Running out of time on PS

[gumbyj]

I finish the VR and BS sections with 15+ minutes to spare, but in PS I am running out of time on almost every test (and don't pay attention to the time, leading me to leave some blank )

How should I time myself for PS in order to better manage my time? Right now I am not paying attention to the time at all and just 'go with it', but that obviously isn't working.

How much time does everyone budget for passages vs. discretes etc?

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[Ironmandoc]

Take 10 minutes to do the discretes. This leaves you an hour for 7 passages (8.5 minutes each). I suspect that your issue comes from getting bogged down in calculations. 90% of the physical sciences section can be solved conceptually, whichout the use of any calculations or equations, despite the fact that many questions are written to try to get you to immediately put pencil to paper and start crunching away. REMEMBER, the MCAT is a thinking test, not a test of how well you can crunch through things.

Your first thought should be how you can solve the given problem without the use of an equation or calculation.

This will save you a TON of time.

Good luck!

 

[MedPR]

I finish the VR and BS sections with 15+ minutes to spare, but in PS I am running out of time on almost every test (and don't pay attention to the time, leading me to leave some blank )

How should I time myself for PS in order to better manage my time? Right now I am not paying attention to the time at all and just 'go with it', but that obviously isn't working.

How much time does everyone budget for passages vs. discretes etc?

I never had a problem with time on the MCAT so I couldn't give you a time budget, but here you should do less math and more conceptual thinking. And for the math that you absolutely must do, approximate and round as much as possible. For example, 9.8*4.1*19.2 = 10*4*20 or somewhat less than 800.

 

[GorgeousBorges]

I never had a problem with time on the MCAT so I couldn't give you a time budget, but here you should do less math and more conceptual thinking. And for the math that you absolutely must do, approximate and round as much as possible. For example, 9.8*4.1*19.2 = 10*4*20 or somewhat less than 800.

THIS. Approximate and round, because the numbers on the physical sciences answer choices are almost never close to each other.