I really need advice from people.
I have this tendency of doing badly on teh CARS section, which doesnt make sense to me, and i get frustrated everytime I do a practice section. In general what were good study habits for specific sections that you guys have. I am spacing out the entire summer for this exam so you guys could really help.

Thanks

I think you just need more time. You're improving and something seems to be working.