Official 7/14/2012 MCAT Thread

[rjosh33]

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I haven't seen this date posted yet, but I know I can't be the only one taking it on this day. It's almost exactly two months away, and hopefully everybody's prep is productive so far. I've been doing a lot of practice tests, and, at the advice of others, ordered a quarterly subscription to The Economist to try and help out with Verbal (jury's still out on that one). My target score is going to be tough to reach, and I still have a lot of work to do to get there. We'll see how it goes in about 60 days.

Any other "7/14ers" out there?

 

[AudreyH]

Lucky...haha...I ran out of time on the Physical Sciences section so I guessed on a lot of the questions. I was also kind of rushed on the Biological Sciences section, which usually doesn't happen to me, so I had to guess on a lot.

 

[Jepstein30]

Woohooo done!

I feel great, I feel I did great and its great to have done it finally!

Nice to be done but not sure how I did.. I think I did alright but not that amazing.

PS was a killer.. there were a few questions I just stared at.. "You gave me one number and want me to do what??"

VR I thought was a tad easier than usual.. no crazy hard passages but a good number of hard questions

BS was same difficulty I think.. a few more discretes requiring crazy details but overall wasn't very orgo heavy and had some tough/easy passages.

Thought I would do a little bit better than what I'm feeling I did now but as long as its a good score, I'll take it.

 

[05silvergt]

I thought it wasn't so bad up until the bio section. I felt like it was ridamndiclous.

First beer is in progress, I plan on drinking enough to kill a moose. I'll try to check back in tomorrow with a massive hangover.

Hopefully it went well for everyone.

 

[deleted424991]

The PS was a bit longer and had some confusing passages.
VR I was confused on a lot of questions. I have no idea how that went. Also the passages were really long.
I felt good about BS. There was one passage that was really difficult to understand.

 

[Buttermellow]

Whew! Just finished. PS was tough for me, as usual. Verbal was OK, I'm usually good at that regardless. Bio was surprisingly tough.

The one thing I hated about my last mcat was that I got a verbal passage on a certain topic I hate. I open up the verbal section on this test, and what do I see, but a passage on that very topic -_-

 

[Jepstein30]

Is it a bad thing I can't remember any of the questions? I want to look up answers but am blanking out big time.

 

[Buttermellow]

Is it a bad thing I can't remember any of the questions? I want to look up answers but am blanking out big time.

I remember like 2 questions I could look up. I pretty much don't remember anything, I've selectively deleted it from my memory due to the trauma.

 

[Jepstein30]

I remember like 2 questions I could look up. I pretty much don't remember anything, I've selectively deleted it from my memory due to the trauma.

I remember the two physics problems that COMPLETELY stumped me and a few of the harder BS ones.. also the last discrete which I gotta look up.

 

[Buttermellow]

I remember the two physics problems that COMPLETELY stumped me and a few of the harder BS ones.. also the last discrete which I gotta look up.

I mostly remember bio stuff that stumped me. Stuff I really should've known, but didn't really study 🙁 I always end up picking opposite answers because I get stressed out and can't think clearly.

 

[Barley426]

05silvergt, I thought the bio was ok, I knew however it would be tough for some.

Jepstein yeah ps had some tough questions I knew to guess and come back to, I had enough time at the end and was able to go back and figure out how to solve them.

I did remember a few bio questions that for at least one I still can't find a clear cut answer to, which means its not really a good question, hopefully they throw it out.

Now the waiting game, although I feel I did around my average (35), maybe better.

Nice to be done but not sure how I did.. I think I did alright but not that amazing.

PS was a killer.. there were a few questions I just stared at.. "You gave me one number and want me to do what??"

VR I thought was a tad easier than usual.. no crazy hard passages but a good number of hard questions

BS was same difficulty I think.. a few more discretes requiring crazy details but overall wasn't very orgo heavy and had some tough/easy passages.

Thought I would do a little bit better than what I'm feeling I did now but as long as its a good score, I'll take it.

 

[Jepstein30]

I mostly remember bio stuff that stumped me. Stuff I really should've known, but didn't really study 🙁 I always end up picking opposite answers because I get stressed out and can't think clearly.

I hated that one bio passage that was just a wall of text..

WHY YOU NO GIVE ME FIGURES

 

[BurntFlower]

I thought Physics was terribly hard, but I'm pretty bad at Physics and always have been so I wasn't surprised.

Verbal was a piece of cake, imo.

Bio was...confusing. And there was this wall-of-text passage that almost made me go WTF out loud. It was very dense and difficult to read. I also ran out of time on this section and had to guess on one entire passage.

In the end, I voided because I did not do well on AAMC 3 (I got a freaking 17 and it's supposed to be the easiest one), so I don't regret my decision.

 

[nsj16]

Did anyone else think PS was unusually difficult in comparison to the aamc practice ps passage. Verbal I thought was better than some of the later aamc and bio reminded alot of aamc 11 bio

 

[Jepstein30]

Did anyone else think PS was unusually difficult in comparison to the aamc practice ps passage. Verbal I thought was better than some of the later aamc and bio reminded alot of aamc 11 bio

My thoughts exactly.

Now that I settled down a little bit, starting to realize I think I did better than I orginially thought.

I'm going to predict (very optimistically) a: 11 PS, 13 VR, 13 BS

 

[BurntFlower]

Did anyone else think PS was unusually difficult in comparison to the aamc practice ps passage. Verbal I thought was better than some of the later aamc and bio reminded alot of aamc 11 bio

I felt awful during the entire PS section.

 

[SoMinty]

Been scoring 40 on the official practice tests, hoping to get atleast that on this but... who knows. PS was more difficult than I usually think (one section in particular wasted alot of my time). VR was fine I thought. Who cares about essays. BS always hardest for me, some random questions that weren't covered in mcgraw hill (**** me right) I managed to get right by elimination but I'm sure I missed atleast a couple. :/

Edit: Thought BS was very simillar to AAMC 11in difficulty/feel

 

[Jepstein30]

Been scoring 40 on the official practice tests, hoping to get atleast that on this but... who knows. PS was more difficult than I usually think (one section in particular wasted alot of my time). VR was fine I thought. Who cares about essays. BS always hardest for me, some random questions that weren't covered in mcgraw hill (**** me right) I managed to get right by elimination but I'm sure I missed atleast a couple. :/

Edit: Thought BS was very simillar to AAMC 11in difficulty/feel

I only hit one 40 on AAMC 11 but yea I agree, this PS was harder and I think I know the passage you are talking about as well.

My essays were awesome!! I'm actually predicting an S in writing haha..

BS passages weren't so conceptually difficult other than that one but yea, there were a bunch of discretes that were asking for random details.

30 days!

 

[walleyealx]

NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN!


I thought PS was OK. A lot of stuff on there that wasn't on AAMC FL's. Verbal was on the easier side, but it still had it's fair share of thinkers. BS kinda sucked a bit.

 

[markjohn]

I don't know that was a weird test. Usually I have problems with VR but science sections go really smoothly. This time around it was the opposite. In the PS section (idk how vague we can be about the content) the circuit passage i found really hard and in BS i found the snake passage hard.

Also I agree with the person who said that there were random hard science questions.

 

[adman72390]

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[SoMinty]

Hard to remember alot of PS. Thought it was fairly difficult, did not run out of time did not leave anything blank but I know for sure I got one question wrong now, probably more to follow.

 

[jsack12]

PS had a difficult passage, but overall not soo bad. VR was relatively easy, but BIO was a killer.

 

[MDream5]

I also thought that PS was brutal😱 and had to guess on a lot of questions which is not something I had to do during the practice tests. Verbal and bio were OK (although I had to guess a lot on the snake passage).

 

[adman72390]

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[Ineedhopenow]

WTF!!!! In bs I guessed 5 questions due to time. That passages was so detailed!!!! Prediction 27 (PS- 10, VR- 9, BS- 8).

Going to apply to DO only schools now...

 

[AgentTurquoise]

Just finished

PS: There were some questions where I was like and there was one passage that I thought was difficult/unsure of. I'm usually really confident about physics but there was a lot of gen chem stuff which I thought was difficult.

VR: better than I thought, no especially difficult passages which may mean no curve. 👎

BS: I thought two bio passages in the end were really difficult. Orgo was fine, there was one question I was unsure of. I didn't give myself enough time to really think through the last section. I'm really hoping my guesses were correct.

I hope my score is above 30, that's all I'm praying for. 🙁

 

[Whiteshoes]

which section do you guys feel will get curved the most? i hope it was the PS.. i was ave 11-12 on TBR PS but I felt more uncomfortable on more than usual amount of problems.

 

[puppylove89]

I can't lie...that was hard.

3rd time retake here, trying to improve from a 29.

PS- I start with the discretes first and the first discrete I was like WTF? Don't feel great about it, was averaging 11-13, hoping for double digits

VR- Meh....not great, not horrible, I can never tell with Verbal. Hoping for 10+, this is the reason I'm retaking (1st time 10, 2nd time 8)

BS- Overall I felt the best about this section, but not by much...Again, just hoping for 10+

I felt horrible coming out of the exam, as a 3rd time retaker I would have thought that I rocked the exam...nope, it just never feels good walking out of that center does it? 🙁

 

[ozzi22]

PS- First passage was so easy i started questioning if this was the REAL MCAT until i got hit with passage 4 ( or maybe passage 3 but i cant remember). Anyways, this passage tested my weakness in all of physics topics and it had like 4 calculations in this very passage. Also, the questions that were suppose to be freebies were tricky as hell.

VR- For some reason, the passages were easier than the aamc ones and verbal is my weakness. so that says something. Also, the passages were not longer as people make it out to be except for the last passage which was a paragraph longer from the usual aamc.

BIO- passages were similar to TPR advanced passages and AAMC 11. guessed on half of the discretes because of time. I voided in the end. ( not because it was harder than the usual aamc's but i wasn't fully prepared yet........ still had some weaknesses to address).

 

[turmoil]

That test was pretty rowdy.

I honestly thought it was more difficult than AAMC 11, but I guess only time will tell

 

[ClandestineStar]

I thought it wasn't so bad up until the bio section. I felt like it was ridamndiclous.

First beer is in progress, I plan on drinking enough to kill a moose. I'll try to check back in tomorrow with a massive hangover.

Hopefully it went well for everyone.

I completely agree!
PS wasn't bad, I mismanaged time on a few of the questions, but overall felt confidant
Verbal seemed easier than normal
Bio was horrid. There was that one passage I had to re-read twice, and I did not think it was 20% org.

Does anyone have advice on how to improve on bio?

 

[zzzcor]

PS- well, I feel most strong about this section and I thought it was fairly ok? There were some random questions, and random passages but could have gone by
VR- my weakest section; I thought it was okay as well and none of the passages was crazy hard, but that just means harsh curve.. hope I hit a 9..
BS- killer. very dense passages (muscle?) and randomest discretes I have ever seen. Not sure how it's gonna turn out, but I thought it was very hard.

lets see how it turns out next month! time to relax people

 

[nabilesmail]

Woohooo done!

I feel great, I feel I did great and its great to have done it finally!

Ugh I feel like I did terrible :/ 7 ish questions (that im worried about) on PS with 1 for sure wrong. Probably more in Bio, I didnt understand the heart crap

I predict 11/9/11 :/ got a 38 on AAMC11

 

[Ineedhopenow]

I'm crying right now. This is my third time taking this...DAMN BS!!!

I swear to God that one passage is impossible to do, even if I had another go at it (unless I had unlimited time) I wouldn't be able to do it. I skipped 5 questions in that passage to answer the last passage. I hardly had any time left and had to guess those 5 skipped questions.

I f***ing hate this exam!!! It's not fair. I know the material in and out. I just can't understand convoluted passages in the amount of time they give. F***!!!!!!!

How is this suppose to predict how much you know?!!! It's more of an exam testing how well you can interpret a passage and answer detail-oriented questions.

Does anyone know if the USMLE is like this too? I do really well in knowledge-based exams. This s*** was not one of them...

 

[Sports Junky]

PS - I didn't start off too well, I started to panic the second passage in. I usually don't get nervous during standardized tests, but I don't know what happened. There was one passage that was a killer for me, and I spent a majority of my time on it. Looking back on it, I probably should have skipped it and finished the rest of the PS, seeing as the rest was significantly easier. Unfortunately, at the end of this section I had a strong feeling I was about to void the test.

VR - I could not have asked for a better section; all of the topics were something I was relatively interested in. As a result, I finished with 11 minutes left (which is AMAZING for me). At this point, I was very dissapointed with myself that I let my nerves get to me during PS.

BS - Overall, this was the type of section I was hoping for. Relatively easy orgo, with sufficient time to map and answer the rest of the questions. I felt happy with my performance in this section.

In the end, I decided to void my exam. I'm almost positive my PS would have been 3-4 points below my average, and I know I could have put forth a better effort. I'm very dissapointed that I got off to a rough start, especially because the rest of the exam was alot smoother than I had expected. Oh well, I'm not applying until next year and maybe an extra month will help my verbal score. Looks like I'm married to this test for at least another month 🙁

 

[Sports Junky]

Btw, does anyone know how I can verify that I voided my score? I chose the second option and then got another screen that dealt with various circumstances that scores may be voided. I never actually got a confirmation of the test being voided, so I'm just a little nervous

 

[AA|FCB|DOC]

I'm crying right now. This is my third time taking this...DAMN BS!!!

I swear to God that one passage is impossible to do, even if I had another go at it (unless I had unlimited time) I wouldn't be able to do it. I skipped 5 questions in that passage to answer the last passage. I hardly had any time left and had to guess those 5 skipped questions.

I f***ing hate this exam!!! It's not fair. I know the material in and out. I just can't understand convoluted passages in the amount of time they give. F***!!!!!!!

How is this suppose to predict how much you know?!!! It's more of an exam testing how well you can interpret a passage and answer detail-oriented questions.

Does anyone know if the USMLE is like this too? I do really well in knowledge-based exams. This s*** was not one of them...

I completely agree. its funny how i think 10 more min on the science section would let me figure most stuff out but the time crunch is so redic. I understand that doctors have to take known concepts and synthesize them from less familiar conditions, but when you do that you have years of schooling under your belt, and no one is holding a gun next to your head and timing you. Its one thing to be able to interpret them and its another to be able to interpret them fast. I feel like time is what makes this exam so frickin hard.

Anyways...

PS- the 4th passage (i think) was redic. So many calculations and in weird ways too. not stuff you would normally have to calculate.

VR- thought the actual passages were pretty easy to comprehend, but found the questions to be pretty damn hard. A lot of them came down to two answers.

Writing- who gives a ****

BS- Bio was pretty hard too. again, like the PS section there was one passage that was just really hard to gather all together after reading just once.

overall, i thought it was hard as hell. we will see what happens though. From what I hear even those who score well come out feeling like their brain got smashed by Ray Lewis.

 

[forthewin]

bio SUCKED.

didn't void, but was wondering what your thoughts were on retaking. are you going to wait to get scores back before doing so? i don't feel very good about the exam but don't want my app to be pushed back to far into the app cycle if i wait to get the crappy score back.

 

[nsj16]

Btw, does anyone know how I can verify that I voided my score? I chose the second option and then got another screen that dealt with various circumstances that scores may be voided. I never actually got a confirmation of the test being voided, so I'm just a little nervous

They dont give you an actual verification when the official scores come out when you log in to check your score it will say mcat voided so as for now youll see nothing .... i stressed out to in jan when i voided

 

[Sports Junky]

They dont give you an actual verification when the official scores come out when you log in to check your score it will say mcat voided so as for now youll see nothing .... i stressed out to in jan when i voided

Ok thank you! When I log into my MCAT registration screen, it's still showing that I was registered for the exam today, but there is no indication of my scores being released. I think this is a good sign

 

[nabilesmail]

Ugh man... the thermo passage :/

and damn heart one!!!!!

I hate when I have to wildly guess at questions, something I did in this test :/

 

[k11gga]

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[k11gga]

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[nabilesmail]

I thought the heart one was tolerable. What wasn't tolerable was the one that was just words. I think it was the hardest single bio passage I've ever seen. Its like they're playing a game with us to see how much we can take before kicking the monitor in.

Well the passage actually wasn't too hard, it was just those questions that specifically had to do with "heart" stuff ;] equation wise

 

[k11gga]

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[adman72390]

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[k11gga]

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[NiceMustacheBRO]

PS
Dudeeeeeeeeeeeeee 😎, was averaging 11 in PS, but had trouble finishing the PS today. PS definitely felt difficult!

VR
Am I the only one that feels verbal was easier to read but tougher questions?

BS
BS was okay, just one crazy passage but overall didn't feel too bad.

 

[09ine]

Still straining to remember a circuit passage. Any help please? Do remember individual questions.

If AAMC catches you soliciting information you won't be eligible for med school...ever.

 

[markjohn]

Circuit passage? I have total amnesia about PS, can you refresh my memory on that? I just had trouble with the thermo passage. As did everyone I'm sure.

I think I might be mixing 2 passages together but it was the one where they gave us a circuit and a table that had several equations. No f****** idea what that was. All I know is that I barely used the equations and by the end I felt like crap.