SN2'd first day

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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
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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.
 
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I'm partial to the categories only because I have fond childhood memories of helping my mom come up with acronyms for them when she was studying this stuff while I was in elementary school.
Her textbook said FAMILY VW for the hydrophobic amino acids, which is why I stuck with FAMIL VW GP, even though it's a stretch...I spent over half of my life remembering the other, so I can't fully shake it!

Personally, while I have the structures down pat, I find memorizing random pKas to be the world's biggest waste of time headache, so I don't, even though I know it could theoretically be useful.
pKa's are really helpful to know since you can predict whether a hypothetical peptide consisting of mostly arginine residues will work well in a acidic or hydrophobic environment (it won't because Arg's pKa side chain is 12.54 and it's + charged)
 
pKa's are really helpful to know since you can predict whether a hypothetical peptide consisting of mostly arginine residues will work well in a acidic or hydrophobic environment (it won't because Arg's pKa side chain is 12.54 and it's + charged)
I understand that, but trying to memorize pKas makes my eyes bleed.
You can mostly figure it out from looking at them anyway...if you know the structures, pKas are more icing than anything.
 
AS for the amino acids you really dont need to know everything about them. First is just which are which
Basic: HAL Histidine, Arginine Lysine
Acidic: Aspartic and Glutamic acid
NonPolar: MALT VIP pH Glycine (Methionine, Alanine, Leucine, Threonine, phenylaline, and glycine duh)
And everything else is polar.
For specifics know that glycine is just an H. Proline causes turns because of a ring, hisitidine has an imine. Threonine and isoleucine are the only chiral side chains. Methionine is for the start codon AUG, and that cysteine forms disulfide bonds

I remember them by

Hydrophilic = HAL(basic), acidic are the ones with acid in the name, and CTMGAS (Come Take My GAS)
Hydrophobic = VIP GAL (b/c they wouldn't want to be splashed with water) + Try Trypin' on Phenylalanine (tyrosine, tryptophan, phenylalanine)
 
I remember them by

Hydrophilic = HAL(basic), acidic are the ones with acid in the name, and CTMGAS (Come Take My GAS)
Hydrophobic = VIP GAL (b/c they wouldn't want to be splashed with water) + Try Trypin' on Phenylalanine (tyrosine, tryptophan, phenylalanine)
There's an 'A' in 3 of those!
This is why I like knowing the 1-letter abbreviations.
I do like VIP GAL

Anyway, what I think this series of acronym sharing has reiterated to me is that these categories are kinda crap anyway because everyone has different groupings.
 
I remember them by

Hydrophilic = HAL(basic), acidic are the ones with acid in the name, and CTMGAS (Come Take My GAS)
Hydrophobic = VIP GAL (b/c they wouldn't want to be splashed with water) + Try Trypin' on Phenylalanine (tyrosine, tryptophan, phenylalanine)
How'd it go?! Congratulations on being done!!!! Get off SDN and go day drinking! :happy:
 
There's an 'A' in 3 of those!
This is why I like knowing the 1-letter abbreviations.
I do like VIP GAL

Anyway, what I think this series of acronym sharing has reiterated to me is that these categories are kinda crap anyway because everyone has different groupings.

Yeah I know, but it's easy to know the Alanine is the hydrophobic A...I dunno it works for me.

And the Essential amino acids are private Tim Hall, so PVT TIM HALL, but yea this has the same issues, but it works for me.
 
How'd it go?! Congratulations on being done!!!! Get off SDN and go day drinking! :happy:

It was terrible! You guys go get some Gold Standard exams and practice your math. Holy hell there was so much damn math on every problem, it was unlike every AAMC. It wasn't hard just that the math took so much time that I was running out of time, but I caught up and PS was OK. Ran out of time on VR for one question but it seemed OK.

BS sucked! I completely screwed that one up, I feel like I might have to retake because of BS, which wasn't that bad, but I had I had only 28 minutes left when I finished the third passage. After that, everything was downhill. I seriously, don't even know what happened. Did I fall asleep? I remember seeing 36 minutes and I was on the last question of that passage and I thought to myself 'gotta answer this one quick and move forward' then there was 28 minutes. I'm a little confused myself. I was actually not able to sleep much last night, but I was calm throughout the exam until the time issue. I think it would have gotten much better if I had gotten a full night of sleep. The BS didn't seem too bad though, but it was like AAMC 11, lots of experiments, lots of dense and long passages packed with information, and questions that required you to draw out and organize complex relationships. Such as, this protein inhibits this which leads to this and that leads to this receptor being blocked so that it can't do this and this and this, which then does that and so on, so if you use and inhibitor to that, what happens to this and that...Overall it wasn't too hard, but time consuming, and I feel like if I had paced myself better, I could have gotten a solid 12, but I feel like I probably got more like a 10 if I am lucky.
 
It was terrible! You guys go get some Gold Standard exams and practice your math. Holy hell there was so much damn math on every problem, it was unlike every AAMC. It wasn't hard just that the math took so much time that I was running out of time, but I caught up and PS was OK. Ran out of time on VR for one question but it seemed OK.

BS sucked! I completely screwed that one up, I feel like I might have to retake because of BS, which wasn't that bad, but I had I had only 28 minutes left when I finished the third passage. After that, everything was downhill. I seriously, don't even know what happened. Did I fall asleep? I remember seeing 36 minutes and I was on the last question of that passage and I thought to myself 'gotta answer this one quick and move forward' then there was 28 minutes. I'm a little confused myself. I was actually not able to sleep much last night, but I was calm throughout the exam until the time issue. I think it would have gotten much better if I had gotten a full night of sleep. The BS didn't seem too bad though, but it was like AAMC 11, lots of experiments, lots of dense and long passages packed with information, and questions that required you to draw out and organize complex relationships. Such as, this protein inhibits this which leads to this and that leads to this receptor being blocked so that it can't do this and this and this, which then does that and so on, so if you use and inhibitor to that, what happens to this and that...Overall it wasn't too hard, but time consuming, and I feel like if I had paced myself better, I could have gotten a solid 12, but I feel like I probably got more like a 10 if I am lucky.
Damn, well better work on my reading comp to make sure that that's good. Were the answers for the math at least spread out enough to alllow crazy rounding or eve *gasp* skip the math entirely and answer with theoretical knowledge?


As for the amino Acids, Ive heard again and again that memorizing all them and their facets really arent necessary, and I would literally be doing it the fir5st time since I dont have biochem until this coming semester.

On that note Im just curious, what is everyone's ages? Im guessing im on of the youngest, turning 20 the day before this schedule started
 
It was terrible! You guys go get some Gold Standard exams and practice your math. Holy hell there was so much damn math on every problem, it was unlike every AAMC. It wasn't hard just that the math took so much time that I was running out of time, but I caught up and PS was OK. Ran out of time on VR for one question but it seemed OK.

BS sucked! I completely screwed that one up, I feel like I might have to retake because of BS, which wasn't that bad, but I had I had only 28 minutes left when I finished the third passage. After that, everything was downhill. I seriously, don't even know what happened. Did I fall asleep? I remember seeing 36 minutes and I was on the last question of that passage and I thought to myself 'gotta answer this one quick and move forward' then there was 28 minutes. I'm a little confused myself. I was actually not able to sleep much last night, but I was calm throughout the exam until the time issue. I think it would have gotten much better if I had gotten a full night of sleep. The BS didn't seem too bad though, but it was like AAMC 11, lots of experiments, lots of dense and long passages packed with information, and questions that required you to draw out and organize complex relationships. Such as, this protein inhibits this which leads to this and that leads to this receptor being blocked so that it can't do this and this and this, which then does that and so on, so if you use and inhibitor to that, what happens to this and that...Overall it wasn't too hard, but time consuming, and I feel like if I had paced myself better, I could have gotten a solid 12, but I feel like I probably got more like a 10 if I am lucky.
Ive heard from testers who have gotten their score back that BS felt difficult, but is curved extremely hard this time around. Like they feel like they got 7s and came back with 13s
 
Damn, well better work on my reading comp to make sure that that's good. Were the answers for the math at least spread out enough to alllow crazy rounding or eve *gasp* skip the math entirely and answer with theoretical knowledge?


As for the amino Acids, Ive heard again and again that memorizing all them and their facets really arent necessary, and I would literally be doing it the fir5st time since I dont have biochem until this coming semester.

On that note Im just curious, what is everyone's ages? Im guessing im on of the youngest, turning 20 the day before this schedule started

I'm 26, finished undergrad at 20.

It's not necessary for the MCAT imo.

Most of the answer choices were spread out like they typically are. But, when you get to the AAMC exams you'll notice, that not too many questions actually require you doing that math. This one was just loaded with math after math. And a lot of it made no sense, like, the calculations they wanted you to do were quite odd, not hard, just odd. And lots of it.
 
Damn, well better work on my reading comp to make sure that that's good. Were the answers for the math at least spread out enough to alllow crazy rounding or eve *gasp* skip the math entirely and answer with theoretical knowledge?


As for the amino Acids, Ive heard again and again that memorizing all them and their facets really arent necessary, and I would literally be doing it the fir5st time since I dont have biochem until this coming semester.

On that note Im just curious, what is everyone's ages? Im guessing im on of the youngest, turning 20 the day before this schedule started
20
 
I'm 26, finished undergrad at 20.

It's not necessary for the MCAT imo.

Most of the answer choices were spread out like they typically are. But, when you get to the AAMC exams you'll notice, that not too many questions actually require you doing that math. This one was just loaded with math after math. And a lot of it made no sense, like, the calculations they wanted you to do were quite odd, not hard, just odd. And lots of it.

Congrats on the finish today Swedish! 🙂 I hope you score well! & thanks for the tips on mental math...I may download an app to hone my mental math skills.


@TBRBiosadist With my immaturity and zest for Disney...21 going on 14
 
Ive heard from testers who have gotten their score back that BS felt difficult, but is curved extremely hard this time around. Like they feel like they got 7s and came back with 13s

I didn't think it was too difficult. It was like TBR, loaded with info, and most information is in the passage. But they were all really long, no short little passages like AAMC exams. And some of the passages seemed to have a VR spin to it. But, the problem that I am concerned about is not that I thought it was hard, the fact that I ran out of time and didn't really get to finish.
 
So if you could give us one recommendation on what to focus on, besides just math, what would it be?

Hmm, I dunno. Being able to map out long dense BS passages quickly. And seriously, do AAMC 11 earlier to get somewhat of an idea. I thought this exam was even denser than that.
 
Hmm, I dunno. Being able to map out long dense BS passages quickly. And seriously, do AAMC 11 earlier to get somewhat of an idea. I thought this exam was even denser than that.
Kinda score! If i finish a BS passage and have no idea what is going on in my life, I usually do well.
 
It was terrible! You guys go get some Gold Standard exams and practice your math. Holy hell there was so much damn math on every problem, it was unlike every AAMC. It wasn't hard just that the math took so much time that I was running out of time, but I caught up and PS was OK. Ran out of time on VR for one question but it seemed OK.

BS sucked! I completely screwed that one up, I feel like I might have to retake because of BS, which wasn't that bad, but I had I had only 28 minutes left when I finished the third passage. After that, everything was downhill. I seriously, don't even know what happened. Did I fall asleep? I remember seeing 36 minutes and I was on the last question of that passage and I thought to myself 'gotta answer this one quick and move forward' then there was 28 minutes. I'm a little confused myself. I was actually not able to sleep much last night, but I was calm throughout the exam until the time issue. I think it would have gotten much better if I had gotten a full night of sleep. The BS didn't seem too bad though, but it was like AAMC 11, lots of experiments, lots of dense and long passages packed with information, and questions that required you to draw out and organize complex relationships. Such as, this protein inhibits this which leads to this and that leads to this receptor being blocked so that it can't do this and this and this, which then does that and so on, so if you use and inhibitor to that, what happens to this and that...Overall it wasn't too hard, but time consuming, and I feel like if I had paced myself better, I could have gotten a solid 12, but I feel like I probably got more like a 10 if I am lucky.
Swedish, don't beat yourself up - I'm certain you did better than you thought you did. I'm sure right now it feels like a tornado ripped through your head, but don't speculate until you see that score. Your hard work will be rewarded.
 
Hey remeber how I said it was satisfying to get 100s on 3/3s. Well I shouldnt have spoken before I had done some of the earlier tbr bio stuff (seriously though the stuff near the beginning of the schedule seems alot harder than the stuff later on). eh~~still got 90s
 
Hey remeber how I said it was satisfying to get 100s on 3/3s. Well I shouldnt have spoken before I had done some of the earlier tbr bio stuff (seriously though the stuff near the beginning of the schedule seems alot harder than the stuff later on). eh~~still got 90s
great job man .. Let us know how the CBT goes!
 
So I ended up taking the last 2 days off and I feel like I forgot everything lol. Seems like last time I picked up a MCAT book was last year or something
 
Ok so today the November 7th exam thread went up and It seriously gave me a panic attack. I just want your guys advice what is the amount you think someone would get just by knowing all the content ?? I know the MCAT tests alot more than that but you think it is normal for somebody to get lower than 28 if he has a firm grasp of all the content ?
 
Ok so today the November 7th exam thread went up and It seriously gave me a panic attack. I just want your guys advice what is the amount you think someone would get just by knowing all the content ?? I know the MCAT tests alot more than that but you think it is normal for somebody to get lower than 28 if he has a firm grasp of all the content ?
What do you mean by "know all the content". To what degree? Because no matter how well you know it there will still probably be one or two things on the test that you just don't know because they throw a few questions in on topics that they never would expect us to cover. Also it really hinges on how you can synthesize the content and apply it to new situations. If you have all this knowledge in your head, but lack the ability to apply to abstract experiments, especially with how the MCAT is now, then no. You wont get above a 28.

On the flipside there are plenty who have a good conceptual knowledge of most of the general stuff and are REALLY fantastic at applying it to new situations and they can easily get 32+.

The MCAT will give you situations where you wont know everything, but many of these things you can fidure out if you can make logical leaps and apply basic concepts to abstract situations. At the end of the day, the MCAT is not a details test. IT tests your ability to adapt your knowledge to unique situations, like a doctor needs to do.
 
We harp upon our acronyms and mnemonics because its alot easier to improve those. Memorizing a new concept is easy. At the end of the day though, it comes down to you being able to apply these concepts, and the only way to improve that is practice
 
What do you mean by "know all the content". To what degree? Because no matter how well you know it there will still probably be one or two things on the test that you just don't know because they throw a few questions in on topics that they never would expect us to cover. Also it really hinges on how you can synthesize the content and apply it to new situations. If you have all this knowledge in your head, but lack the ability to apply to abstract experiments, especially with how the MCAT is now, then no. You wont get above a 28.

On the flipside there are plenty who have a good conceptual knowledge of most of the general stuff and are REALLY fantastic at applying it to new situations and they can easily get 32+.

The MCAT will give you situations where you wont know everything, but many of these things you can fidure out if you can make logical leaps and apply basic concepts to abstract situations. At the end of the day, the MCAT is not a details test. IT tests your ability to adapt your knowledge to unique situations, like a doctor needs to do.
Im not sure how i am with applying the knowledge . I seem to get the knowledge based question wrong in TBR passages and get the more conceptual ones right, I think my research experience as helped me in this area. But dam im just so nervous 3 months and 25 days left !! arggg
 
Im just about a month out, it gets worse, thankfully this schedule makes you pretty damn sick of the stuff so you worry a little less
 
The average passage I find maybe only has one, max two questions that require outside knowledge beyond the basics. How do you think Econ or Humanities majors can do well on this test
 
for those taking/about to take FLs, are you using anything other than AAMC? i'm considering buying GS as well, and spacing out a FL once every three days, so i'll finish 12 FLs before my exam. is that overkill? should i just rely on AAMC, and devote even more time into post-game, rather than take another company's (is quality > quantity?) i only ask because so many people seem to suggest GS for practice with calculations.

thoughts/experiences are greatly appreciated! congrats to those who finished their exam today!
 
The average passage I find maybe only has one, max two questions that require outside knowledge beyond the basics. How do you think Econ or Humanities majors can do well on this test
what practice exams are you planing on doing ? Also I just started verbal today getting a average of 3 questions wrong per passage you have any methods o doing this?? i try and time myself for a 6.5 minute each passage
 
Little bit...it was mostly complex experiments, and most of the answers were in the passage, you just had to figure it out. It was like decoding.
If you could do one thing differently what would you do ?? DO TBR exams along with the GS exams for PS ? Less content review more practices ?? *or nothing else because we all know your going to get a 30+*
 
If you could do one thing differently what would you do ?? DO TBR exams along with the GS exams for PS ? Less content review more practices ?? *or nothing else because we all know your going to get a 30+*

I have no idea what I am going to get. I was ok on PS, just a lot of math. I am decent at math so it was fine. It was just so unexpected because it was completely different from every single AAMC. Like on AAMC exams, you will have velocity and the question will figure you wavelength and you just have to plug it in and do one division done. But on PS, it was like, first convert all the things to the same unit, then use one equation to get that, then you get that you plug it into another equation, then you plug it in to something else, then you get your answer, then, oh snap, the answers have different units too, now you got to figure that out. Yuck! I have never taken a GS exam nor a TBR exam, so I don't know. I just said do GS earlier because I have heard the GS uses a lot of math in their PS, and they are pretty good exams.

Honestly, I would have gotten ambien from somewhere is what I would have done. No sleep and me taking an exam doesn't work. I think my content review was good and my passages was good too. I think I was prepared. Nothing on the exam was like WTF. I mean somethings were because of all the research and experiment based passages, but mainly, everything was fine. I might have studied more Cellular.
 
I really can't seem to understand the reasoning behind why they have tests with this kind of discrepancy. 10 days ago the people are commenting all over about how easy the BS section was and attributing words like 'joke' and 'laughter' to the section. And I know the AAMC is like yeah but we will make the curve bigger on the harder exams and make it all the same, a 30 will be a 30 on any exam, and sure, I'm sure they will, I don't have a reason to doubt them. However, there are other implications. There is the mental fatigue, and the fact that you start doubting if you should send you applications in, and some people might sign up for a retake. I don't understand the AAMC rationale; why not just keep it consistent? Why make hard exams with bigger curves and easy exams with no curve? There are other aspects: mental, emotional, financial, etc, that are affected by these inconsistencies, that are not factored in the curve, even if you curve the exam to make it the same scale.

Just my little rant.
 
I kinda want my my MCAT to be middle of the road difficulty wise. I dont want it to be so hard im crying at my computer, but if I get an easy test, im kinda really prone to f***ing up on stupid simple things, which will happen on all the tests, just the lack of a curve on the easier ones will make it so these will really hurt me.
 
So apparently I get a lot of "deduction" and "incorporation" questions wrong in Verbal according to my last assessment. What does that mean?

Does that mean that I am not understanding the main ideal clear enough to make deductions?

anyway, just some mental thoughts.. if I improve these question types I can reach my verbal goal score 🙂
 
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