SN2'd first day

[TexasSurgeon]

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EDIT: This was supposed to be a thread about the first day of SN2. However as with all intelligent life, things evolve. This thread has now become a support page for people following the SN2 plan. You can think of it as Alcoholics Anonymous for people studying to take the MCAT using the SN2 plan.

EDIT July 1, 2014:
If you are interested in @mehc012's Anki Deck, DO NOT SEND A PM. Here is the link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7if6wgaif98rkoa/mehc012 SN2edCh4s.apkg
**A NOTE: @mehc012 and several others (myself included) want to tell you guys that studying from another person's deck will probably not be as beneficial to you as creating your own cards. Yes you can take advantage of @mehc012's generosity, but you won't get the same advantage. Study the material. Create cards as you go along. You will find it more helpful to your studying. **

EDIT July 22, 2014:
The following is @TBRBiosadist's official MCAT Verbal Reasoning Strategy:
@TBRBiosadist's strategy that got [him] from a 7 average to scoring 13-15 average..

Spend the bulk of your time reading. Up to 3 minutes per passage.

• Read the first and last paragraph thoroughly to begin with. Understand what the authors main point will be because 90% of questions require nothing more than a general idea.
• After this, read the entire passage slowly enough where you dont feel like you need to reread sentences for understanding.

Next is just answer questions, there is a few tricks here that work about 90% of the time

• Unless the passage is asking you about a specific detail, dont look back. READ EVERY ANSWER THOROUGLY AND THEN Answer what makes sense from the general point of the passage. Its very easy to prove a wrong answer to be somewhat correct if you dig hard enough, dont. Answer what your gut says and move onto the next question, dont contemplate to much. With that being said...
• Answer like you were dropped on the head as a child. Alot of times if Im arguing between two answers, there is the answer that is 100% correct, and one that is 90% correct. Be an idoit and choose the one that seems like it is correct. However.....
• "Always" is a word to avoid. If an answer uses this word, or definites like it, it is something to avoid. I would say 80% of the time the wishy washy answer is more correct then the highly affirmative one. This leads to my final point....
• 100% of the time you are not actually looking for the "right" answer in verbal, this isnt PS or BS where 1+1 almost always equals 2 (unless we are talking about the different sedimentation values for Ribosomes). In verbal you are looking for the answer that isnt wrong. Often times an answer will seem very "right" but one aspect of it is clearly wrong, as compared to an answer that isnt wrong, but doesnt seem as right as that answer, these are meant to fool you. Choose the answer that isnt wrong.

I understand that I few of these tips may be at odds with each other. Ultimately you must adjust slightly for each passage, but it comes down to one thing. Read thoroughly. Read every sentence in the passage. Read every question. Read every answer. Then the correct answer will be fairly obvious. This may seem like it takes longer, but it takes much less time than skimming, and then trying to find the correct information later.

Or to summarize in one sentence

Understand what the hell the author is arguing

EDIT July 26, 2014:
@DoctorInASaree uploaded a guide to Verbal Reasoning. If you're interested, it's worth a look. Here is the link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2byivymmqwlvjms/MCAT VR Primer DRSAREE.pdf

EDIT 2, July 26, 2014: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/sn2d-first-day.1074344/page-52#post-15510851
________________________________________________
Just finished the first day of SN2...man is it long and exhausting.

The first day is BR physics chapter (translational motion) + 1/3 of the passages. I felt like I wasn't able to apply the stuff I read into the stuff I was tested on.

Has anyone felt this way when following the schedule? It just seems like the contents of the chapter didn't really stick in my head when I took the practice passages. Will this improve over time?

EDIT 3, March 4, 2015:

For verbal, if you are feeling lost and confused, I highly highly recommend you to look into the MCAT Strategy Course by @Jack Westin. I've been working with him, and nothing comes close to his course and teaching. It's a strategy course, so it will cover everything, not just the VR/CARS section.

 

[TexasSurgeon]

my verbal goes in and out, but it has been going up

 

[poop420]

How much verbal passages do you guys do a day ?? Do i just do single passages or 7 at a time like a real exam?? Do you use just the TPR verbal or EK101 as well. And do you pay much to there explanation of answers because i hear alot of mixed reviews about that. Just did a dense philosophy chapter and get 2 out of the 7 wrong i deff see room for improvement ...

 

[Sed8&Intub8]

Don't know if you saw this, but comments about the real MCAT the people took last year. See I wasn't lying!

BS = VERY VERY DIFFERENT. I thought I was taking another VR.

I was also shocked by the PS difficulty. Not necessarily due to calculations, but something about it was just very unsettling. It took me about half the test to regain my composure and find my groove. VR passages felt longer than any of the AAMC FLs, so be ready for that. BS felt very much like AAMC 10/11. The piece of advice that made me go from a 6 in BS to an 11 in BS was to treat the BS like another verbal section (to an extent). There is far more information in the passages than you realize, so use it. There are very few questions that require extensive background knowledge.

Was surprised by how much could be gleaned from the passage vs outside information/previous knowledge.

It wasn't as "how much do you know" and spitting out crammed information, it was, "do can you see what is going on, can you make logical sense of this wording."..
Verbal, my strength, was dissapointingly hard. Thought I aced it; surprised myself by 2 points less than I though.
PS, my weakness, was actually my best score and I thought it was 90 minutes of common sense rather than spitting out formulas.

More passage based? Not sure what you mean. It required a lot more critical thinking and the passages were far more convoluted. And I was mistaken, I only scored a 9 in BS on AAMC 11, but an 11 on the real thing. Its not always a bad thing, I didn't mind the style of the new BS once I was more familiar with it. I like critical thinking far more than rote memorization of random facts (can't wait for step 1.....)

I would say that the closest BS section to the real MCAT is AAMC 11. Even then, the real one is maybe just a tad more difficult. Mine was organic heavy though, so the biology stuff wasn't as difficult as I had anticipated.

Basically, be ready to accept that the real MCAT is damn hard. If you've been doing TBR (well), it should be pretty mundane.

My verbal was kind of strange. PS was pretty calculation heavy, and on BS, the discretes were weird. After reading all the stories about how BS has gotten really hard lately, I was kind of surprised that the passages on my BS portion were more straightfoward. It was the discretes that were bad.

 

[TBRBiosadist]

7 minutes is where I time myself. I usually miss only 1-2 questions per set of 3 with that much time. occasional 100s and occasionally lower if EK101 has stupid reasoning. TPRH i almost always agree with

 

[TBRBiosadist]

honestly ive only been averging 14 a week. usually three at a time. FRi-Sat is usually just barely keeping up with work and mon I spend all day catching up from the weekend. So I do 3-5 passages tues weds and thurs

 

[poop420]

wow only 1-2 wrong after 3 passages total or 2 wrong per passages ?? Do you have any advice on how you able to do so well ? Can i get a quick run down on how you tackle this?

 

[TBRBiosadist]

1-2 per set of three. I was terrible at verbal, barely in the 9s because I tried reading the passage super fast and id have to constantly go back to the passage and it just ate time and ultimately didnt allow me to answer properly. What I do now which worked instantly was I take 2-3 minutes just reading the passage, more if needed, and then I go to the questions. For each question I read every answer, and then I answer immediately and only once. I dont question myself, I go with what my gut says because I understand the passage enough to not just search for random facts. THE ONLY time I ever look at the passage is if it references a specific sentence, and then I only look back once and then answer. I usually finish in under seven minutes like this becuase the questions go quickly. I find the only times I get wrong answers now is if I stop to really think about the question/dont believe my gut/or spend to much time looking back at the passage. This method prevents you from spending to much time trying to prove an answer. The correct answer will not need alot of searching, but the wrong answer, if you look hard enough, can be somewhat proven.

 

[sakabato93]

Protip for electrostatics. Its juat gravity and motion equations with different values

Inverse square law is your friend.

 

[aspiringMD/DO]

Question for you guys:

What do you think the merits are of doing the BR passages the morning of the next day rather than the day of? I'm finding that I'm not recalling any of the information when doing the passages (especially since my brain is usually goop by then!) and am wondering if having a night for the new information (hooray for relearning from scratch!) to percolate and process will do wonders for my 1/3 passages scores- they've been between 30-60% so far and that's pretty abysmal. 🙁

This is what I am definitely doing - saving the BR passages for the next morning after completing the reading the afternoon before. Works better for me after a night of sleep.

 

[aspiringMD/DO]

I'm new to Anki-ing. Worth it? Anyone want to give a basic tutorial for how they do theirs?

 

[TBRBiosadist]

Hey a question to yall. I friend gave me a copy of the old R versions of the AAMC practice tests. Now I am defs doing CBT of 9 10 an 11, and 3 since it is free, but do you think I could get away with doing the older R versions and cut out like 3 passages or something?

 

[TBRBiosadist]

I also have realized i have never used scratch paper, ive only ever done it in my head 😵

 

[poop420]

Im confused about ionization energy.. the book says if you go up a column you will see a increase in ionization energy because less orbital. But what about proton strength ? So if that's so that means Be has a higher ionization energy that Ca because it has less orbitals? even though Ca has alot more protons??

 

[DoctorInASaree]

Im confused about ionization energy.. the book says if you go up a column you will see a increase in ionization energy because less orbital. But what about proton strength ? So if that's so that means Be has a higher ionization energy that Ca because it has less orbitals? even though Ca has alot more protons??

Yes, Be has a higher ionization energy than Ca.

Recall that moving across the Periodic Table nuclear charge increases, and thus ionization energy increases as well (the attraction between the nucleus and its electrons increases). Going down the Periodic Table the nuclear charge effect is balanced by shielding, and that's when the number of energy levels comes into consideration. The more energy levels an atom possesses, the farther away it's electrons are from the nucleus, resulting in a lower ionization energy (greater the distance...the easier it is to separate the electron from its nucleus).

 

[poop420]

Yes, Be has a higher ionization energy than Ca.

Recall that moving across the Periodic Table nuclear charge increases, and thus ionization energy increases as well (the attraction between the nucleus and its electrons increases). Going down the Periodic Table the nuclear charge effect is balanced by shielding, and that's when the number of energy levels comes into consideration. The more energy levels an atom possesses, the farther away it's electrons are from the nucleus, resulting in a lower ionization energy (greater the distance...the easier it is to separate the electron from its nucleus).

YES i got it !!! Thanks so much

 

[TBRBiosadist]

>be me
>walking downtown
>see qt 3.14
>be alpha
>ask name
>why anon my name is AAMC #3
>Can I get a number?
>She makes me do equations for 3 hours
>dontcare.jpg
>gives number and walks away
>pretty sure fake
>only 6 numbers
>(BS/PS/V) (15/14/11)
>mfw a practice test stands me up
>spaghetti all over floor

 

[TBRBiosadist]

Did I just write in 4chan greentext. Jesus im losing it. Yeah on both physics and bio I finished about 15-20 minutes early. The only reason my verbal is lower (I just barely got that 11) Is I completely did not follow my method, and looking back, a good 75% of those mistakes I wouldnt have made. I got flustered and didnt get enough sleep so next time more caffeine+using what you found out works for you.

 

[DoctorInASaree]

>be me
>walking downtown
>see qt 3.14
>be alpha
>ask name
>why anon my name is AAMC #3
>Can I get a number?
>She makes me do equations for 3 hours
>dontcare.jpg
>gives number and walks away
>pretty sure fake
>only 6 numbers
>(BS/PS/V) (15/14/11)
>mfw a practice test stands me up
>spaghetti all over floor

Way to go BioSadist!😀
#40club!

 

[TBRBiosadist]

Way to go BioSadist!😀
#40club!

Thank you 🙂. Like I said I feel as if I could better on verbal, I was just being silly.

 

[poop420]

>be me
>walking downtown
>see qt 3.14
>be alpha
>ask name
>why anon my name is AAMC #3
>Can I get a number?
>She makes me do equations for 3 hours
>dontcare.jpg
>gives number and walks away
>pretty sure fake
>only 6 numbers
>(BS/PS/V) (15/14/11)
>mfw a practice test stands me up
>spaghetti all over floor

Dam you left that girl iN stitches your really a sadist great job!

 

[poop420]

Do you guys study at home or a library ?

 

[TBRBiosadist]

Do you guys study at home or a library ?

home. library is 20 miles from house

EDIT: I live with my parents during the summer

 

[MrTaco92]

For everyone using TPRH science workbook... I just started using it mainly to keep physics and chem fresh in my mind, and my scores in this compared to EK and TBR are awesome. Is the rest of the book also this much easier than EK and BR? Or is it just the first few chapters that are easy?

Do you guys study at home or a library ?

Two different town libraries + my basement.

 

[orangetea]

For everyone using TPRH science workbook... I just started using it mainly to keep physics and chem fresh in my mind, and my scores in this compared to EK and TBR are awesome. Is the rest of the book also this much easier than EK and BR? Or is it just the first few chapters that are easy?


Two different town libraries + my basement.

I use it to keep content fresh also!! Or if I am just out of passages for a certain subject. But yea I do agree with you that it's not really up to Par with TBR and AAMC material. Try the advanced passages, a few of those made me cry a few times 😀

 

[poop420]

How much notes do you guys take per section?? I am doing the Atomic structure chapter in the chem book and taking notes and doing 50 pages is killing me!

 

[deleted388502]

>be me
>walking downtown
>see qt 3.14
>be alpha
>ask name
>why anon my name is AAMC #3
>Can I get a number?
>She makes me do equations for 3 hours
>dontcare.jpg
>gives number and walks away
>pretty sure fake
>only 6 numbers
>(BS/PS/V) (15/14/11)
>mfw a practice test stands me up
>spaghetti all over floor

omg. 40??? CONGRATULATIONS DUDE, what is your secret?!!!!!!

 

[poop420]

So it took me 3 days to finish the atomic theory chapter ... At this rate i will never finish this schedule.. I think im taking too much notes... I actually sat and thought about crying today.. Im a MANN I shouldn't be thinking about crying !! sigh thinking about breaking up with my GF stop studying at home, buy myself a laptop and lock myself in the school library every single day...#sinking in a deep black hole/.....

 

[TexasSurgeon]

So it took me 3 days to finish the atomic theory chapter ... At this rate i will never finish this schedule.. I think im taking too much notes... I actually sat and thought about crying today.. Im a MANN I shouldn't be thinking about crying !! sigh thinking about breaking up with my GF stop studying at home, buy myself a laptop and lock myself in the school library every single day...#sinking in a deep black hole/.....

You're taking way too long reading. That chapter was long but not 3 days long.

 

[sharkbyte]

I use it to keep content fresh also!! Or if I am just out of passages for a certain subject. But yea I do agree with you that it's not really up to Par with TBR and AAMC material. Try the advanced passages, a few of those made me cry a few times 😀

Would you still say the bio passages are pretty good? The experimental ones?

 

[poop420]

I think i spend too much time taking notes and have too much distractions at home starting tomorrow im going to the library

 

[ymmit]

So it took me 3 days to finish the atomic theory chapter ... At this rate i will never finish this schedule.. I think im taking too much notes... I actually sat and thought about crying today.. Im a MANN I shouldn't be thinking about crying !! sigh thinking about breaking up with my GF stop studying at home, buy myself a laptop and lock myself in the school library every single day...#sinking in a deep black hole/.....

It's okay. What you're feeling is normal. There is so much pressure built up on your performance, and everything feels like it's riding on this. You can always push the test date back if you find that you're not going to finish in time. You don't need to drop everything and change your life just because you took a little longer on studying a chapter. We all know what it's like to beat ourselves up. God knows I do it on a daily basis. Cut yourself some slack, you are studying for this monster of a test instead of going out every night and doing stupid crap with your friends. You're trying to better yourself for you and your future family. Take a breath, and do what you can everyday. If your pace isn't on par with the original SN2ed plan, who cares? Study in a way that will best help you to do well, ultimately for you to have a good life - beating yourself up constantly certainly will not accomplish that. Stick with it and go at whatever pace works for you. Put the time in and it will get done.

 

[orangetea]

Would you still say the bio passages are pretty good? The experimental ones?

yea I think it's a great resource regardless I just think that it shouldn't be the ONLY source you know? I feel like it's a lot more fair than TBR but I also feel like it's not really equivalent to AAMC either. 🙂

 

[TBRBiosadist]

My secret? Enough drugs that my blood is supersaturated and beginning to crystalize. But really its a combination of things. For one there is luck. I tend to only need to read things once to memeorize. Secondly, even though I have good recall of small details I focus on concpets. If im burnt im burnt ill take the night off but I spend most of the day studying. when I take notes I basically rewrite the chapter and by the time ive reached my 3/3 ive read the chapter start to finish 3x. I also rocked my pre reqs so that helped.

 

[TBRBiosadist]

Oh I have 300+ hours of research so the experimental stuff is an easy read

 

[poop420]

Oh I have 300+ hours of research so the experimental stuff is an easy read

Kisses pinky ring your the **** man!!!

 

[deleted388502]

Oh I have 300+ hours of research so the experimental stuff is an easy read

Good for you dude, inspiration. Hope I can kill the first AAMC as much as you just did!

 

[TBRBiosadist]

All I remeber thinking is "damn this is easy compared to tbr".

Yeah I work with a a professor at my school in genetic expression of Huntington s disease stem cells into neurons. We compare also the growth patterns feom various different stem cell sources and growth tecniques. We have done some chemical treatments and have our first BIG set of data and a full genetic library for our cells. Phase II is we will begin truying to isolate specific genes and attempt to use viral vectors to deliver modified irna into the cells to affect expression in normal cells to observe the effects

 

[deleted388502]

Looks like your tbr sadism paid off, @TBRBiosadist

 

[TBRBiosadist]

Sorry weote on phone. Thats why that is a mess

 

[TBRBiosadist]

Downside to doing wellon first exam. Laziness. Outside of some flashcards I havent done any extra stuff on top of the examntoday , dont feel like I need to lol.

 

[ramires]

hey guys !! long time i haven't checked out on you, you guys seem to be on it. @TBRBiosadist your grades are over the roof. keep it going. I have stopped anything MCAT related for a 1 week now will start again tmrw, work and rotation finals, i still have a week worth of chapters then next week hopefully will start FLs. whats with the hat trick guys who did it ? or am I better just reviewing the whole chapter ?

 

[Sed8&Intub8]

home. library is 20 miles from house

EDIT: I live with my parents during the summer

Man, do all of you guys live in the boonies? @mehc012 drives hours to get to work. You don't have a library until 20 minutes away...I get can probably get to at least 12 libraries in 20 minutes lol

 

[orangetea]

Hahaha this made my break #tinderlife

 

[mehc012]

Man, do all of you guys live in the boonies? @mehc012 drives hours to get to work. You don't have a library until 20 minutes away...I get can probably get to at least 12 libraries in 20 minutes lol

Lol no. I live in the San Francisco bay area. One of my jobs is 20min away. The other is an hour south because it was the first scribe interview I got. Totally worth it.
My classes are like 40-45min away because traffic (unless they're in the Berkeley campus and then they're over an hour because Oakland is the black hole of traffic around here...there is no escape).

I have 2 libraries within bicycling distance of my house...but when I used to live around DC, the suburbs were so sprawled that ANYthing was a 20min drive because rich people with too much time on their hands don't like to be able to see their neighbors' driveways from their own 🙄

 

[Sed8&Intub8]

Lol no. I live in the San Francisco bay area. One of my jobs is 20min away. The other is an hour south because it was the first scribe interview I got. Totally worth it.
My classes are like 40-45min away because traffic (unless they're in the Berkeley campus and then they're over an hour because Oakland is the black hole of traffic around here...there is no escape).

I have 2 libraries within bicycling distance of my house...but when I used to live around DC, the suburbs were so sprawled that ANYthing was a 20min drive because rich people with too much time on their hands don't like to be able to see their neighbors' driveways from their own 🙄

Hey! Don't talk crap about DC! 😛 Why would anyone want to see their neighbors? Blah.
I do like San Francisco, I went to the west coast for a first time a few years ago, it was nice. I really really loved San Diego though.

 

[organesha]

Are you guys taking the diagnostic tests in the back of the TBR Bio books?

 

[namesthegame21]

Thanks to everyone on this thread for the support! I was wondering when you guys do your 1/3 do you do so without looking back in the chapter or at any notes for formulas, etc? If not, do you spend time at the end of the chapter to memorize? Also, speed is an issue for me, but I believe this will improve when I get a stronger hold on the material, so I haven't been timing the first 1/3. Do anyone have success this way? I know sn2 says time everything....

 

[DoctorInASaree]

I'm on break day! I'm on break day! 😀

Thanks to everyone on this thread for the support! I was wondering when you guys do your 1/3 do you do so without looking back in the chapter or at any notes for formulas, etc? If not, do you spend time at the end of the chapter to memorize? Also, speed is an issue for me, but I believe this will improve when I get a stronger hold on the material, so I haven't been timing the first 1/3. Do anyone have success this way? I know sn2 says time everything....

Speed - yes, those are good ideas. Timing will come! First part is getting acclimated with passage structure & style.

If I attempt to solve passage questions and forget an equation, chemical formula,etc. then I set myself up for a candlelit dinner with Anki.😛

 

[QueenJames]

MCAT break day got me like...

 

[mehc012]

Hey! Don't talk crap about DC! 😛 Why would anyone want to see their neighbors? Blah.
I do like San Francisco, I went to the west coast for a first time a few years ago, it was nice. I really really loved San Diego though.

Don't worry, I'm actually talking crap about NoVA. If you're a DCer, you'll not only understand, but rejoice!