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No MCAT improvement, studying since december?
- Thread starter bigboss22
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I would just suggest you be as hobest to yourself as possible...is your study method as effective as it could be?
Hey! Remember that SDN/Reddit reporter bias exists! For every person who has scored above 500, there's another person that's score below 500. That's what 50th percentile means. Also consider the fact that a lot of the people who will post heavily about their MCAT, are the successful ones. You rarely get to hear from those who didn't do well. Chin up, friend. You can do well, don't worry.
It really sounds like you need a break more than anything. In athletics, they call it over-training, where more practice will actually harm your performance. You need a chance for your mental muscles to recover and heal. It sounds like the most ridiculous advice, but I think you need to take a one week break and just chill and detox.
Some of the suggestions I can provide are error logs and thorough review of practice questions. I used both of these strategies effectively, YMMV.
Error logs: keep track of the questions you get wrong in terms of the topic it covers, and also why you feel you got it wrong, whether its a flawed approach, mistiming, or missing knowledge. Over time you can hopefully identify a pattern and fix it.
Thorough review: Identify not just why the right answer is right, but why the wrong answers are wrong, and how to change the question to make the wrong answers right.
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Hi @bigboss22 ,
I'd like to second the advice from @Zenabi90, especially the need to step back and take a break (burnout is real, and you will get by far the most out of studying if you can approach it with a relatively fresh frame of mind) and the usefulness of error logs, thorough review, and understanding the logic of the wrong answers. It's always best to think about not just what you need to know, but how the MCAT expects you to use that knowledge, and careful review is a great way to make that happen.
It sounds like you've been doing some scored practice tests (you mention a score of 127 on a TPR P/S section), but I'd also encourage you to keep that up (although maybe after taking a break). To some extent, taking practice tests can help give you a sense of how you're doing in terms of scores, but they're also really important because they help demystify the process. Making it into just a routine thing can help with test-associated anxiety.
As a final note, although I'd give the general advice of trying to only take the MCAT once, remember that people do retake the MCAT and get into medical school, and that when you look at median MCAT scores at various schools, by definition as many people are below that threshold as are below. Based on what you've said, it sounds like your dreams of med school are still very much within reach, so keep up the good work, hang in there, and if at all possible step back to take care of yourself!
I'd like to second the advice from @Zenabi90, especially the need to step back and take a break (burnout is real, and you will get by far the most out of studying if you can approach it with a relatively fresh frame of mind) and the usefulness of error logs, thorough review, and understanding the logic of the wrong answers. It's always best to think about not just what you need to know, but how the MCAT expects you to use that knowledge, and careful review is a great way to make that happen.
It sounds like you've been doing some scored practice tests (you mention a score of 127 on a TPR P/S section), but I'd also encourage you to keep that up (although maybe after taking a break). To some extent, taking practice tests can help give you a sense of how you're doing in terms of scores, but they're also really important because they help demystify the process. Making it into just a routine thing can help with test-associated anxiety.
As a final note, although I'd give the general advice of trying to only take the MCAT once, remember that people do retake the MCAT and get into medical school, and that when you look at median MCAT scores at various schools, by definition as many people are below that threshold as are below. Based on what you've said, it sounds like your dreams of med school are still very much within reach, so keep up the good work, hang in there, and if at all possible step back to take care of yourself!
