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[Cornfed101]

You can definitely do the 300 page KA notes. I found the 100 page sufficient, but if you have the time, great. You are on track to do well in both C/P and B/B so I wouldn’t focus much more attention on those at the moment. You said you are so sure you are doing everything right, but then you miss a lot of questions. You need to spend at least as much time reviewing the test as you do taking it. Have you been doing this? Why are you missing questions? Is it content related, passage analysis related, or another reason entirely? Only you can determine that, but this will help you guide your studying going forward.

The biggest thing to help improve in CARS is doing passages and working on your reading comprehension. Don’t do third party questions (except for in FLs), they are garbage. Focus on the AAMC Qpacks. I think 6-10 FLs is sufficient. Do the 4 AAMC FLs and the others aren’t as important in terms of where they come from. Next Step are pretty good.

 

[WrenchesToMD]

Completely agree with @Cornfed101. My lowest subsection was CARS, which is the hardest to increase significantly (took several months of practice to go from 121 initially to 126 actual). For CARS what helped me the most was getting as much reading practice as I could as well as practicing with different methods of approach. I bought a 1 subject notebook and logged all of my wrong CARS practice questions ONLY with AAMC materials. I used Jack Weston, Khan Academy, and Next Step CARS workbook strictly for reading/timing/method practice. I NEVER took the number of questions right/wrong to heart. I also purchased the Examkrackers Reasoning Skills book and found it to be a helpful supplement to preparations. Lastly, the MCAT is merely a tiny portion of your overall app and is not a reflection of who you are as a person and does not guarantee acceptance. Do your best, put it behind you, and take pride in the plethora of other areas of your app that shine.

tldr: only use AAMC to gauge performance; figure out what you got wrong, why you got it wrong, and how you can avoid it in the future; use free resources like Jack Weston and Khan Academy for reading/timing/method practice as there are hundreds of passages at your disposal; consider picking up Examkrackers Reasoning Skills book; regardless of how you perform, the MCAT is not a reflection of who you are as a person.

 

[deleted853480]

I found Kaplan the most representative 3rd party cars passages.

 

[I'mJustCurious]

UWorld is a good source to practice for P/S if you haven't already used it.

 

[hungrydoc710]

If you were able to hit a 520, you would never have even gotten under a 510 on a ful length practice exam.
People have a max I believe and you may have hit yours.

Take the exam and apply DO if you fall under 508, and become a doctor.

Note - I used to read science articles to improve my reading comprehension for P/S and jumped from a 127 to 130.

 

[KnightDoc]

Hey guys, I'm a week out to my MCAT and I have never been more confused. Truly I have never felt like more of a failure in my whole life. I've always been top of my class my whole life. My college GPA is 3.96 and I have always have done really well on everything I put my mind to.
Im not sure what it is but I just can't do as well I normally do on everything else as on the MCAT. I was aiming for a score above 520. I studied content for about 2 months 8 hours a day, and then took my FL1 which I got a 504 (128,125,127,124). I then did the other AAMC materials and only increased my score on FL2 to 505 (128,124,128,125). When I take these tests I am so sure I am doing nearly everything right. Vocabulary in psych/soc does not seem so much an issue since I feel I understand almost everything. My main issue in cars is the Skill: Foundation of Comprehension.
Obviously I am going to have to postpone the MCAT a couple months, but I have such a difficult semester ahead that I am so terrified of doing so. I am taking a gap year so I guess I could minimize course load and take an extra semester to graduate (If I graduate in May 2020 I will have graduated college in 3 years). But my question is whether I minimize course load or not, how should I go about these next couple months to increase my cars and psych/soc scores. Should I read the 300 KA notes? (I studied PR for psych/soc). Should I just focus whatever time I have in my semester on taking more tests, and if so which companies should I try.

With all due respect, you are NOT a failure if you don't get a 520+ on the MCAT. Like many of us here, you are a classic overachiever, and have not come to grips with the fact that the pyramid narrows as we progress from kindergarten to grade school to high school to college to professional school. Not being in the top 1% of MCAT test takers hardly makes you a failure when 40% of applicants are successful. Obviously, I don't know you, and maybe you will hit your goal with more time, but. from what you said, it sounds like you did everything right and it's possible that you just hit a wall and will not be in the top 1% of this particular pool.

tl; dr -- don't beat yourself up. Do the best you can, and understand that many of us are just like you, and only 1 out of 100 of us will be in the top 1%.

 

[sheeeeesh]

If you were able to hit a 520, you would never have even gotten under a 510 on a ful length practice exam.
People have a max I believe and you may have hit yours.

Take the exam and apply DO if you fall under 508, and become a doctor.

Note - I used to read science articles to improve my reading comprehension for P/S and jumped from a 127 to 130.

Lol not the optimism I was going for

 

[PlsLetMeIn21]

I think too many people equate GPA with MCAT score. Try not to do this. Two very different set of skill sets are needed for each. I am the opposite of you, where my GPA is low and MCAT went well, except for one section. Based on my GPA and grades in core classes at my school, I was told I should get a 504 on the MCAT. This undermined my confidence at first. It took a while before I realized that memorizing all the facts was not proving to be useful on the MCAT, even though that was essential to getting a good GPA. Once I focused more on thinking my way through questions and sticking to basic facts, I did well. If you want to get better at the MCAT, start by throwing away any idea that your GPA correlates to your MCAT score. When you do passages and questions, especially from AAMC, look at the reasoning behind the right answer with same vigor as you look at why the other three answers are wrong. When you start to notice that some wrong answers are clever traps, that's when you'll see your score improve.

 

[hungrydoc710]

I think too many people equate GPA with MCAT score. Try not to do this. Two very different set of skill sets are needed for each. I am the opposite of you, where my GPA is low and MCAT went well, except for one section. Based on my GPA and grades in core classes at my school, I was told I should get a 504 on the MCAT. This undermined my confidence at first. It took a while before I realized that memorizing all the facts was not proving to be useful on the MCAT, even though that was essential to getting a good GPA. Once I focused more on thinking my way through questions and sticking to basic facts, I did well. If you want to get better at the MCAT, start by throwing away any idea that your GPA correlates to your MCAT score. When you do passages and questions, especially from AAMC, look at the reasoning behind the right answer with same vigor as you look at why the other three answers are wrong. When you start to notice that some wrong answers are clever traps, that's when you'll see your score improve.

This.
But I stand by the fact that those meant to get a 520 on MCAT, wouldn't even score under a 510 on thier FL practices, at any point.