Stupid Mistakes

[fly1346]

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Friend....

 

[kehlsh]

I think getting used to the testing condition and taking the exam just like if you would in a real exam will cut you off some mistakes.

Also, I noticed you need a good night's sleep before taking the practice exam to not make so many mistakes. After all, this is a reasoning exam. You need to focus 100% with all the energy you can have.

 

[WhizoMD]

Also, I noticed you need a good night's sleep before taking the practice exam to not make so many mistakes. After all, this is a reasoning exam. You need to focus 100% with all the energy you can have.

+1, I took one of my early practice exams on 6 hours of sleep and ibuprofen :
my score dropped by ~5 points

 

[IfeelYourPain]

it sounds like you aren't spending enough time on the questions (having time to go back, etc)... I have a similar test-taking style and am getting ready to retake the MCAT aug 4th. What I've been doing to prevent stupid mistakes is simply slowing down, and asking myself "what is this question really asking?" I never miss the "EXCEPT" or "NOT"s anymore. I've noticed that this has increased my practice scores around 4 points overall... especially in VR and BS.

 

[paperflowers15]

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[Silverfalcon]

You have little bit less than two weeks of time. To eliminate careless errors, you just need to spend more time doing problems. You can't just "stop" making errors - you have to do a lot more problems (not to the point of burning out, obviously) to overcome that. As LIS once said, by the time you have tripped and fallen over same careless errors for 3-4 times, you won't make that same mistake.

 

[JKinSC]

I'll second (or third, fourth, whatever) the advice to slow down a bit, as I tend to do the same thing. One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet, though it was somewhat alluded to by Silverfalcon above me, is that you really need to go over your mistakes seriously. It's really easy (again I do the same) to look at a mistake and think "Well, that was stupid...won't do that again!" but unless it was something simple like a calculation error, there's a reason you chose the wrong answer. You need to figure out what that reason is--it's very rarely because you just didn't think it through. Were you speeding? Did the wording throw you? Did the wrong answer just really appeal to you for some reason? From my experience on test day, there were quite a few of those really attractive answers that I just happened to catch at the last second. It's most certainly not an accident, and those will eat you up on the real thing, I assure you.

Good luck to you!