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Yeh I did AAMC 8 yesterday and for some odd reason or another, I couldn't focus after the 2nd verbal passage, it was really strange I just couldn't seem to focus on what I was reading and I felt the constant need to reread things twice and even then I was iffy. I think it's because I've been doing too much VR lately; I did 2 EK tests the day before and 1 the day prior to that. Needless to say VR did not go well, yet still ended up with a fair score which is disappointing since I could have easily broken the 33 mark. Ended up with:

AAMC 8 (13/6/11)

I think I'm going to wait until Sunday to do AAMC 9, that's probably a better idea to give my brain a rest.
 
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AAMC 7 8 VR was the most terrible ones in terms of difficulty. t0ny, your VR will get back up on AAMC 9. But it doesn't hurt to study 7 8 VR thoroughly since you never know whether real MCAT will be like AAMC 7 8 or not.
 
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Tried to take a day off because I felt like my brain was fried... Lasted till 10pm then I crack and felt like I was going to fail because I did that so now I'm at a 24 hour coffee shop studying.

So... Yea that's where my brains at lol
 
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Lol, it simply hurts to resist studying at this point. I know for sure this will last even after MCAT. Every morning, I would sit on my desk, open up e-mcat.com. We only got a week and excluding 2-3 days of rest before the exam, we only have like a few days. Keep it up guys.
 
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csdanim said:
It's too hot to study in SoCal.. -_-
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amen. Not a 09/07'er but thought I drop by out of curiosity.

On top of that, the AC hasn't been on at my place b/c my family is tryin to save money on electricity 🙁 Not that the cold air disperses from the AC vent well at my place anyways....
 
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bear2roo said:
amen. Not a 09/07'er but thought I drop by out of curiosity.

On top of that, the AC hasn't been on at my place b/c my family is tryin to save money on electricity 🙁 Not that the cold air disperses from the AC vent well at my place anyways....
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You're always welcome to drop by, even hang around more often because nobody is taking this exam. It's so quiet over here. Good luck to us because the weather is getting worse this week.
 
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Messed up AAMC 11 VR with a 7 -_-.. I couldn't concentrate the whole time due to many identifiable facts that are fixable. Nice confidence booster on the week of MCAT
 
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I'm doing AAMC 10 today then doing AAMC 11 on Thursday. Hope they go well otherwise I'm gonna be pretty depressed. Hoping to beat my average of 31
 
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summergirl said:
Just did AAMC9 --> 11/11/12. PS was lower than expected (avg 12-13). VR is slightly above average (avg 10), which I'm super happy about. BS is exactly my average, but I'm a little dissapointed because I got a 14 on BS last time... Oh well, overall I'm considering this test a success due to the slight improvement in VR, despite having an overall score that's lower than my average🙂
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O.O AAMC 11 -->13/11/11. Why is it that if I do above average in one section, I must get below average in another section....
 
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Jesus.. Wasn't expecting that one.. Below average on AAMC 10 (12/7/11) verbal keeps killing me I don't know what it is. Not sure what to do at this point... might practice my verbal tomorrow and do AAMC 11 on Thursday before the big day Saturday.
 
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Man that 7 from AAMC 11 VR yesterday and last 4 passages from VR Self assessment definitely killed my confidence. I was even thinking of just voiding the exam even before taking. VR self assessment's later passages have mostly "Hard" questions.

I hope I don't have to retake because of VR..
 
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Nothing more nerve-racking then being in the 29-32 range on the practice exams. The line between DO and MD is narrow..
 
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csdanim said:
11's PS is easier and BS is harder.
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Yeah, except I messed up on the easier questions and get the hard questions right...

bear2roo said:
I dont know waht you've been averaging/target score but that score looks good to me! 😀
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Well considering my ridiculously low GPA, I could really use a MCAT score in the high 30s lol, but I'll be happy with a 35+ with an 11+ on verbal.
 
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AAMC 10--> 12/10/11 ???????????
I HATE AAMC 10 with a passion! I got the best I've ever gotten on PS and only got a 12 (92%). The verbal was ridiculously long and weird, not the mention the curve was stupid. And I'm soooo fed up with AAMC BS. I got all the "experimental" questions right but get the weird facts questions wrong. *SPOILER* How am I supposed to know what a vole is??

Ok I'm done. It feels good to have an outlet for my depression after my last FL before the real thing.
 
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That voles question gets me going every time lol... But be assured that you will have 1-2 questions like this on the real exam (sets 14s apart from 15s)
 
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texan2414 said:
That voles question gets me going every time lol... But be assured that you will have 1-2 questions like this on the real exam (sets 14s apart from 15s)
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I highly doubt that there's gonna be even one question like that. I can see how killer discretes as in AAMC11 can be on real MCAT to set 14s from 15s, but knowing what a vole is a matter of English or something. That question was total bull sh**
 
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I was lucky to have done summer research on mice and voles, so I laughed when I got this question and wondered how the average student would know what a vole was. In general, if it's an animal you haven't heard of, it's probably very small. If it was a large, charismatic animal, you would have already heard of it.
 
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Sup 9/7 family- hope all's well. Just a couple more days now so stay confident, motivated, eat healthy, and make sure you're getting enough sleep! Last time I took the MCAT in August I was trying to adjust my sleeping schedule (I had to wake up at 5 AM to get to the testing center by 7:30 AM- and that seriously threw me off by the Saturday morning I had to take the exam). I decided this time around I gotta get sleep all week because a lot of this exam is not only memory-hungry and also attention-hungry for sure.

Anyways, my BIGgest issue now is timing. This was also the problem with my last MCAT. Timing with PS, VR, and BS! I write down checkpoint times on my paper (60-53-46, etc), and that does help, but I end up falling behind a minute each passage, which really adds up when it comes down to the last 3 or 4 passages. Does anyone have any techniques or advice with this?

I called AAMC the other day and they told me that the harder questions are weighed more heavily than the easier questions. This makes me nervous- because say, for an exam in college or even the ACT back in the day, I would make sure I got all the easy/medium ones right, and return to the hard ones at the end giving them my all. Now with the MCAT, that technique can devastate your score.

So- does anyone have any advice for this? I always complete all the discretes first, as a warmup, and finish that with about 54-57 minutes left, aiming for 56. For example, how long does everyone take on each passage? Anyone else do the discretes first? Any attention-enhancing tips or math advice? When I do work at a break-neck pace I tend to skip units, an important word, or something of the sort. Thank you all I really appreciate it.
 
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BossAndroid said:
Sup 9/7 family- hope all's well. Just a couple more days now so stay confident, motivated, eat healthy, and make sure you're getting enough sleep! Last time I took the MCAT in August I was trying to adjust my sleeping schedule (I had to wake up at 5 AM to get to the testing center by 7:30 AM- and that seriously threw me off by the Saturday morning I had to take the exam). I decided this time around I gotta get sleep all week because a lot of this exam is not only memory-hungry and also attention-hungry for sure.

Anyways, my BIGgest issue now is timing. This was also the problem with my last MCAT. Timing with PS, VR, and BS! I write down checkpoint times on my paper (60-53-46, etc), and that does help, but I end up falling behind a minute each passage, which really adds up when it comes down to the last 3 or 4 passages. Does anyone have any techniques or advice with this?

I called AAMC the other day and they told me that the harder questions are weighed more heavily than the easier questions. This makes me nervous- because say, for an exam in college or even the ACT back in the day, I would make sure I got all the easy/medium ones right, and return to the hard ones at the end giving them my all. Now with the MCAT, that technique can devastate your score.

So- does anyone have any advice for this? I always complete all the discretes first, as a warmup, and finish that with about 54-57 minutes left, aiming for 56. For example, how long does everyone take on each passage? Anyone else do the discretes first? Any attention-enhancing tips or math advice? When I do work at a break-neck pace I tend to skip units, an important word, or something of the sort. Thank you all I really appreciate it.
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😕 Did they explain why? It does not make sense to me.
 
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Hm. No- no explanation. I can see it... I guess.... as a way to make the MCAT more accurate of your skills/knowledge. It's just a pain for us.
 
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Nothing I've read indicates that they weight individual questions. The difficulty of the questions in a section influences the scale used (so a BS section with tough questions would have a more lenient curve, i.e. you don't need as high of a score to get say a 12).
 
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Wow BS was absolutely horrendous... wtf. And even PS was more ambiguous than AAMC... Clearly getting below my AAMC average. Fantastic.

See ya'll Next January
 
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I found VR the easiest lol smh.

As for BS, i had seen a topic in one of my advanced classes already and the question stems still made the damn thing unbearable.
 
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t0ny said:
Wow BS was absolutely horrendous... wtf. And even PS was more ambiguous than AAMC... Clearly getting below my AAMC average. Fantastic.

See ya'll Next January
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I agree. I felt iPS was harder than AAMC exams. Verbal was okay but my problem with that section is more time than anything. BS also killed me. I wish they were more organ based heavy than always being focused on enzymes and receptors for proteins that they ambiguously name as"ajdhjand" focing me to constantly look back at the passage. see ya Jan
 
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rupharm said:
I agree. I felt iPS was harder than AAMC exams. Verbal was okay but my problem with that section is more time than anything. BS also killed me. I wish they were more organ based heavy than always being focused on enzymes and receptors for proteins that they ambiguously name as"ajdhjand" focing me to constantly look back at the passage. see ya Jan
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lmfao

sdaDJ effects djkhjka which in turn be be affected by jhsadjhfjk and is monitered by jkhsdkjasdj which then can back regulate klsdfjasdfj which may or may not make you cry.
 
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My thoughts after PS: Alright so I guess we aren't getting the usual 12-13

My thoughts after VR: Alright so that went according to plan. Time to make up for PS in BS

My thoughts after BS: When are January sign ups opening?
 
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1PM

Post-test comments:

PS - I found it REALLY hard. There were a lot of traps hiding within the questions. I often find myself half way into the calculation, than realized that there is a trap, and had to start all over. Had about 3 minutes left to check over ~15 marked. So needless to say, I was not happy.

VR - Surprisingly, this wasn't so bad. I was expecting MUCH worse. I should be able to get my AAMC average.

BS - Uh....apparently everyone thought this section was very bad. I actually find it to be the easiest section...It didn't have any weird fact questions like the later AAMCs did. The orgo is overall very easy, which I'm extremely happy about. The bio is alright. The BS on this MCAT definitely emphasized on my strengths and didn't really test on my weaknesses. Had about 5 minutes to check ~10 marked, so not thrilled about that either, but overall it was good.

AAMC average: 12/11 (a bit lower than 11 actually)/12
Prediction: 11/11/12
Realistic hopeful: 12/11/13

EDIT 9/11: I'm starting to doubt if I can get my VR average (11). It seems like everyone thought VR was easy so the curve is probably going to be ridiculously hard. I'm changing my prediction to 11/10/12....Ugh, I'll have to rewrite if I get below an 11 in VR because it's a cut-off at a couple of schools on my list.
 
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By far the toughest BS section I've seen compared to all the practice tests I've taken. Some of the verbal passages had some major sentence structure issues with one totally changing my approach to a question, to which I ended up guessing.

We'll see in a month when I'll be seeing the prometric staff again.
 
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PS was harder than the last few practices I took. Somehow I found sufficient answers to every problem, but overall I have no idea how it compared to my averages. Somewhere between 9-11 would be my guess.

Verbal was actually much better than I expected! I followed the passages well enough and felt the questions were very doable.

BS was hard. I got about 11 on every practice test here, hopefully that's what I got on the real thing.

Time to wait and see, but the good thing is that if it was hard for everyone then that will factor into the grading curve for the exam. Best wishes for you all though!
 
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1PM

Bio section was alright, just lots of outside knowledge that are in the passage. Overall did well with 20 min left to check.

PS sections was pretty easy. Had 20min left on the clock, but in the last 20 second I found out that I had left a question blank.

VR was like usual, couldn't finish on time, totally guessed on one whole passage.

Voided the exam because the verbal section, gotta read more I suppose. But now Im regretting knowing that I have to wait more than 4 months to take the test again.. 😡
 
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Aug 28th tester here - BS was also the toughest section and PS was very calc-heavy but reasonable. Don't worry guys, all tests are scaled appropriately so I am sure you all did well.
 
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at this point. im banking on that amazon $30 gift card. hope my lack of effort wasnt too obvious haha
 
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1pm here

PS was what the f omg. I have never seen such hard PS. It was tricky and ambiguously written. I got 13-15 on AAMC PS so take my word for it

VR was on the easier side.

BS was doable. Easier discretes than AAMC 11 but passages were about the same. 13-14 on practices
 
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I found the PS to be absolutely insane...definitely hit me in my weak spots. VR was pretty standard/expected. I actually found BS to be a little easier than I was expecting.
 
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