The 04/18/09 MCAT Club

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ladybug2

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Hello Everyone,

I decided to start a thread for all of us April 18 MCATers. Please feel free to share in your thought, success and frustrations throughout this process here!

All the best!
Good LUCK to all of us! 😉
 
What did you guys think about that Atul Gawande passage about anesthesiologists? I really like his stuff, and I had never read the book that one came from. I was glad they put some interesting verbal passages on there this time, even if they were hard.

That voting one was ridic though. Political theory is possibly the most boring subject in the world.
 
PS- Felt alright about it overall. I was a little baffled by the passage on measuring the speed of light.... I think my nerves got the best of me there...

VS- Really enjoyed reading most of the passages, especially the humor one. Verbal is my strong point. I felt good about this section.

Writing-I liked my prompts. I felt really confident about my essays.

BS- Worried about this. Ran out of time while checking the ones I had marked. And I NEVER run out of time... Also there was one about lungs effed with my head. And I think I hate glycerin. Sighhh.

I want my score now!!
 
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What did you guys think about that Atul Gawande passage about anesthesiologists? I really like his stuff, and I had never read the book that one came from. I was glad they put some interesting verbal passages on there this time, even if they were hard.

That voting one was ridic though. Political theory is possibly the most boring subject in the world.


I liked the aneshesia passage. I just thought the questions about it were unnaturally odd. It was interesting though. Not gonna lie, i found the tumble weed passage interesting
 
I didn't realize that was Atul Gawande! I've read both Complications and Better, although not recently. The natural science passages are usually where I lose points on VR, but I was pretty happy with the ones on this test.
 
Very interesting passage on anesthesiology. Great read and insightful. Which VR passages did you guys think were experimental? I actually think this passage was the experimental one. It is the first time I can remember seeing a medicine-related passage on the mcat(either in aamc practice tests or the real mcat I took last year and on 3/28). We are usually assailed with natural sciences, arts, literature and social sciences topics.
 
What did you guys think about that Atul Gawande passage about anesthesiologists? I really like his stuff, and I had never read the book that one came from. I was glad they put some interesting verbal passages on there this time, even if they were hard.

That voting one was ridic though. Political theory is possibly the most boring subject in the world.

Didn't realize it was Gawande until you mentioned it, but now that I think about it, it did sound familiar.

I honestly didn't think any of the passages were too terrible, just a little long. Some of the questions were harder than practice tests too, but nothing too crazy IMO.
 
Um... I just REALLY want to know my score NOW. 😱

My friend just took his Nursing boards and got the score in 24 hrs!

I need to stop thinking about this.
 
Didn't realize it was Gawande until you mentioned it, but now that I think about it, it did sound familiar.

I honestly didn't think any of the passages were too terrible, just a little long. Some of the questions were harder than practice tests too, but nothing too crazy IMO.

The passage was from an older book of his. I'm pretty surprised they had it on there because Gawande is a pretty common pre med read.

I didn't notice a huge difference other than possibly length.

Honestly, I think it's really impossible to tell if it's harder or not due to the actual stress of taking it (obviously only speaking from personal experience). Some stress will positively impact performance, but too much will definitely kill it.
 
since you guys just took the mcat i wanted to ask you is the numbering on the real test just like the aamc? like PS is from 1-52 but then VR starts from 53 or does it start from 1 again? I really dont like how aamc has it numbered 1-146 if you remember would you please let me know! thanks =)
 
Um... I just REALLY want to know my score NOW. 😱

My friend just took his Nursing boards and got the score in 24 hrs!

I need to stop thinking about this.

Ugh I know. What I don't understand is why they don't give us the scores (PS, VR, BS) the day of the test. GRE scores are released 5 minutes after the test is finished. And the writing score comes in the mail 30 days later. With the time difference between NY and the Western states the AAMC could easily release scores 24 hours later and answers wouldn't be leaked. I bet they make so much more money by waiting the 30 days...More people register for the next MCAT "just in case", which equals lots of $$ for the AAMC. 🙁
 
since you guys just took the mcat i wanted to ask you is the numbering on the real test just like the aamc? like PS is from 1-52 but then VR starts from 53 or does it start from 1 again? I really dont like how aamc has it numbered 1-146 if you remember would you please let me know! thanks =)

On the real thing it tells you which passage you're on. It'll say 1/7, 4/7, 7/7, or whatever depending on which passage you're on. That doesn't include the discrete questions though, so don't think you only have 2 passages left if you're on 5/7 and haven't done all the discretes.
 
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PHY - never got less than a 12 on the practice tests, but this one was kicking my azz, especially for the first 10-20 questions. After that it was all down hill.

VER - did anyone else think the ****in passages were two times longer than normal. I was use to the practice AAMC tests and didn't expect the passages to be so long. Maybe it was just nerves, who knows. But one of them seemed to be about 7 paragraphs long.

BIO - Killed it. I thought it was a pretty easy bio section even though bio isn't my strong suit.
 
PS: This section had one weird passage that took a little thinking (ladder), but overall it wasn't too bad. I finished with about ten minutes left, so I was able to go back to that passage. What irks me is that I was so ready for electrochemistry, titration, and optics and they didn't have any. I could have studied half as much as I did and would have done the same. I learned so many math tricks and only used one on the entire section. After reading how hard PS has been on the previous MCATs this year, I was expecting something much harder.

What about the question asking how adding stuff to other stuff? lol.
 
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I'm sorry but why would he only apply to such top-notch med schools with 30? You said he thought he would not get in, but yet he applied to schools with very low acceptance rate. Interesting. But it gives anyone a hope. I wonder if the person had something that made him stand out.

Well, apparently, he just wanted to go to top-notch schools...And he just applied for luck. He did not believe he would have any chance. Like I said earlier, he was planning to retake this MCAT. Yes, he was Vietnamese, and some people would say: "That makes a whole picture different". But, I want to note here, that he was NOT applying as URM. It's not his ethnicity, but rather his UNIQUE ECs, 2 years of intensive research, and high GPA that got him into Harvard... We all have something unique in our paths to medical schools. It totally depends on us whether we are able to describe our experience properly and efficiently in a personal statement so as to impress a person who will read our PS and see our ECs. Good luck to everybody! And never lose hope no matter what score you will get on MCAT. If you are to retake it, do it, and it will pay off in the future. He who GENUINELY wants to become a physician WILL become a physician no matter what.
 
What about the question asking how adding Cu would change the voltage?

I don't want to comment on anything specific, but what I meant before was that I studied electrochemistry, titrations, and optics a little extra on the assumption there is always a passage on at least one of those subjects. Not that the passages were difficult, but I was surprised that the subjects I studied the most didn't show up as much as I hoped or suspected.
 
Ugh I know. What I don't understand is why they don't give us the scores (PS, VR, BS) the day of the test. GRE scores are released 5 minutes after the test is finished. And the writing score comes in the mail 30 days later. With the time difference between NY and the Western states the AAMC could easily release scores 24 hours later and answers wouldn't be leaked. I bet they make so much more money by waiting the 30 days...More people register for the next MCAT "just in case", which equals lots of $$ for the AAMC. 🙁

They may want to mess around with the scale a bit. What they could do is tell you your overall, raw score. No scale estimate, just how many total questions you missed.
 
Be careful of specifics.



Is it May 19th yet?

I'm not trying to get banned or anything, just wondering: is this site really that uptight? Will they ban us for talking about questions?

When i left my test i instantly went and talked to friends about the specifics. Every test is different, so once the testing for that day is over it shouldn't matter who knows what was on the test.
 
I don't want to comment on anything specific, but what I meant before was that I studied electrochemistry, titrations, and optics a little extra on the assumption there is always a passage on at least one of those subjects. Not that the passages were difficult, but I was surprised that the subjects I studied the most didn't show up as much as I hoped or suspected.

I also studied based on that assumption, particularly the electrochemistry portion. EVERY practice test I took had electrochemistry questions.
 
I'm not trying to get banned or anything, just wondering: is this site really that uptight? Will they ban us for talking about questions?

When i left my test i instantly went and talked to friends about the specifics. Every test is different, so once the testing for that day is over it shouldn't matter who knows what was on the test.

Not true. They have experimental passages/questions in your test that they will eventually use as actual passages on later tests. I think this is their main reason for not wanting students to discuss the test afterwards. Granted, there really is no mechanism for enforcement as far as I'm aware.
 
Not true. They have experimental passages/questions in your test that they will eventually use as actual passages on later tests. I think this is their main reason for not wanting students to discuss the test afterwards. Granted, there really is no mechanism for enforcement as far as I'm aware.

Oh, I didn't know they re-used certain passages. Thanks for the info. Their bad, I tell everyone what was on my test. I like to discuss things and find out what i got right or wrong.
 
Hey guys, I'm new to this site, seeing as I just found it. Like most of you here I took the MCAT this past Saturday and I'm actually relieved to see that most of you thought about the same of the test as I did.

PS- I had the rock passage in physical sciences and that about made me cry. I seriously considered voiding my test during that passage. I think I actually left a question or two blank in that passage, as I saved it for last and ran out of time on it. I also don't think I did so hot on the insect passage (stupid mistakes). Other than that, I'll have to see how I did. There were probably eight or nine questions (including the blanks) that I either got wrong or completely guessed on (not including the ones that I made educated guesses on). I do not think I did well on this section unless the scaling is very generous.

VR- Wasn't great, but wasn't bad. I actually don't remember too much about this section, it seems like it was kind of a blur. I finished this one with a few minutes to spare. I didn't enjoy the passage about economic factors affecting votes or the one about the Scandanavians...I found that one to be excruciatingly boring.

WS- Don't think I did outstanding, but don't think I bombed it either.

BS- Didn't seem overly hard. Squid passage made me think for a bit, and I didn't enjoy the O Chem passage I had, but other than those two and a discrete question or two, I can't see myself having done overly bad on this section. Finished with time to spare.

I would rank them as PS being the hardest, followed by VR, then BS. I'll bet what happens is I end up scoring higher than I think I did in PS and not as well as I think I did in BS. Just praying that I broke thirty.:xf:
 
how many questions were there on the PS bugs passage and the last discretes?

and also, how come nobody thought this test was hard? It's freaking so much harder than the aamc practice tests.

plus, is there a specific place where we can discuss the test questions openly in a private forum?
 
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VR- Wasn't great, but wasn't bad. I actually don't remember too much about this section, it seems like it was kind of a blur. I finished this one with a few minutes to spare. I didn't enjoy the passage about economic factors affecting votes or the one about the Scandanavians...I found that one to be excruciatingly boring.

Really? I loved that passage. If I could sum up the main idea in 1 word, it would be IKEA. Lol. I didn't like the voting passage either but the one on law enforcement was worse IMO. I really liked the running passage too. 👍
 
Really? I loved that passage. If I could sum up the main idea in 1 word, it would be IKEA. Lol. I didn't like the voting passage either but the one on law enforcement was worse IMO. I really liked the running passage too. 👍

To each his own, I guess. I forgot about the law enforcement passage. That one was actually probably my least favorite. I don't remember having the running passage. The other ones I had that I remember were the anesthesiologist one (loved it) and the humorist one (liked this one).
 
To each his own, I guess. I forgot about the law enforcement passage. That one was actually probably my least favorite. I don't remember having the running passage. The other ones I had that I remember were the anesthesiologist one (loved it) and the humorist one (liked this one).

maybe its because the running passage was on the BS, i think. *head desk* It still was a good passage though. 😛
 
how many questions were there on the PS bugs passage and the last discretes?

and also, how come nobody thought this test was hard? It's freaking so much harder than the aamc practice tests.

plus, is there a specific place where we can discuss the test questions openly in a private forum?

I was wondering the same thing, maybe we could just choose a chat room over instant messenger or something. Oh, and I thought it was hard. Physical Science and Verbal were both harder than any AAMC test i took.
 
so how is everyone passing time until these scores come in?

luckily i tivo-ed all my shows for the past three months and am starting to go through them all. (rock of love, real world, for the love of ray j, i love money). just finished tool academy...that show is fantastic. anyways i recommend these shows, they are excellent quality and help pass the time.
 
how many questions were there on the PS bugs passage and the last discretes?

and also, how come nobody thought this test was hard? It's freaking so much harder than the aamc practice tests.

plus, is there a specific place where we can discuss the test questions openly in a private forum?

It was hard, but I think for a lot of people it was about as hard as they expected it to be.

so how is everyone passing time until these scores come in?

luckily i tivo-ed all my shows for the past three months and am starting to go through them all. (rock of love, real world, for the love of ray j, i love money). just finished tool academy...that show is fantastic. anyways i recommend these shows, they are excellent quality and help pass the time.

Presentations and finals. And SDN.
 
They may want to mess around with the scale a bit. What they could do is tell you your overall, raw score. No scale estimate, just how many total questions you missed.


You're so right about this. You're a smart one. Bet you did well. 😀

I hadn't thought much on the subject, just about how much I want to know my score. I still can't stop thinking about it!
 
So did anyone else get rocked by the rocks passage in physical science (pun intended)? There is a high probability that I missed every question in that passage.
 
Yeah, I totally breezed through lattice structures when studying, thinking they weren't that important. Guh. Luckily only a couple problems in that passage seemed to require outside knowledge - most could be figured out with a few tricks. Or at least I hope so :xf:
 
Yeah, I totally breezed through lattice structures when studying, thinking they weren't that important. Guh. Luckily only a couple problems in that passage seemed to require outside knowledge - most could be figured out with a few tricks. Or at least I hope so :xf:

I did the same thing with lattice structures, but it seems that you didn't actually need to know anything about them that wasn't in the passage.
 
Hmmh, I didn't get the rock passage.....i think. Did we have different forms?

I didn't have it either. I'm wondering if that means the rock passage is experimental. It would make sense if there's only one passage different.
Did everyone have the BS MCAT gene sequence/frog muscle passage?
 
You really can't tell. It's not a matter of which passages were on one or the other. There are multiple "tests" given out on a given test day and they are scaled accordingly. For instance, there may be only one passage difference in each section. Then tests can be made up with different combinations of those passages and you could potentially have 8 forms. While I don't think that is necessarily the case, I do think they have multiple scales for multiple forms on each test day.

In fact, if AAMC wanted more statistical data to work with, it would make sense that they make the experimental passage one that everyone had so they have the most data possible with which to evaluate the experimental passage.

...we can only hope that I'm way off and that that damn rock one and that damn measuring the speed of light with a freakin' merry-go-'round one are them. lol
 
seems like a lot of people had something on rocks, lasers/speed of light. i didnt have any of those. did ANYONE have the E&M passage? (something about electicity holes, had to skim it so dont really remember), or the ladder question? i thought those were hard.
 
ah yes, diodes. i think i answered most of those questions without the passage bc i saved it for last...it looked like a beast from skimming, and from what i remember, it was.
 
seems like a lot of people had something on rocks, lasers/speed of light. i didnt have any of those. did ANYONE have the E&M passage? (something about electicity holes, had to skim it so dont really remember), or the ladder question? i thought those were hard.

I had the ladder one, but not the electricity one. I don't remember the ladder one being too bad, I think I only had to make an educated guess on one question in that passage.

Passages I remember on my test (with overall feeling in parentheses):
Ladder (ok)
Enthalpy (good)
Rocks (bad)
One about an extremely unstable element (good)
Insects (ok/bad)
One about stars/telescope (ok)
Can't remember the other one..... something about solubility maybe??? Idk I was running out of time and just skimmed it but I don't remember it being overly difficult (ok/bad).

I thought some of the discretes were kinda hard too. Idk, honestly, its all such a blur. I just hope this section is generously scaled.
 
yeah, the one on solubility and keq: wasn't tooo bad .

How many wrongs can you get on each section and still get a 10 on each? usually?

are there experimentals on PS and BS or is it just on verbal?
 
ok thanks trep, its starting to come back to me.

on a side note, being as discrete as possible...is it possible for friction to propel you forward?

the more i think about this section, the more i feel like it sucked...although i didnt feel as bad when i finished it at the time...so much self-doubt as i think about it.
 
yeah, the one on solubility and keq: wasn't tooo bad .

How many wrongs can you get on each section and still get a 10 on each? usually?

are there experimentals on PS and BS or is it just on verbal?

Usually, and this is just from the AAMC tests I took, the 10 range was right around getting 40 questions right on the Bio/Phy and right around 29-30 on the verbal. So you could miss around 12 on the sciences and 10 or 11 on the verbal (assuming it was scored like most of the AAMC's were).
 
I hope that you can actually get more wrongs on this test, since IT IS harder than the aamc and I hope the curve will be better.

Anybody know if experimentals are on PS and BS or it is just the verbal and writing?

also, what was the one with Cu and voltage? And if anybody remember the discrete PS questions, please PM me.(I've took the 4/18 mcat)
 
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you know when i came out of the test i actually felt confident that I applied everything I learned in the last 3 months on 4/18. I wasn't overly joyed but I knew that what I saw on the test came to me as no surprise and was thankful I could apply what I had learned while preparing for the test. Although as time goes by, and I start to think and read things such as this thread and slowly but surely, self doubt creeps into my head. Its a pretty painful feeling, not knowing and trying to speculate what your result my be. This is in fact torture, but i realize whats done is done and all these questions we have about specific passages or questions won't change the result. Im sure what I just said sounds cliche but its so f*cking true it sucks. Im in the same boat as everyone else here, and have the same questions about what was on the test so Im not definitely bagging or flaming anyone, I guess im just venting to those who can relate.

As far as the test goes heres my 2 cents:

PS: Not bad, I got freaked out by the ladder but realized that it was a pretty simple concept which was convoluted with extra force vectors not necessary when looking for the answers. The laser on with the mirror was a mind boggler , but I felt like it was doable except for one almost impossible question ( i think some posters posted the same thing, and yes im pretty sure u have to be physics god to answer that within 1 min). The entropy and gen chem stuff werent bad either but I felt like there were some tricky little questions which could have been marked wrong if one didnt careful read the question and tables. The bug one was cake. I had like 3 mins left and tried to go over the marked questions...All in all i feel like I did ok, maybe even pretty good, but as more time goes by I feel like I got more questions wrong. I was getting 11 - 14 on practice exams, which included TBR, TPR, and AAMC. I averaged at a 12.9 haha but ill just say 13.:luck:

VR: like everyone else, its my weakest section. I finally started getting consistent 9's and 10's on AAMC, TBR, and TPR with some 11's and 12's. Still there would be an 8 and 7 here and there. I felt like the passages werent bad but like everybody else i felt they were much longer than practice exams. This negatively impacted my timing and I was left with 5 minuts on the last passage which forced me to guess on 2 questions. The law passage was definitely a tricky one, but like another poster said, at the end it all came together. The furniture passage definitely made me think IKEA too. The sweating and medicine passage were pretty cool, and the humor one was fun but the questions were kind of insane. The others were on par with practice passages but again I cant say im super confident and at best I did mediocre considering it being the real thing. Who knows

WR: watever....never had a hard time writing an essay

BS: For some add reason I felt like it was kind of easy and fun. It was very much like TBRs stuff. I almost felt like the writers of the 4/18 were from TBR. The octopus and twin passages were kind of fun, but again it required the ability to extrapolate and interpolate data from the graphs and tables. It was pretty much a kin to the verbal, although you had a better feeling and evidence to infer an answer choice. The MCAT gene passage was kind of cool and I had some fun with that one. OCHEM was peppered all over the discretes with only one OCHEM passage. I think I got one of the ochem discretes wrong for sure, and at least one bio discrete wrong. I finished with 5 minutes. Im telling you, after thought is in some respect useless in this situation. In my case its recking my nerves and making me second guess myself. I averaged around 10 - 14 on all the different practices exams eventually earning a 12 average. TBR is probably to thank for that.

I guess all we can do is hope and pray, and get on with our lives. Is it only me, but does anyone else out there feel a little lost after the MCAT on saturday? Im almost going through withdrawal, and find myself wanting to take a practice test or do some passages. Im not crazy (well maybe haha), I think this process sux major donkey b*lls but I guess I became conditioned after months of preparation. Good luck peeps and I hope the best for everyone 😀
 
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