Sucking at BS - any pointers?

[vanillabreen]

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Hello everyone!

So I just took my 1st AAMC practice (exam 10) and with the test only a bit more than a week away I must say I'm very freaked out.

I was kinda a huge procrastinator so I didn't finish content review yet. I took AP Bio in high school, then Bio I and II, Histology, and Human Physiology as well as JUST took Orgo I and II last year so all I thought I would need to do for the BS is read through EK BIO and somehow just do it.

But I was wrong... I did some practice here and there. I've been acing the EK exams after each chapter but when I took the FL's I get so phased out by the BS section.

Physical Sciences is my toughest. I HATE chemistry with a passion. I always sucked at it but I'm doing soo much better in it than in Bio - not just because of the curve for PS is stronger...just in general, I'm getting more right in PS than BS. PS just seems more straightforward to me. BS on the other hand....I just feel like it tricks me all the time.

I didn't review Orgo yet so maybe that'll change maybe 1-2 points at most (or maybe not at all).
But here's my scores for BS:

TPR Exam 1: 7 (before I ever reviewed)
TPR Exam 2: 6
AAMC Exam 10: 5!!! ???

I looked over my answers and most of them are just silly errors but a lot were just conceptual even though I thought I did it right. Everyone seems to be genuinely good at BS it seems so I couldn't find any post that gives out BS pointers.

Does anyone have any tips on how I should approach BS? Maybe I'm not thinking right?

 

[Ride Big Sky]

The first thing you have to do is know the material down cold. If you don't have the content review finished then you better start busting you ***. Half of the BS section is reading comprehension, so just focus in on the specific questions being asked. You'd be surprised at how many misleading answers you can eliminate because of a small detail in the question stem or answer itself.

 

[vanillabreen]

The first thing you have to do is know the material down cold. If you don't have the content review finished then you better start busting you ***. Half of the BS section is reading comprehension, so just focus in on the specific questions being asked. You'd be surprised at how many misleading answers you can eliminate because of a small detail in the question stem or answer itself.

Hmm...I did get the content review for the Biology part down a month ago and I plan on focusing on my weaknesses as everyone suggests. I'm halfway through reviewing Orgo and I should be done tomorrow. Funnily enough, I get more Orgo right than Bio surprisingly which is why I was so distressed and wrote this post.

My boyfriend tells me to treat Bio like the Verbal section - which I'm not too shabby in. But I my Princeton instructor said to attack the questions first and read the passages for the questions you don't get off of memory and I did that because he said he got a 14 on that section but apparently it only works for his genius self. Don't get me wrong - I read the passages sometimes but they scare me so I thought I'd continue using his method. Not too sure what to do really. Hopefully my next practice test will show an improvement

Thank you for replying!

If anyone could give tips on how to attack the passage that would be nice. Like what do people usually do? Read the questions first and then the passage or read the passage and highlight or what?! I feel like the reason why I do bad is because I don't have a game plan. =/

 

[J ROD]

The BS section has been changing since I have been working on the MCAT. It is more reasoning now from what I experienced. More verbal like.

I suggest you put in the work and time and then take the MCAT.

Sounds like you waited too long to get started.....

 

[Contrarian]

I don't know, I am a bio major so I was familiar with most of the material. It was just a matter of practicing. I would try the tpr science workbook if you haven't already. Also you need to read the passage before doing the questions

 

[RedSoxSuck]

BS is pretty much reading comp these days. You have to read the passage quick (not to memorize) just so you can know what is it talking about because you probably would have to come back to the passage for more than one question for sure. So read the passage quick, Read the question, understand what is being asked (almost always you can simplify the question), then eliminate answer that you know to be incorrect and then consult the passage as needed. Because information/answer/clue is IN THE PASSAGE and you have to find it/integrate it. Berkeley review passages are great at this. Hope this helps!!

 

[myusernam3]

if you havent reviewed all the material, dont sweat it... however, there are certain passages where ur verbal skills are really handy.. and then there are others where ur outside knowledge is more valuable.. u kind of have to judge which to use i guess

 

[vanillabreen]

The BS section has been changing since I have been working on the MCAT. It is more reasoning now from what I experienced. More verbal like.

I suggest you put in the work and time and then take the MCAT.

Sounds like you waited too long to get started.....

Hmm...Maybe it seems like I did wait a while...but I figured since I only needed a 26 total, it wouldn't be that much of a big deal. I wish I didn't think like that before because this exam is pretty unpredictable.

I don't know, I am a bio major so I was familiar with most of the material. It was just a matter of practicing. I would try the tpr science workbook if you haven't already. Also you need to read the passage before doing the questions

Yea...I'm pretty familiar with everything but I guess this is where too many years of Bio turned out to be a bad thing. I know a lot of details for some unnecessary stuff (In Histology I memorized way to many detail - especially numbers like how many nm something was or whatever, lol) so now when I think about answers there's too much info to go back to!

BS is pretty much reading comp these days. You have to read the passage quick (not to memorize) just so you can know what is it talking about because you probably would have to come back to the passage for more than one question for sure. So read the passage quick, Read the question, understand what is being asked (almost always you can simplify the question), then eliminate answer that you know to be incorrect and then consult the passage as needed. Because information/answer/clue is IN THE PASSAGE and you have to find it/integrate it. Berkeley review passages are great at this. Hope this helps!!

Sweet! A game plan! Lots of reading and going back to passages...sounds like a good idea. They give so much time and I never utilize it...seems like I know what it's for now, haha.

if you havent reviewed all the material, dont sweat it... however, there are certain passages where ur verbal skills are really handy.. and then there are others where ur outside knowledge is more valuable.. u kind of have to judge which to use i guess

I guess that's where practice comes in handy - to recognize when to do what with your question. I hope 7 days if enough for all this!

Thanks so much everyone for all the advice! I shall utilize it and see what happens!

At least none of you told me I'm doomed! That's another comfort in itself!

 

[MedicineNutt]

You will make DRASTIC improvement if you do content review for BS. It may take about a month to show...well, in my case it did. First time I took the test, I got a 6 on BS...However, a few months later I improved to 10. It's totally doable!
And if you've taken a Histology class, and any other upper-level Bio class then you probably know enough to kill this section...Just know your stuff inside and out

One piece of advice though...for O-Chem, don't kill yourself memorizing reagents...focus on identifying reactions and moving around electrons

For Bio, learn to reason your way through things. It is somewhat like verbal, but you'll be more familiar with the terms than in verbal. Like I said, know your stuff inside and out...for example, the term evaporation. know how it can be applied in any situation...direction of molecules, the substances involved, membrane activity, etc...just continually imagine what would happen to something if evaporation occurred...that's just an example though...but for each term, hypothesize an event. make your own questions...it might make things more fun?

anyway, good luck to you. i hope you do well!

 

[vanillabreen]

You will make DRASTIC improvement if you do content review for BS. It may take about a month to show...well, in my case it did. First time I took the test, I got a 6 on BS...However, a few months later I improved to 10. It's totally doable!
And if you've taken a Histology class, and any other upper-level Bio class then you probably know enough to kill this section...Just know your stuff inside and out

One piece of advice though...for O-Chem, don't kill yourself memorizing reagents...focus on identifying reactions and moving around electrons

For Bio, learn to reason your way through things. It is somewhat like verbal, but you'll be more familiar with the terms than in verbal. Like I said, know your stuff inside and out...for example, the term evaporation. know how it can be applied in any situation...direction of molecules, the substances involved, membrane activity, etc...just continually imagine what would happen to something if evaporation occurred...that's just an example though...but for each term, hypothesize an event. make your own questions...it might make things more fun?

anyway, good luck to you. i hope you do well!

Aww man, I wish I had a month or two...unfortunately, I don't! I just have 7 days!!! But i did content review for Bio a month ago so hopefully some rereading will bring me back up to speed! (I tend to forget easily...which is why I do so much last minute studying!)

I think I get what you mean when you say thinking of anything regarding evaporation if that's what the topic of the passage is. In a sense, its the opposite of Verbal isn't it? Verbal you want to limit the flow of outside knowledge while Bio you want to think of all the explanations to things - within the boundaries of the passage. Seems like an experiment or a diagnosis of something. I need to get familiar with the passages and questions!

About O-chem...I'll definitely keep that in mind because I have NO time to memorize reactions of any kind. Hopefully, I'll get the point makers right like "how many chiral centers does this have?" and questions like those!

Thanks for helping me out! All your words are so encouraging! 🙂

 

[MedicineNutt]

ohhh ok! i gotchu. that's fine. could you reschedule?? if not, give it your best shot on test day. you might have it that day, hopefully.

one correction though. you should be familiar with all reactions. however, don't be tooo concerned about the REAGENTS i.e. HBr/Peroxide for Anti-Markov, etc. Just know the bare minimum to get you by.

i mean yeah, verbal and BS are somewhat similar. However, you'll probably comprehend BS better than VR, just because terminology shouldn't be a surprise to you. BS and VR are similar because there's a lot of reading. They're different because in BS you use outside knowledge in addition to presented info in passages. lol Never use outside information for VR though!!! that's a biiiiiig no-no.

 

[vanillabreen]

ohhh ok! i gotchu. that's fine. could you reschedule?? if not, give it your best shot on test day. you might have it that day, hopefully.

one correction though. you should be familiar with all reactions. however, don't be tooo concerned about the REAGENTS i.e. HBr/Peroxide for Anti-Markov, etc. Just know the bare minimum to get you by.

i mean yeah, verbal and BS are somewhat similar. However, you'll probably comprehend BS better than VR, just because terminology shouldn't be a surprise to you. BS and VR are similar because there's a lot of reading. They're different because in BS you use outside knowledge in addition to presented info in passages. lol Never use outside information for VR though!!! that's a biiiiiig no-no.

Aww yea, I can't exactly reschedule. It's a program requirement so I need the score of 26 or better in order to apply this year and get in. I suppose a January exam would be a bit late. My program director said January is doable but pushing it - there's a chance I might be wait-listed. The problem was I had to take about 20-21 credits a semester - taking 3 sciences + labs and electives so a lot of my knowledge is shuffled around in my brain and school's been so traumatic that I tend to block out things I did bad in like Gen-Chem and O-Chem. And 21 credits meant no time AT ALL to study during the year. I hate my life! *sigh*

But yes, I mean...I'll try to get some Orgo down not sure what exactly I need to learn more than others, though. For now, i'm trying to just not get a 5 or 6 on my next FL!!! hahaha

As for comprehending Bio more than Verbal - while it true that the terms will be more familiar - at the same time I'm just better in the Verbal because I like the Humanities more and I took this awkward Ethics class that had this huge 800-page book and you know Philosophers and their convoluted way or writing! If I could do that and not die - this should be nothing! I HOPE!!!

Thanks for helping me out!