Stuck at 512

[avalonisland888]

So my C/P and CARS scores have been pretty consistent at 130 and 128 respectively which is fine. My main concern is B/B and P/S. I feel like those two sections are more concept/content-based, which is why I have gone through content review quite thoroughly and used UWorld to practice. But the thing is that I cannot seem to get above 128 for either of them. When I review my mistakes, I notice that they are often due to not interpreting the passages correctly/getting lost in the scientific terminology or I'm not understanding what the question is asking of me even though I have the content to answer it (if that makes sense). Does anyone have any tips on how to combat this problem?

I was thinking to take notes on each passage, but I'm not sure whether that might make me run out of time. Does a score of around 512 mean that I'm lacking in content?

I'm just honestly feeling sorta disappointed and tired with MCAT studying...I'm testing 08/13, aiming for 515+ and there's obviously room to improve, but I feel like I've reached a plateau in studying?

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[ScrubswithnoSleeves]

If you talk to anyone about PS on the real thing, it is much less content-based than the practice exams. Obviously content is still important tho. As for BB, I feel that it is def more content-based than any of the other sections, but the reasoning and understanding "research" are also equally important.

Anyways, it sounds like your issue is with understanding the passages, and the only real universal solution for that is to do more passages and review them. Outline each one and figure out what the point was. What were they proving? What was the main concept?

I would also recommend retaking the BB sections of those exams after you've done this. I know it sounds dumb, it sounded dumb to me, but just try it once.

You can take some notes, but make sure they are quick obviously so you don't run your clock. They taught you in Kaplan to jot down like 1-3 word phrases for major concepts as you go through, essentially outlining the flow of concepts for the article.

Final bit of advice, stolen from Kaplan, is to do the discretes first and then return to the passages. Idk why, but it got my timing down to where I almost never felt short on time.

Hope something here helps!

 

[ThePotatoDoctor]

I remember having been stuck at about 127 for PsS for a long time. What eventually pulled me up was my last 3 weeks of studying I took like 12-14 full length tests. All the AAMC tests, all the Altius tests. That naturally increased random content and forced me to get better at test-taking/stamina. I made sure to really review and categorize the types of mistakes i made as well.

 

[Princeton Medical Student]

Imho for B/B the biggest thing that helped was drawing pathways as I read the passages. Simple arrows that dont need to explain every mundane thinf other than x increases y which decreases z. Its especially helpful when the passages are an alphabet soup of acronyms.

 

[Don21juan]

if your consistently scoring in the 127-128 range on any section i think you're gonna be fine on the real thing, my highest practice test was a 513 and i got a 518 on the real thing, my lowest score at start was cp (125) and raised to 131 on the real thing in a month, the test is way different than the practice exams

Biggest score increase i think I can attribute to retaking the practice exams till you're getting near perfect score. you're gonna understand AAMC logic inside and out at that point

 

[avalonisland888]

Thank you so much for everyone's input!! I will definitely give the strategies a try and see how it goes ))

 

[avalonisland888]

if your consistently scoring in the 127-128 range on any section i think you're gonna be fine on the real thing, my highest practice test was a 513 and i got a 518 on the real thing, my lowest score at start was cp (125) and raised to 131 on the real thing in a month, the test is way different than the practice exams

Biggest score increase i think I can attribute to retaking the practice exams till you're getting near perfect score. you're gonna understand AAMC logic inside and out at that point

Wow that's awesome!! But by re-taking the exams, don't you sorta end up memorizing the answers? And you're talking about AAMC practice tests right?

 

[gulli_97]

So my C/P and CARS scores have been pretty consistent at 130 and 128 respectively which is fine. My main concern is B/B and P/S. I feel like those two sections are more concept/content-based, which is why I have gone through content review quite thoroughly and used UWorld to practice. But the thing is that I cannot seem to get above 128 for either of them. When I review my mistakes, I notice that they are often due to not interpreting the passages correctly/getting lost in the scientific terminology or I'm not understanding what the question is asking of me even though I have the content to answer it (if that makes sense). Does anyone have any tips on how to combat this problem?

I was thinking to take notes on each passage, but I'm not sure whether that might make me run out of time. Does a score of around 512 mean that I'm lacking in content?

I'm just honestly feeling sorta disappointed and tired with MCAT studying...I'm testing 08/13, aiming for 515+ and there's obviously room to improve, but I feel like I've reached a plateau in studying?

If you're getting 130 on C/P, I can't see why you can't hit 130 on B/B. Hit Uworld hard, do all the B/B questions. P/S is honestly just CARS, I would just review terminology.

 

[avalonisland888]

If you're getting 130 on C/P, I can't see why you can't hit 130 on B/B. Hit Uworld hard, do all the B/B questions. P/S is honestly just CARS, I would just review terminology.

That's the thing. I've done all of UWorld so I've started reviewing those questions. I think C/P is just easier for me because the passages don't seem to confuse me as much as the graphs in B/B

 

[gulli_97]

That's the thing. I've done all of UWorld so I've started reviewing those questions. I think C/P is just easier for me because the passages don't seem to confuse me as much as the graphs in B/B

Review how to correctly interpret the graphs and I would try practicing more graph analysis passages. Try to find some on Khan Academy

 

[avalonisland888]

Also, just to put it out there since I'm terrified for physics....I honestly think I've been getting a pretty good score on C/P cause I might've been lucky with Phys. Does anyone have any tips on how to approach this section? How much physics was on your actual exams? I've gone through TPR textbook, Section Bank, and the Question Pack. SB and QP were more or less a breeze but TPR textbook was confusing. I noticed that the AAMC FLs also didn't have a ton of Physics, and even when there were questions, I did pretty well on those. I don't want to be overconfident on the exam and end up failing Phys

 

[ScrubswithnoSleeves]

if your consistently scoring in the 127-128 range on any section i think you're gonna be fine on the real thing, my highest practice test was a 513 and i got a 518 on the real thing, my lowest score at start was cp (125) and raised to 131 on the real thing in a month, the test is way different than the practice exams

Biggest score increase i think I can attribute to retaking the practice exams till you're getting near perfect score. you're gonna understand AAMC logic inside and out at that point

Take this with a grain of salt, as people usually do not exceed their AAMC practice exam average by this much. Just don't want you to have a false sense of security.

 

[avalonisland888]

Take this with a grain of salt, as people usually do not exceed their AAMC practice exam average by this much. Just don't want you to have a false sense of security.

Yes definitely. Thank you!

 

[Don21juan]

Take this with a grain of salt, as people usually do not exceed their AAMC practice exam average by this much. Just don't want you to have a false sense of security.

Of course, definitely with a grain of salt, and you are right, never in my wildest dreams did i expect it to rise that much.
I was getting near perfect on the retakes though, and even if i did memorize the answers i still worked my way through it so that I understood the logic. I truly believe that was the key and I haven't heard of many people who do that, so Im just gonna preach it lol

 

[Shunsui]

Fellow august tester here around the same score range. Something i like doing for SB, Qpacks, and FL review is going back through the passage after i'm done and write out a semi-detailed interpretation/flowchart of the passage i missed a bunch of questions on. Specifically, what are the independent and dependent variables, what's the overarching goal of the experiment, how do they operationalize the dependent variable, what are the results, what're the samples, what's the trend on this graph telling me? Doing this overtime will help buildup exactly what to look for in new passages as they all generally follow the same format

 

[avalonisland888]

So I took the sample test today and I did worse than usual oh dear....I went down to a 510 according to an online converter I used. Should I be really really concerned at this point?

 

[Shunsui]

So I took the sample test today and I did worse than usual oh dear....I went down to a 510 according to an online converter I used. Should I be really really concerned at this point?

what's your score breakdown?
only thing that's easier would be CARS and slightly P/S

 

[JimKimSlim]

So I took the sample test today and I did worse than usual oh dear....I went down to a 510 according to an online converter I used. Should I be really really concerned at this point?

Nah, I didn’t find the sample test reflective of the actual MCAT. If you already exhausted all the AAMC FLs, you’re probably gonna get your AAMC FL average. At this point, keep reviewing and maintain an excellent condition before the test.

512 is a good score, so start creating a list of schools around your academic stats and finalize it when the score is out.