Studying for MCAT Retake: Retake AAMC FLs or Use new 3rd party FLs?

[Lisztomania287]

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[Chlorophyll Oracle]

Have you taken the AAMC FL2? If you haven't I would take that one. But as far as third party ones go, I used Next Step and was very happy with them. I just took the exam yesterday and found the difficulty on par. I should note that my next step scores were decently below my AAMC scores

 

[Lisztomania287]

@Chlorophyll Oracle Why would you recommend against AAMC FL 2? I took it this past winter and though scored lower than usual, it was decent? I took NS FL 1-6 as well in the past winter and they seemed pretty good as well, except NS 1 seemed easy/inflated.

 

[Chlorophyll Oracle]

I think you misread my post! I said if you haven't already taken AAMC FL 2 then you should take it! You haven't mentioned that test in your post so I wasn't sure if you had taken it. I thought it was very accurate to the real thing

 

[Dr. Stalker]

Hi everyone,

This is my third time studying for MCAT. Last summer, I voided. Past winter, I scored it and received 506 (was scoring 508-512 in practice). Now, I'm studying for a retake at the end of August.

Being third time around, I have had to recycle all AAMC materials. I retook AAMC FL 1 in the past winter, and noticed a definite inflation in score. I just retook AAMC Sample, and noticing a score inflation as well.

With the test little over a month left, I can only take 5 or 6 more FLs. Now, I'm wondering if I should re-use AAMC FL 1 (took in both past summer and winter) and/or AAMC FL (took in the winter) OR use third party FLs (specifically looking at EK or Altius).

I'm specially struggling with CARS and for science sections, I'm mildly weak on experimental passages. Thus, with my limited time, which FLs should I take?

I was planning to recycle AAMC QP and SB, but should I just use AAMC FL's as practice rather than QP?

Thank you for any suggestion.

Both. Take ALL the AAMC FLs again when you're ready (say at the end of your studying). You need to invest in 3rd party FLs as alternative practice.

I will very briefly discuss my feelings about the following 3rd party tests:

Kaplan+Princeton
Tests are WAYYY to hard and not even accurate in representing the real MCAT. They're complete garbage and only demoralize you. Don't bother.

EK
Meh. The exams are only OKAY in my opinion. I don't find them particularly good (or bad for that matter), but you don't get a scaled score. Yes, I'm aware on reddit people make bullsh*t conversion charts; those aren't legit, so why bother?

NextStep
Exams are slightly better than EK. You do get a score, and the tests are relatively challenging but still based around the AAMC MCAT style. I'm a fan of them but only NS exams 1 to 5. 6 to 10 are awful and a waste of money, please don't do them. The one downside is if you purchase NS exams 1 to 5, you only get 5 attempts at each, so you need to be very cautious when taking them.

Altius
By far the best prep. I excelled when I retook my MCAT studying through Altius FL exams. The exams have DETAILED answer keys that show why one answer is right, and the other 3 are wrong. Additionally, altius mimics the MCAT style to the best extent compared to other test prep companies; all of their passages are research journal based and focus on critical thinking. In my mind, there is ZERO difference between an altius FL and an AAMC FL. The bonus sweet deal with altius is unlimited attempts and test customizability: some days I just wanna blast through 3 passages of each type section; Altius lets me start an FL, and take 3 passages, skip to the next section, take some more, rinse, and repeat. The fact that I don't "lose an attempt" makes me a big fan of them.

tl;dr

Altius > NS >> EK >>>>>>>>>>> Kaplan or Princeton

 

[workaholic181]

I thought that retaking the AAMC FLs was actually really, really helpful. Yes I remembered a lot of the answers but mainly it helped me realize the games the MCAT tries to play, how they try to frame things in a passage, etc. Highly recommend taking them again.

 

[bboyfox]

First go round my practice AAMC FL's were 512 and 518. I ended up botching CARS on the May exam and getting a 508 (128/123/129/128). Retaking AAMC FL gave me inflated scores (517 and 523) on AAMC FL 1 and 2. Even thiugh I didn't explicitly remember questions I knew there was some sort of impact. I retook in August and got a 514 (129/125/128/132)