**Official September 9 2016 MCAT Thread**

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stgt9202

stgt9202

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Starting one for all my Sept 9 homies!!!
I recently took the MCAT on July 22nd and got my score back and decided that I could do better so I'm here again.

Best of luck and let's show some wonderful support!!
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I sincerely hope that everyone gets the score they want/need. This test was no joke! Bio section was pretty tough material to read through.
 
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The Behavioral Sciences Section was definitely not what I was expecting. I was expected terminology and instead it was all about interpreting the day at and what not. Overall on the exam I either did well or **** the bed. Hopefully the former because I really really don't want to take it a third time :(
 
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The orgo definitely screwed me up. People in the past had 1 orgo passage?? Deff not the case with todays exam. Cars was good. Behavioural science was unexpected lol. And b/b was weird. No physiology at all which was what i was hoping for
 
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Johnwickk said:
The orgo definitely screwed me up. People in the past had 1 orgo passage?? Deff not the case with todays exam. Cars was good. Behavioural science was unexpected lol. And b/b was weird. No physiology at all which was what i was hoping for
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Man what. Why did I study all that gen chem for...
 
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Honestly this whole test wasn't how I expected it to be. It definitely wasn't like the one I took last June.
 
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I pretty much agree with everyone...feeling meh about it... not super happy or super sad, just in the middle!

Chem/phys: everything except Gchem was on there haha like bruuuuhhhhh, and it didn't help that I had to go to the restroom so bad lmao (only lost 2 mins and still finished on time, so if you have to go don't sweat it!) Was there a lot of equations? I must have blacked out during that part LOL

Cars: pretty good, I actually liked the passages

Bio: my jam!!!

Psych/Soc: I really wanted more graphs and less words but ehh and was crunched for time a little.

Cheers to lotsssssss of alcohol, congrats everyone! So glad its over!!
 
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at this point I forgot everything that happened today...i'm just getting ready to brunch so hard this weekend and watch all my guilty pleasure shows
 
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C/P - I blanked out during the first 3-4 passages. Scored 127-129 throughout all NS and unscored/scored AAMC but never felt like this. My anxiety probably worsened it but I guessed on too many calculation questions. From what I can recall, there was maybe a few general chem and the rest was almost all physics and some orgo. Does the AAMC really keep their word on their supposed breakdown of subjects on the actual exam?

CARS - the reason why I rewrote the exam was to hopefully get a higher CARS score (but that C/P really caught me by a surprise). The passages were surprisingly okay, but seems like a lot of people thought it was pretty easy, so I'm guessing it will be a tougher curve.

B/B - other than ~2-3 passages near the end, it was very straightforward in comparison to the one I wrote on the Aug 25th. Analyzing data for most of the passages felt very doable. I guess the curve will be tougher on this too?

P/S - I thought this section would be a breeze in comparison to the other three, but this was the hardest P/S I've encountered so far in comparison to all the NS and AAMC exams I've done.
 
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lzsek said:
C/P - I blanked out during the first 3-4 passages. Scored 127-129 throughout all NS and unscored/scored AAMC but never felt like this. My anxiety probably worsened it but I guessed on too many calculation questions. From what I can recall, there was maybe a few general chem and the rest was almost all physics and some orgo. Does the AAMC really keep their word on their supposed breakdown of subjects on the actual exam?

CARS - the reason why I rewrote the exam was to hopefully get a higher CARS score (but that C/P really caught me by a surprise). The passages were surprisingly okay, but seems like a lot of people thought it was pretty easy, so I'm guessing it will be a tougher curve.

B/B - other than ~2-3 passages near the end, it was very straightforward in comparison to the one I wrote on the Aug 25th. Analyzing data for most of the passages felt very doable. I guess the curve will be tougher on this too?

P/S - I thought this section would be a breeze in comparison to the other three, but this was the hardest P/S I've encountered so far in comparison to all the NS and AAMC exams I've done.
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CARS is usually my worse section, but the content wasn't difficult to understand but answering the questions is what matters. I'm sure you did better than you think!

P/S I agree, it was very different from what I thought it would be and my least favorite section. I think the discrete questions were great but those passage questions were annoying lol
 
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DS Bach said:
does anyone know what a 127 in CARS converts to in the old mcat score?
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10 (based on percentiles)

Anyhow, here's what I felt about the exam.
C/P: Hard -- math sucks. Much harder than the scored (where I only missed one question); I had to randomly guess on at least a few questions here. Many section bank difficulty level questions here. Will almost definitely have a much better curve than the scored exam.
CARS: About the same as the aamc scored; probably will be curved similarly to that too. Definitely not as hard as the first half of CARS qpack 1 but it was harder than the unscored. Easier than the test-prep companies' CARS (which I feel are unrepresentative anyway).
B/B: Ranged from easy (confident I got pretty much everything in the beginning correct) to rather weird (especially towards the end). Felt it was harder than the scored. Easier than many of the section bank questions. Comparable (but a bit easier) than the official guide questions, which I also felt were weird. Might be curved similarly (perhaps only a little bit more generously) than the scored.
P/S: Hard & Weird; ambiguous, unpredictable. Don't even know how to describe this section. It wasn't intellectually challenging; it was just strange. Definitely harder than the scored and should certainly be curved more nicely than the scored (which had a pretty harsh curve haha).

My scored exam was 518. My predicted score for the unscored exam was also 518. I don't think I did as well on today's exam though... I really did not enjoy many of the questions, even though I didn't feel they were challenging (thought-provoking) questions. Ah well, the MCAT is a very inconsistent exam, and I might just retake it in January if need be.
 
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DS Bach said:
isn't a 10 technically 84% whereas a 127 is 83%, so does that make it fall under a 9?
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127 means you scored better than 83%-89% of test-takers. A 10 means you scored better than 84-94% of the population. That's why I'd think 10 is more equivalent to 127 than a 9 is.
 
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stgt9202 said:
I did but I think it was because I knew to expect a hard exam (from my previous exam) and changed my study habits to prepare better


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
Click to expand...

How'd you prepare differently this time around? Also did anyone ever take the old exam? How much different do you guys feel this new one is? My old exam had a lot of experimental passages so when everyone says the new one is so much more experimental I freak out because I thought the old exm already was filled with research interpretation lol.
 
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StretchDoe said:
How'd you prepare differently this time around? Also did anyone ever take the old exam? How much different do you guys feel this new one is? My old exam had a lot of experimental passages so when everyone says the new one is so much more experimental I freak out because I thought the old exm already was filled with research interpretation lol.
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I took the old exam! Back in 2013 so when I reapplied this cycle it expired and was forced to take the new one. I'd say it's completely different expect for CARS. And when they say there's a lot more experiments it means that they incorporate multiple fields of science into the passage and it's more medically oriented. You're more likely to get passages on lenses, blood flow, or the thermodynamics of a drug than you are going to get an incline plane question.

As for what I did differently...I retook a few practice exams (TPR and EK) and mostly took NS 1-6 and did all the AAMC practice questions. I was more aware of the fact that I wasn't reading carefully in the science passages and missed key information that would help me answer the "wtf" questions. The more questions I went through the more aware I became of the types of questions I'd see and how to attack each question. After each practice exam I also looked at why I'd get questions wrong and I realized that it wasn't because I didn't really know the content, but it's the wording and thinking that I know what they're asking before finishing reading the question even. Also there's a dropbox of KA notes going around that I went through to review my content...especially for P/S.

I think it also came down to my anxiety. I have very bad standardized test anxiety and in the three weeks I took to study for my retake I also trained myself to be calm and that helped me get through tough questions.
Hope that helps!
 
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Question: how many different Mcat versions do they have in a day?

C/P--guessed more than usual. Sometimes i think about some of ISEE questions and think I answered well, and sometimes I'm so scared I missed a small detail and answered wrong. Just never know -- the questions you thought you got right you could get wrong and the ones you think you got wrong you might get right. Just don't really know. Pretty disappointed because I got a great score on the practice :/

CARS-- straightforwArd so harder curve :/ MADE UP FOR THE C/P ****show

B/B -- straightforward with a few wtf freestanding questions that I'm just like "you really expected us to study that detail?" Or "NO REVIEW BOOK COVERED THIS". Hope to be on the good side of the curve.

P/S -- quite a bit harder than practice. I was a bit sad after this one. Already study materials are sort of vague and don't provide concrete definitions for ideas and now on this section, questions and answer choices were ambiguous and obscure. Just disappointed. Hope this is curved better. A lot of guesswork 50/50 guessing s**t.
 
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This percentile nonsense got me a little on edge. If there are less exam takes this time, doesn't that skew the results slightly? They might account for it but still.
 
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sleepyhead22 said:
No, it's all predetermined based on how previous test takers do on the "test" passages/questions. So the scale is predetermined before your test day and isn't influenced by how others do on your test day. Why it ends up taking a full month to account for this, however, I have no clue.
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because it's a business.
 
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NovaPreMed23 said:
The Behavioral Sciences Section was definitely not what I was expecting. I was expected terminology and instead it was all about interpreting the day at and what not. Overall on the exam I either did well or **** the bed. Hopefully the former because I really really don't want to take it a third time :(
Click to expand...
We are on the same boat pal. This was my second time around, and I went hard on the material on this attempt. Don't know if I could go any harder if I have to retake this exam again. Do you go to school in FL by any chance? Your username got my attention.
 
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stgt9202 said:
I took the old exam! Back in 2013 so when I reapplied this cycle it expired and was forced to take the new one. I'd say it's completely different expect for CARS. And when they say there's a lot more experiments it means that they incorporate multiple fields of science into the passage and it's more medically oriented. You're more likely to get passages on lenses, blood flow, or the thermodynamics of a drug than you are going to get an incline plane question.

As for what I did differently...I retook a few practice exams (TPR and EK) and mostly took NS 1-6 and did all the AAMC practice questions. I was more aware of the fact that I wasn't reading carefully in the science passages and missed key information that would help me answer the "wtf" questions. The more questions I went through the more aware I became of the types of questions I'd see and how to attack each question. After each practice exam I also looked at why I'd get questions wrong and I realized that it wasn't because I didn't really know the content, but it's the wording and thinking that I know what they're asking before finishing reading the question even. Also there's a dropbox of KA notes going around that I went through to review my content...especially for P/S.

I think it also came down to my anxiety. I have very bad standardized test anxiety and in the three weeks I took to study for my retake I also trained myself to be calm and that helped me get through tough questions.
Hope that helps!
Click to expand...
Where do I find those KA notes?
 
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sleepyhead22 said:
No, it's all predetermined based on how previous test takers do on the "test" passages/questions. So the scale is predetermined before your test day and isn't influenced by how others do on your test day. Why it ends up taking a full month to account for this, however, I have no clue.
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This, I didn't know. Why the heck it takes so long to get our scores back? I know this is a business, like anything else in America, including religion; yes, I said it. But man, no need to play with people's emotions, specially when they work so hard for something.
 
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sleepyhead22 said:
No, it's all predetermined based on how previous test takers do on the "test" passages/questions. So the scale is predetermined before your test day and isn't influenced by how others do on your test day. Why it ends up taking a full month to account for this, however, I have no clue.
Click to expand...
https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/2lhnnj/why_does_the_mcat_take_so_long_to_grade/
Another interesting theory, "...releasing scores immediately correlates with a higher risk of suicide..." as if the AAMC cares.
 
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Hey, I took the sept 10th exam and I noticed that the 9th and 10th exams both get released on the same day.
Just wondering, do yall think they combined the 2 exams when averaging the questions answered correctly?
 
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whatfield131 said:
Hey, I took the sept 10th exam and I noticed that the 9th and 10th exams both get released on the same day.
Just wondering, do yall think they combined the 2 exams when averaging the questions answered correctly?
Click to expand...

There are many versions of the test given throughout the year. They look at scores from every person who took your version, whether it is from your test day or months earlier.
 
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MountainTopWaterDrop said:
We are on the same boat pal. This was my second time around, and I went hard on the material on this attempt. Don't know if I could go any harder if I have to retake this exam again. Do you go to school in FL by any chance? Your username got my attention.
Click to expand...
Sorry I haven't logged on in a bit. But yes the last time I took it, it was all terminology and theories so I spent all my time going HAM on that stuff and then got a complete curve ball. So I'm disappointed in that regard. But to answer your question, no I didn't. I went to Villanova but I know there is a Nova medical school in Florida so maybe that's why lol
 
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NovaPreMed23 said:
Sorry I haven't logged on in a bit. But yes the last time I took it, it was all terminology and theories so I spent all my time going HAM on that stuff and then got a complete curve ball. So I'm disappointed in that regard. But to answer your question, no I didn't. I went to Villanova but I know there is a Nova medical school in Florida so maybe that's why lol
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Yes, that's why I asked, lol. Few more days and we all will find out. I can't concentrate and do other subliminal things that in no way, shape or form relate to the MCAT. Next Wednesday might cheer me up or probably bring me to the lowest point of my existence. I hope that the former takes place while the latter stays as an extinguishing thought.
 
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enhanced-buzz-28895-1301694293-0.jpg
 
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I took mine on the 10th and I am now starting to freak out. My profile pic will be me this Wednesday :)
 
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Hi everyone! My name's Christina, and I'm a Stanford psychology alum studying how people respond to academic challenges. By participating, you can earn $3 in less than 10 minutes, and help out future test takers.

If you sign-up here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8WQFYST I’ll email you a link to a short survey about your MCAT experience on Saturday, 10/15/16. If you participate, you’ll receive an Amazon gift card via email. Thanks in advance for your help!
 
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Also, I wrote this on Sept. 10 thread but we're all in the same boat this Oct. 12, good luck everyone:

Guys, the way I see things, it is exactly like a football career.

Football players are evaluated based on 16 games a season. We are evaluated on ~9 classes a year.
Football players are evaluated at the NFL combine in Indianapolis - a stressful 2-3 day event with multiple sections. We are evaluated similarly on our MCAT.
The NFL has 32 teams that will only select 7 players each in the draft, similar to how on average we will apply to around 30-35 schools.

What's the kicker about how this is so similar? Tom Brady was far from being the 1st pick of the NFL draft. 198 players were selected before him. He was the underdog. Of course now he is the greatest of all time quarterback with 4 Super Bowl rings, 3 Super Bowl MVP award, 2 NFL MVP award, and 11 Pro Bowl selection. Likewise, this process and its number can have little correlation to how much you might break out as a star physician. Antonio Brown is another example just like Brady.

In a game you will get sacked and lose 10 yards. You will fumble the ball and throw interceptions. It is natural and it happens. Hunker down and do your job. Keep the ball moving forward and score.

If you don't get drafted, there is always free agency (our version of the wait list) and there are also plenty of stars that came out of that path!
 
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toddgurley said:
Also, I wrote this on Sept. 10 thread but we're all in the same boat this Oct. 12, good luck everyone:

Guys, the way I see things, it is exactly like a football career.

Football players are evaluated based on 16 games a season. We are evaluated on ~9 classes a year.
Football players are evaluated at the NFL combine in Indianapolis - a stressful 2-3 day event with multiple sections. We are evaluated similarly on our MCAT.
The NFL has 32 teams that will only select 7 players each in the draft, similar to how on average we will apply to around 30-35 schools.

What's the kicker about how this is so similar? Tom Brady was far from being the 1st pick of the NFL draft. 198 players were selected before him. He was the underdog. Of course now he is the greatest of all time quarterback with 4 Super Bowl rings, 3 Super Bowl MVP award, 2 NFL MVP award, and 11 Pro Bowl selection. Likewise, this process and its number can have little correlation to how much you might break out as a star physician. Antonio Brown is another example just like Brady.

In a game you will get sacked and lose 10 yards. You will fumble the ball and throw interceptions. It is natural and it happens. Hunker down and do your job. Keep the ball moving forward and score.

If you don't get drafted, there is always free agency (our version of the wait list) and there are also plenty of stars that came out of that path!
Click to expand...
Really, thank you for this
 
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