Paper vs CBT

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swamprat

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So I've been studying pretty intensely on/off since the end of May. My test is Sept 13th and I've been relatively getting consistant 10s on both science sections w Kaplan exams and the AAMCs. I had a coupe 11s in bio and physical sciences as well. However my verbal was never up to par. The highest I've ever score was a 9 whentaking a practice CBT but I have been getting 10s (31/40) on the EK 101 practice verbal exams. I'm starting to attribute this to one of two things:

A) fatigue from the physical science section (or not getting right into the verbal mode so to speak)

B) computer screen - its harder to get absorbed into the reading on a computer screen than it is looking down at a book. i feel like i can skim passages quicker in a book.

So what should i do? I mean I took an aamc test the other day and score 10, 7, 11 -- the 7 in verbal turned out to be from messing up 1 passage on completely and getting all 7 questions wrong on it. So maybe I'm starting to adapt, idk? Does anyone else see these varying differecnes between EK and practice CBTs (particularly aamc?)

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sounds like the computer screen may be a problem for you, for whatever reason. the best way to fix that would just be to keep practicing with that. i don't think you're getting fatigued, since usually ppl aren't fatigued after 1 section. so i would just keep doing the exams, even repeat past verbal exams just so you get used to the computer format, and look at your wrong answer choices and try to figure out why you got them wrong.
 
You MUST take your practice tests on the computer--forget the paper. It's just not the same experience, and will give you a misleading idea of how you're likely to score. When I was studying for the MCAT, friends who'd taken it already urged me to take a course with online practice tests (like Kaplan or PR), because those are close to the feel of taking the real MCAT.

I took Kaplan myself, but I think their verbal materials are truly horrible. Once I completely ignored all their practice materials, my verbal score went up dramatically (even on THEIR practice MCATS!). I took the real MCAT 7/8 and was very disappointed in my score (only 30, which was 5 points below my practice average), but verbal wasn't the problem: I got 12 on the verbal and an S on the writing sample. (Too bad nobody cares about that one.)

My problem was finishing the PS on time; while I never had a problem with this on the AAMC practice tests, in real life I can never manage it. On my first MCAT, I had a mini panic attack at the beginning of PS and ended up leaving 8 or 9 questions blank at the end. This was suicidal, because I ended up with a 7. I retook the exam yesterday, and although I was very calm, I still came up about 4 questions short at the end. I'm still hoping that I still did at least a couple of points better.

My advice to anyone who's having timing problems before the MCAT: DON'T take the real test until you can reliably finish the AAMC practice tests on time. (Kaplan is a different story; their questions are so much harder that I was never even close to finishing their PS.) Any questions you don't do will count as WRONG answers, which will really put a lid on your score, so you need to really drill timing until you're doing better at it. And if you have an experience like I did, with more than a handful of questions left blank, VOID. There's really no way you can get a good score under those circumstances.
 
Definitely a huge difference in reading passages (especially verbal) on the computer as opposed to on paper. Its something you've got to get used to so stick with CBTs until it no longer poses a problem.
 
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