Feeling bummed, scored a 500 on the Next Step half length....I know it's just a half length but is the real thing going to be easier similar or harder?
Idk if this is relevant, but I'm trying to get into DO schools I'm trying to figure out where I stand MCAT-wise
Hi
@kmthw !
Thanks for trying out our 1/2 length MCAT diagnostic exam. As with our 10 full length MCAT exams, the diagnostic is designed to mimic the real thing as closely as possible. However, it is just one test. As a half length exam, it is limited on what it will be able to evaluate you on, but it will give you an idea of the tone, style, format and unique difficulty of the MCAT.
A 500, in my experience is an above average score for someone new to the MCAT. How far into your studies are you? How close to your test date are you? This will be more helpful in evaluating what this score means to you specifically. You don't want to compare yourself to anyone else. The value of your performance is what it tells you about your current strengths and weaknesses.
Use this exam, and some review of the AAMC content outline, to determine where you feel strong vs. weak on the science and where you actually performed strong or weak in the science. For CARS you can use this result directly to see how close you are to the kind of thinking required by the AAMC. CARS is all about learning to think like the test-maker.
For DO vs. MD, both are tough to get into. I applied to both back in the day and I actually got into more MD schools compared to DO (and a greater % too). However, the
average DO school matriculate will have lower GPA/MCTA stats than the
average student in a MD school. Don't worry about that too much, for either discipline, you want to shoot for a 510+ MCAT score.
Hope this helps, good luck!
