Plateau/Frustration

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eib275

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I have AAMC 3 and a sample test left. I'm panicking, not sure what to do.

Going to take the sample test tomorrow and hit content review more. The exam is in 4 weeks. I'll take AAMC#3 in 2 weeks.

Today: TPR 496

AAMC 3 498 (April)

TPR 498 (April)

AAMC 2 503 (April)

TPR 498 (March)

AAMC 1 501 (March)

TPR 499 (March)

TPR 494 (diagnostic) (Feb)

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Sorry to hear you're frustrated and hitting a plateau. It's hard!

What's your score breakdown like? From the last posts you made, I assume balanced, 124-126 across the board? Third-party exams are a little deflated so I think you could expect 497-503 or so on the real thing. The downside risk is not super appealing though.

Preparation: What kind of practice/review have you done? Have you tried, or are you using, common tools like the AAMC question packs/section banks, Anki or UWorld (which really drills into content gaps, IMO)?

Were your grades in the corresponding classes decent--is it really content or MCAT skills that you need to work on? E.g. the logic of the questions, numeracy...

Post-FL review: If you're using up your FLs and practice tests, you need to be maximizing their utility. Since you're taking these pretty close together, it makes me ask about post-exam review. Are you reviewing every question that you got wrong after the test is scored? Do you know what kind of questions you're missing, i.e. discrete or passage-based, graphical/understanding or inference beyond the passage...? Are you doing targeted content review in between tests? (For me, obviously each exam tests different stuff, but if I was shown to be really weak in one topic I just hit that over the next couple of days so I felt better and more confident moving on :))

You can find some examples online of how people review their practice tests. No need to go all hardcore Excel spreadsheet on it, but the principle is basically that you need to figure out what you're getting wrong and how. Just tracking progress by scores is not super helpful (and more anxiety-provoking too).
 
Sorry to hear you're frustrated and hitting a plateau. It's hard!

What's your score breakdown like? From the last posts you made, I assume balanced, 124-126 across the board? Third-party exams are a little deflated so I think you could expect 497-503 or so on the real thing. The downside risk is not super appealing though.

Preparation: What kind of practice/review have you done? Have you tried, or are you using, common tools like the AAMC question packs/section banks, Anki or UWorld (which really drills into content gaps, IMO)?

Were your grades in the corresponding classes decent--is it really content or MCAT skills that you need to work on? E.g. the logic of the questions, numeracy...

Post-FL review: If you're using up your FLs and practice tests, you need to be maximizing their utility. Since you're taking these pretty close together, it makes me ask about post-exam review. Are you reviewing every question that you got wrong after the test is scored? Do you know what kind of questions you're missing, i.e. discrete or passage-based, graphical/understanding or inference beyond the passage...? Are you doing targeted content review in between tests? (For me, obviously each exam tests different stuff, but if I was shown to be really weak in one topic I just hit that over the next couple of days so I felt better and more confident moving on :))

You can find some examples online of how people review their practice tests. No need to go all hardcore Excel spreadsheet on it, but the principle is basically that you need to figure out what you're getting wrong and how. Just tracking progress by scores is not super helpful (and more anxiety-provoking too).
Ended up with a 509! Wish it was better (of course) but I'm not mad..509 (127/128/125/129)
 
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