Retake advice?

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ohyou98

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I got my score back 508 (128/124/127/129) and I’m planning to retake the MCAT in January or March. I work 40+ hours. My goal score is +515. Does anyone have any advice for me? How can I improve? How should I structure my study schedule? I should mention that English isn’t my first language and I struggle with CARS a lot… thanks in advance !

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Welcome to the forums.

First off, I want to say that your MCAT score is not a detriment to your application. Your CP, BB, and PS scores are quite strong and a 508 is good enough to get into medical school pending other factors in your application. Given that English is not your native language, your CARS score is acceptable. CARS is a very, very challenging section for folks who do not have English as a native language. Side note: I was an ESL teacher and up until earlier this month I used to tutor sections of the mcat and in particular I worked with folks on CARS. Before jumping into a retake, you really have to aim to get your score up quite a bit. A 1 or 2 point improvement isn't really going to make a difference especially because the AAMC recommends that programs average multiple MCAT scores together. With that being said, you really need to be aiming for 4+ points higher on the second attempt. The AAMC publishes data for second MCAT attempts that shows that the vast majority of students score close to their original score. Only around a quarter see an increase greater than 1 point. I don't say this to discourage you from retaking but rather to give you some additional things to consider.

Without knowing how you prepared for the MCAT before, what I would recommend is you do the following:
1. Take a month or two off from studying. Take time to really process your score and to rest. Preparing for the MCAT is a long and arduous process and you will be much more effective if you take time off.
2. I would prepare as though you need to go back through all of the material again with three phases: content review, practice MCAT exams and sections, and AAMC practice. I tend to encourage folks to spend 25%-33% of their time doing dedicated content review using review books, videos, and practice passages (I highly recommend TBR but other materials work well as well). For the MCAT exam and section practice, I would aim to do 5 full length mcat exams under simulated testing conditions to practice strategies, timing, and to find gaps in reasoning and content knowledge. I highly recommend getting a subscription to UWorld and doing simulated 1/2 MCAT exams with a full section of CP and CARS on one day and then BB and PS on another. Make sure you review these thoroughly to identify more gaps in content knowledge and errors. Finally with AAMC practice, you need to go through all of the materials that they publish. I would spend one day doing a practice exam and then two days fully reviewing it. When I say review, I mean really review - read the passage multiple times, look for key words, phrasing, shades of meaning, transition words. Really try to diagram out why the correct answer is correct and more importantly why the incorrect answers are incorrect. The AAMC is unique in that they give away so much information based on how they set up and structure the question. Really dig into this for clues.

For CARS specifically, you're going to need to read a lot of practice passages. I like jack Westin for practice passages but really any practice passage is fine. What you want to get used to is how to quickly read a passage, evaluate and organize claims, identify evidence and counter points, and how to follow the arc of the passage to determine tone and author intent. The general advice is to read more and certainly reading more is helpful. However, usually when we read we do not spend the time or energy to analyze and think quite so intensely. I would start with doing 3-5 passages a day. every day. The more you read and practice, the better you will get. After a while, start to build back in the timing element of this. After a few months of doing practice passages you will start to see similarities in how the passages are structured and what type of language you are likely to encounter. The final two pieces of advice I have are:
1. Always answer the question that is being asked - not what you think is true, or right, or what feels good. Often times the answer will not be one of those three things on purpose.
2. You don't have to understand (or be interested in) what you are reading, you just have to be able to pick the right answer. This often comes down to being able to identify evidence, tone, and intent.

Very best of luck to you.
 
Hello!

You should consider retaking the MCAT if…

Your highest overall score is not competitive for your target schools. When constructing your early school list, you should review the average GPA and MCAT score for each medical school (found also on MSAR). If your stats are considerably lower than the schools you’re eyeing, you may have to retake the exam.

Your section scores are significantly imbalanced. Some medical schools expect students to achieve minimum section scores. While it’s difficult to know each school’s thresholds, it may be worth taking the MCAT exam again if one of your section scores is 5 or more points below all others.

You did not sufficiently prepare for the previous attempt(s). It’s no secret that the MCAT is an incredibly difficult exam. Yet, students routinely underestimate its toughness and don’t prepare well enough. If you didn’t study hard (i.e., 20+ hours/week) for at least two months, you probably didn’t maximize your scores.

You were ill or had to navigate another personal difficulty on or around your test date. Unfortunate things come up, sometimes during particularly inconvenient times. If life threw you a major curve ball right around your MCAT test date, you likely didn’t perform at your best and may want to retake the exam.

Your practice test scores were considerably higher than your actual scores.

You have a strong sense of what went wrong previously and have a clear plan to address it. For instance, you may have paced yourself poorly during the MCAT. Or you may have underestimated the social sciences section and not studied enough relative to the other sections, which led to lower performance. Regardless, you should honestly evaluate and address the primary reason(s) why you scored lower than expected.
 
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