Official 08/05/2011 MCAT Club!

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Surprised so many people are saying VR was bad for them. Many, many people on this forum have been saying that VR is getting longer. You have to anticipate these things, that's what the information available on this site is for...

Personally, it helps me out because it leaves me less room for interpretation of the author's point. The longer winded he is the more time I have to absorb the real point. Like this better than the AAMC practices to be honest...
 
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I am surprised as well.. I found VR to be relatively easy for the most part maybe one slightly more difficult pssg. And bio especially. I felt bio was fair and really easy. Only more difficult section was PS and wierd that there was almost no physics
 
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PS - started off relatively straight-forward, got progressively more challenging. ended up being crunched for time and having to seriously rush through the last passage
VR - i didnt think the passages were too bad, but again verbal is so hit or miss for me so idk whether thats a good or a bad thing
BS - felt like a string of science verbal reasoning passages..lots of reading comprehension. and some highly convoluted orgo discretes from what i remember

my overall assessment: its all kind of hazy now but it was definitely a challenging exam. not impossible, but challenging enough such that im probably going to get a score on the lower end of what ive gotten on practices :/
 
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The difficult VR you guys were referring to was from the morning or afternoon session?
 
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ak21 said:
lol okay so my first post was from my phone so i didn't get to really give my full analysis

PS- I thought it was pretty ok. There was one passage, that actually hit one of my strengths, but I still found it really difficult. A couple discretes I thought were difficult. And a few other questions. I thought it was MUCH easier than my first PS section on last years MCAT.

VR- I was so happy lol. Every passage I found really easy to read for the most part...I thought the first verbal passage was the toughest. But overall not bad...

BS- Okay, this is where I thought I got crushed the most. At some parts I felt really good, and at other parts I felt like WTF is going on lol.Some of the orgo really pissed me off. Orgo is my strongest so I was really upset. I got a 14 on AAMC 11 but there is no way I got a 14 here. Hopefully a 10...

Overall a really fair MCAT. No crazy section like the 7/6 BS lol. Every section had its hard parts (biology I thought the most) but overall it wasn't too bad.
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I agree. Everything was going smoothly until BS. There were two passages that were reminiscent of AAMC #11, but I thought this one was way harder. The orgo caught me off guard, and there were a few physiology Q's that I realize now I got wrong. I got a 14 on AAMC #11, and definitely didn't match that yesterday...would be happy with a 10 at this point.
 
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i feel like no one else took this test...the more i think about it the worse and worse I feel like i did 🙁. some of the PS i feel like i thought too much into it and might've gotten them wrong...ugh
 
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oh no, i thought the bio section was ridiculous. it just through me off-guard and I couldn't think. I easily messed up two passages=(
 
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some of the ps passages were really strange, especially one of the later ones that I am hoping was experimental.
 
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Verbal really killed me yesterday. This is a retake for me and I got an 8 on Verbal last time with 9's & 10's on AAMCs, but I'd be glad with a 7+.

Should've voided because of Verbal but didn't.
 
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cricky12 said:
Verbal really killed me yesterday. This is a retake for me and I got an 8 on Verbal last time with 9's & 10's on AAMCs, but I'd be glad with a 7+.

Should've voided because of Verbal but didn't.
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AMEN

I feel exactly like you right now, and I just don't know what happened to me during verbal. But the sciences were okay and I felt like I did better than last time.
 
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Oh man I don't even know what to think at this point! I was sure I was ready, then I see this PS section that didn't even touch most of the stuff I spent time worrying about. The verbal section was a joke, I was so confused about what I was reading that I ended up running out of time.
But the worst was the BS... WAAAYYY too many passage questions that didn't rely on most prior knowledge. Ran out of time and had to guess on at least four questions. I am very very worried about the test, especially by BS score. Somebody, please reassure me that it is all curved, and that if it was hard for everyone I might not be getting as bad a score as I'm worried about!!!!
Thanks, and good luck to you all!
 
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jjjordy said:
Oh man I don't even know what to think at this point! I was sure I was ready, then I see this PS section that didn't even touch most of the stuff I spent time worrying about. The verbal section was a joke, I was so confused about what I was reading that I ended up running out of time.
But the worst was the BS... WAAAYYY too many passage questions that didn't rely on most prior knowledge. Ran out of time and had to guess on at least four questions. I am very very worried about the test, especially by BS score. Somebody, please reassure me that it is all curved, and that if it was hard for everyone I might not be getting as bad a score as I'm worried about!!!!
Thanks, and good luck to you all!
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The prob was that PS was so gen chem heavy so maybe you focused more on physics when studying. I didn't find the science sections to be too bad and they were reasonable. But the verbal was crazy hard. I always understand what is going on but this time I felt like I was blitzed with crazy hard passages. I am honestly just praying for a 7 on vr because I felt like I got killed by it. It just felt so hard to understand what was going on and the questions weren't easy either.

About the curve, it is all pre-determined and does not change in regards to how others do on that day. But if you have a harder exam, the pre-determined curve should be good and I am praying it is for all of us. From my experience as a retaker, don't rely on AAMC, the curve, or hoping on scoring higher than practice scores. You have to rely on how you execute on test day and your practice score averages.
 
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There was a "Singer with a glass" at the end of PS:laugh: that was the only time I smiled upon my Monitor! Much harder than usual.
Verbal: I don't know if it was longer than usual or my Adrenal Medulla hyperactivity made it look longer.
BS: Ehhh... not really different from last time I took it.
Writing: who gives a ... :laugh:
 
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PS was so so, g chem heavy
VR felt manageable, longer passages sure, I was expecting that after reading the forum.. you can never really know how you did so I won't bother speculating
BS did feel rather straightforward, it was very phys/cell bio/genetics oriented with very little organic (probably b/c PS had like 5 freaking chem passages) , having taken those courses this year made it easier for sure; I finished the section /w 20 or so minutes left.. that'd suck if I bombed it :O
 
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Just took the test this morning (8/6/11).

PS: Where's the Physics? Gen Chem heavy. You don't really need much background knowledge to answer these.
VR: Long passages. Left a good 34 seconds to review questions.
BR: Easy, but that's coming from a Physiology major. I had 30 minutes left in the section when I finished.
 
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ceasefire said:
Just took the test this morning (8/6/11).

PS: Where's the Physics? Gen Chem heavy. You don't really need much background knowledge to answer these.
VR: Long passages. Left a good 34 seconds to review questions.
BR: Easy, but that's coming from a Physiology major. I had 30 minutes left in the section when I finished.
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Same here, dude/t !.. I had 50 minutes left in VR, and 60 minutes left in BS sections at the end... thank God I brought some crackers and magazines at the test center otherwise I couldn't bear the waiting at the lounge.

Wo/man!.. are you joking or trolling here!.. If you just spent less then 30 minutes for the whole verbal section, and just 42 minutes for the whole biology section, then you must have only spent:

26/40 = 0.65 seconds for each verbal question
42/60 = 0.70 seconds for each biology question

I wonder when you read the looong passages each time, though?

Either you didn't read the passages and made "educated" guesses (!), or you must have lost your time conscientiousness after that ridiculously almost "reading comprehension" based test of which I've started thinking of that the test makers might have forgotten that they were preparing it for pre-meds but not for humanities/political science PhD applicants.

Sorry for the venting, but this must have been said here...
 
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ceng2doc said:
Same here, dude/t !.. I had 50 minutes left in VR, and 60 minutes left in BS sections at the end... thank God I brought some crackers and magazines at the test center otherwise I couldn't bear the waiting at the lounge.

Wo/man!.. are you joking or trolling here!.. If you just spent less then 30 minutes for the whole verbal section, and just 42 minutes for the whole biology section, then you must have only spent:

26/40 = 0.65 seconds for each verbal question
42/60 = 0.70 seconds for each biology question

I wonder when you read the looong passages each time, though?

Either you didn't read the passages and made "educated" guesses (!), or you must have lost your time conscientiousness after that ridiculously almost "reading comprehension" based test of which I've started thinking of that the test makers might have forgotten that they were preparing it for pre-meds but not for humanities/political science PhD applicants.

Sorry for the venting, but this must have been said here...
Click to expand...

Uh dude he said he had 34 seconds left in VR to review at the end, maybe you should reread before you start venting.
 
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ceng2doc said:
Same here, dude/t !.. I had 50 minutes left in VR, and 60 minutes left in BS sections at the end... thank God I brought some crackers and magazines at the test center otherwise I couldn't bear the waiting at the lounge.

Wo/man!.. are you joking or trolling here!.. If you just spent less then 30 minutes for the whole verbal section, and just 42 minutes for the whole biology section, then you must have only spent:

26/40 = 0.65 seconds for each verbal question
42/60 = 0.70 seconds for each biology question

I wonder when you read the looong passages each time, though?

Either you didn't read the passages and made "educated" guesses (!), or you must have lost your time conscientiousness after that ridiculously almost "reading comprehension" based test of which I've started thinking of that the test makers might have forgotten that they were preparing it for pre-meds but not for humanities/political science PhD applicants.

Sorry for the venting, but this must have been said here...
Click to expand...

:laugh: looks like the post-MCAT stress got to you (which is probably why all your math is amusingly wrong)

I'd highly recommend staying off SDN and relaxing 👍
 
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You guys must have done pretty awesome to have all that time left... I ran out of time after all three MC sections! Nothing worse that missing a question because you didn't even have time to read it.
 
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ceasefire said:
Just took the test this morning (8/6/11).

PS: Where's the Physics? Gen Chem heavy. You don't really need much background knowledge to answer these.
VR: Long passages. Left a good 34 seconds to review questions.
BR: Easy, but that's coming from a Physiology major. I had 30 minutes left in the section when I finished.
Click to expand...

salim271 said:
Uh dude he said he had 34 seconds left in VR to review at the end, maybe you should reread before you start venting.
Click to expand...

26/40 = 0.65 seconds for each verbal question ... okay, this was wrong
42/60 = 0.70 seconds for each biology question ... but, this was correct!!!

paul411 said:
looks like the post-MCAT stress got to you (which is probably why all your math is amusingly wrong)

I'd highly recommend staying off SDN and relaxing
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Check above, then comment... please!

fastlane said:
lol
Click to expand...

WTF ???
 
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jjjordy said:
You guys must have done pretty awesome to have all that time left... I ran out of time after all three MC sections! Nothing worse that missing a question because you didn't even have time to read it.
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I understand your feelings. But, it's funny reading people saying they had 30 minutes left to review... I mean, seriously?!. I admit you might have been left with some 4-5 minutes, but 30 minutes smells like something surreal.
 
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ceng2doc said:
I understand your feelings. But, it's funny reading people saying they had 30 minutes left to review... I mean, seriously?!. I admit you might have been left with some 4-5 minutes, but 30 minutes smells like something surreal.
Click to expand...

U may or may not believe me but no joke a had at least 25 mins left.. 30 mins may have been stretching it.. I always finished bio that quickly even on the practice tests. I honestly did not find it to be at all difficult
 
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ceng2doc said:
Same here, dude/t !.. I had 50 minutes left in VR, and 60 minutes left in BS sections at the end... thank God I brought some crackers and magazines at the test center otherwise I couldn't bear the waiting at the lounge.

Wo/man!.. are you joking or trolling here!.. If you just spent less then 30 minutes for the whole verbal section, and just 42 minutes for the whole biology section, then you must have only spent:

26/40 = 0.65 seconds for each verbal question
42/60 = 0.70 seconds for each biology question

I wonder when you read the looong passages each time, though?

Either you didn't read the passages and made "educated" guesses (!), or you must have lost your time conscientiousness after that ridiculously almost "reading comprehension" based test of which I've started thinking of that the test makers might have forgotten that they were preparing it for pre-meds but not for humanities/political science PhD applicants.

Sorry for the venting, but this must have been said here...
Click to expand...

Let me help you interpret my writing:

1. I don't like trolls, they're creepy.

2. I had 34 seconds remaining in VR when I finished before reviewing questions. I took the majority of the time. Make sense?

3. Bio: Literally 30 minutes remaining (29:something on the clock). I can't exactly discuss why without revealing what was tested (which I won't do) but let's just say I spent the last 2-3 years of undergrad learning exactly what I was just tested on (these are classes beyond prerequisites). Believe me or don't, whatever.

I usually had about 20 minutes on my practice exams but this bio section was crazy easy.
 
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retaker here

PS: I usually do well here, finishing with plenty of time, but I was in panic mode! I literally didn't even read the last three passages! -- just went straight to the questions and referred to the passage as needed. Blind guessed on a few, and realized during the break one I definitely got wrong. (don't you hate when that happens?) Was expecting a really solid performance here, but now just hoping for at least an 11 (what I scored the first time)

VR: After that demoralizing PS, I was thinking "void" already and had a hard time concentrating. Was scoring 10/11s the week prior with 6-7 min/passage. Here I took about 10 minutes on the first passage and felt like I rushed the rest. Barely got through them all. Definitely harder than I expected, but probably also because I couldn't believe that PS section. (scored a 6 the first time so I'll take anything above an 8 lol)

BS: Besides some ochem "educated guesses", I found it pretty easy. I can't say specifics, but TBR definitely helped me here! I finished with about 10 minutes. I think I did really solid here and probably the only reason I didn't void. Hoping for at least a 12. (scored 11 the first time)

And now we wait.......
 
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Hey... does anyone remember a physics question that was stupidly easy? I cant say what it was but it had to do with waves. Did I do the right thing by picking the easy answer or was I being tricked somehow lol. I never got a chance to get back to it.
 
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I feel similarly to others here about the 8/5 test, that the PS started out pretty straight-forward and got really difficult toward the end...in the sense that I would understand what concept they were driving at, but not how to quickly apply it to the question in front of me. I feel like I wound up throwing my hands up at a lot of questions; it was very frustrating. I would predict maybe 8's for myself on all 3 sections.
 
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i just feel like my brain went on stand by during verbal lol. i had trouble interpreting the passages and felt like i guessed on half the questions. its not like i suck at verbal, i averaged 11 on practice and got 11 the 1st time i took the real thing so i dunno. i am kinda freaking out about how i did:boom:
 
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gatorade848 said:
i just feel like my brain went on stand by during verbal lol. i had trouble interpreting the passages and felt like i guessed on half the questions. its not like i suck at verbal, i averaged 11 on practice and got 11 the 1st time i took the real thing so i dunno. i am kinda freaking out about how i did:boom:
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I felt the exact same way.. I am in your situation right now as well. I saw literally 10 other ppl earlier in this thread that are also freaking out about vr so I think this vr was one of the harder ones given by aamc. And this is SDN, where the over achievers gather so imagine the rest of the 8/5 test takers who also struggled with vr. All I know is that I probably hit a 6 or 7 on this vr so I am already studying for a retake. Just make sure it doesn't happen again.
 
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The weird thing for me is that I was dreading the PS section because Physics is my worst science subject by far. I finally got to the real MCAT . . . and it was like "where is the physics"? I think that kind of threw me a little bit. In addition to the fact that it got harder as you went along (as people upthread noted), I think those two things may have affected my PS score. I'm hoping not too badly. . . but . . . :scared:

I personally thought that the VS was challenging, but overall not that bad. But despite the fact that I have an extensive science background, I have always done better on the verbal sections in these standardized tests than in the math/science sections, so this is probably not surprising. I didn't think it was a cake walk, but I didn't think it was as scary impossible as some of the practice exams I took through Kaplan.

I thought the essay section was ridiculously easy. I mean, easy even for an MCAT essay. I know that nobody really cares about this score, but personally it did a lot for me in gaining some of my confidence back for the BS section after that awful PS section.

The BS section I thought was really easy. But like I said, I have an extensive background in science (I graduated from college awhile ago and have been working in real labs ever since), so a lot of the stuff in the passages was not scary or unfamiliar to me. Yeah, other than a couple of Orgo head scratchers, which I made educated guesses on, not that bad.

One last note. . . speaking of Orgo. . . to the MCAT powers that be- trying to make a question more difficult than it actually is by flipping the orientation of the molecule around is a really juvenile and dickish thing to do. This is supposed to be a test of our reading comprehension and ability to analyze information, not on our ability to re-orient chemical structures in our minds eye. This is nothing more than a cheap and easy way to make a question more "challenging" without having to think about it (on the part of the test-makers). And it's frankly :bullcrap:.
 
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ronathan said:
One last note. . . speaking of Orgo. . . to the MCAT powers that be- trying to make a question more difficult than it actually is by flipping the orientation of the molecule around is a really juvenile and dickish thing to do. This is supposed to be a test of our reading comprehension and ability to analyze information, not on our ability to re-orient chemical structures in our minds eye. This is nothing more than a cheap and easy way to make a question more "challenging" without having to think about it (on the part of the test-makers). And it's frankly :bullcrap:.
Click to expand...

I don't recall having to do that.
 
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are you referring to a discrete or a passage-based question? there were probably 1-2 difficult/esoteric orgo questions but the test was generally pretty light in the orgo dept as expected.
 
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We all have slightly different tests. Very similar, but not everyone's test is the same.

He could've had some questions we didn't and vice versa.

The only orgo I had trouble with was the discretes. I'm pretty good at orgo and still had some trouble. Not a huge deal but we'll see when scores come out.
 
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Does anyone feel any better about the test after letting a few days go by? I can say for sure i feel better now about it than when i walked out of that test center.
 
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FirefighterDoc said:
Does anyone feel any better about the test after letting a few days go by? I can say for sure i feel better now about it than when i walked out of that test center.
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Yea I do, but im still stressing over verbal.. I am already getting ready for a retake b/c of it. I know I did bad, and when I mean bad < 7
 
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mitchlucker said:
We all have slightly different tests. Very similar, but not everyone's test is the same.

He could've had some questions we didn't and vice versa.

The only orgo I had trouble with was the discretes. I'm pretty good at orgo and still had some trouble. Not a huge deal but we'll see when scores come out.
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Yea I remember there was this one orgo discrete which was ridonkkkulous and I wasn't able to make any connection to it at all. Other than that, I don't remember any crazy orgo that wasnt doable.
 
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