The 9/4/09 MCAT Club

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zoccolm said:
thats what i figured. but it says one the bottom that you still get the paper basically if you void it, just requires no further action. freaking. out. i hope someone knows for sure cuz im fried after that
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me too. before i took the test, people would come here and say they dont remember if they voided, i would be like what an idiot, how can you not remember. but i am also not remembering. if you void, does it ask "are you sure?" or it doesnt?
 
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AM test

PS was hard... too much electricity and magnetism
verbal was slightly easier than aamc p. tests
bio was killer

hoping for some lucky guesses!!
 
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Everyone here is echoing my thoughts, the PS and BIO were way way harder than AAMC. They were even harder than Kaplan by a good margin. VR, which isn't my strong suit, wasn't too bad. The essays, which I don't really care about honestly, weren't too bad.

Everyone who is upset about how hard it was, I guess the fact that the AAMC practice exams were completely unrepresentative is something that is upsetting(wasted practice honestly), but it's a good sign that most people seem to think they were hard. Remember that some exams will be harder, some will be easier, but the curve will always reflect the overall performance of everyone. In any case, it's done, no sense in worrying about it since we won't know our scores for a while.

On a side note, just because I want to bitch, what the hell is with asking the name of a formula. I knowing how to apply formulas is important but what the hell is asking for the name?

edit*
LOL, 3 posts in the same minute. Guess everyone got home the same time as I did.
 
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zoccolm said:
thats what i figured. but it says one the bottom that you still get the paper basically if you void it, just requires no further action. freaking. out. i hope someone knows for sure cuz im fried after that
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I was afraid I voided it the first time around- and I didn't. To answer your question, you still get the paper when you void it. Just curious how was the PM physics section? the AM was impossible!!
 
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Yeah the magnetism question I basically had no idea. Bio was so organic based it was ridiculous. I took organic during the spring semester and therefore didn't allocate too much studying to it since I figured it wouldn't be so prominent on the actual exam... was I wrong or what! Ugh

Now just a month of waiting, FUN!!
 
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Alrighty... just got home from the 2PM Session, and here are my observations before I go enjoy a burger and drink:

The tall skinny Olivia Wilde looking girl at my test center... you're beautiful
lolol

Now for the serious discussion...

PS - I feel more confident this time around, paced myself much better. Only had to straight up guess two questions in the last passage due to time. Other than that, very straight forward. [edit: I see I contradict myself here. Questions were straight forward, passages were bizarre.. more of a need to contain your composure after initial shock exam] Some of the passages had some complicated systems in them or were long but the questions were rather straight forward. Did take some manipulation but felt TBR practice and intuition cut down on time required for some problems.

VR - Least confident about this section. Finished on time, rather dense, ambiguous questions/answers. Either boom or bust on this section I feel like. Bit of a blur.

WS - I feel I wrote the same essay twice almost. Both topics were little guy/big guy contrasts.

BS - Very experimental oriented. One orgo passage, but plenty of orgo discretes. One passage was "biochem" so some questions were orgo based but mainly bio. Plenty of bio experiments and persuasive arguments. Taking a quick peek at the bottom of the passages, many of them came from major research journals in the not too distance past (Science, Nature, etc). Continued with the trend that people have been mentioning on the forum that BS is becoming VR-like. Had to make inferences and figure out the global picture concerning scientific reasoning rather than a question asking for detailed minutia of biology. Had extra time to focus on difficult questions.

I thought 4/4/09 was very fair, but felt devastated and defeated afterward. This test was fair as well, but since I finished everything on time I feel more confident, but also I told myself this week this is just another test, and you've taken tons of these, and to go in and conquer it like any other test. Why should I do well in classes the last few years, and then freeze up on test day the last two times?

Now by fair, I mean that the exam had the required difficulty and tested one's analytical skills and reasoning. It wasn't an easy test of flash cards for simple recall, nor was it unreasonable and out of left field. It was a difficult exam, as any MCAT should be, but it was not unfairly hard where its no longer testing properly. It definitely wasn't easy, it was a difficult test and I feel drained. My mind is a bit of a blur, but I felt it was in line with AAMC/TBR, but with some increased difficulty since it seems most questions these days are journal/research based science and less textbook science, if you understand what I mean by that distinction.

Hopefully we all did great.
 
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LuckyCricket said:
I think I got my butt whooped. Bad. Ouch.

Hoping for a monster curve!
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yeah, I could very easily have repeated my last two go arounds, but I just feel better about it. Last time I was furious, this time I'm just anxious to see what happens.

Don't worry if you feel it beat you up, it beats everyone up. There's plenty of people who past threads (check out the january threads, pretty funny) who thought they got crushed and should've voided only to have done amazing.
 
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Longshanks said:
Alrighty... just got home from the 2PM Session, and here are my observations before I go enjoy a burger and drink:

The tall skinny Olivia Wilde looking girl at my test center... you're beautiful
lolol

Now for the serious discussion...

PS - I feel more confident this time around, paced myself much better. Only had to straight up guess two questions in the last passage due to time. Other than that, very straight forward. [edit: I see I contradict myself here. Questions were straight forward, passages were bizarre.. more of a need to contain your composure after initial shock exam] Some of the passages had some complicated systems in them or were long but the questions were rather straight forward. Did take some manipulation but felt TBR practice and intuition cut down on time required for some problems.

VR - Least confident about this section. Finished on time, rather dense, ambiguous questions/answers. Either boom or bust on this section I feel like. Bit of a blur. (Not as boring as expected)

WS - I feel I wrote the same essay twice almost. Both topics were little guy/big guy contrasts. (Easy Essays. Not as complex)

BS - Very experimental oriented. One orgo passage, but plenty of orgo discretes. One passage was "biochem" so some questions were orgo based but mainly bio. Plenty of bio experiments and persuasive arguments. Taking a quick peek at the bottom of the passages, many of them came from major research journals in the not too distance past (Science, Nature, etc). Continued with the trend that people have been mentioning on the forum that BS is becoming VR-like. Had to make inferences and figure out the global picture concerning scientific reasoning rather than a question asking for detailed minutia of biology. Had extra time to focus on difficult questions. (A little more genetics than on other exams and only 1 organic passage =).....)



Now by fair, I mean that the exam had the required difficulty and tested one's analytical skills and reasoning. It wasn't an easy test of flash cards for simple recall, nor was it unreasonable and out of left field. It was a difficult exam, as any MCAT should be, but it was not unfairly hard where its no longer testing properly. It definitely wasn't easy, it was a difficult test and I feel drained. My mind is a bit of a blur, but I felt it was in line with AAMC/TBR, but with some increased difficulty since it seems most questions these days are journal/research based science and less textbook science, if you understand what I mean by that distinction.

Hopefully we all did great.
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I just came back from the 2:00 pm exam.
 
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I don't know what to think really. I think I rocked PS and VR but for some reason my brain went dead during BS and I hope I at least scored a 9 on that section. :scared:
 
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Hold on a second. Are all 2PM tests of 4/09/09 the same in north america?

I thought the PS was ******ed and difficult too, way too much chemistry. But I don't remember anything about magnetism...

If they aren't all the same...then how big is the group that bell curving is done in reference to?
 
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Flavcool said:
Hold on a second. Are all 2PM tests of 4/09/09 the same in north america?

I thought the PS was ******ed and difficult too, way too much chemistry. But I don't remember anything about magnetism...
Click to expand...

2 PM here, I don't believe I had Magnetism. Although at this point everything is a blur. :laugh:
 
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Flavcool said:
Hold on a second. Are all 2PM tests of 4/09/09 the same in north america?

I thought the PS was ******ed and difficult too, way too much chemistry. But I don't remember anything about magnetism...

If they aren't all the same...then how big is the group that bell curving is done in reference to?
Click to expand...




I took the test in the east coast and had no magnetism.

My first PS passage was about flushing toilets.
 
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I just lol'd so bad i had the toilet flushing passage, in my head i was like heck ya i get this mechanism this is epic, then i realized it was a toilet... BS section, even though 1 orgo passage, i thought was a killer, and i was definately dazed by the end.... as for verbal, it took me 4min to get my fingerprint to work so when i got back to the computer i was shocked to see the break timer has ran out and i thought it was draining time from my verbal so that was a bad start
 
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750hp said:
I just lol'd so bad i had the toilet flushing passage, in my head i was like heck ya i get this mechanism this is epic, then i realized it was a toilet... BS section, even though 1 orgo passage, i thought was a killer, and i was definately dazed by the end.... as for verbal, it took me 4min to get my fingerprint to work so when i got back to the computer i was shocked to see the break timer has ran out and i thought it was draining time from my verbal so that was a bad start
Click to expand...

I had the same problem before starting BS. The fingerprint contraption wouldn't recognize me, so I got back late and thought I had lost time so I started BS in a panic.
 
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tima said:
I took the test in the east coast and had no magnetism.

My first PS passage was about flushing toilets.
Click to expand...

At first I thought this was a joke, then I remembered the passage lmao 😀

Ok so it's pretty global then. I'm in Canada. Who the hell mentioned magnetism previously?

I guess we don't really have anything to worry about if it was difficult for everyone??
 
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i took it at 2pm. feeling a bit confident about ps; vr passages werent too difficult to understand but the questions were very ambiguous and abstract; ws who cares (but i'd like to point out that one of the essays was almost directly related to one of the vr passages...); bs kicked my butt.
the orgo passages and orgo/bio discretes werent bad, but some of the bio passages were really really time consuming.
this was my 2nd mcat. compared to the one i took on 06/18, this one seemed to me as a bit more knowledge based than passage interpretation/analysis (that goes for bio as well).

if any other 2pm-ers want to discuss it in a bit more detail, my aim is : SykeDOver
 
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Flavcool said:
At first I thought this was a joke, then I remembered the passage lmao 😀

Ok so it's pretty global then. I'm in Canada. Who the hell mentioned magnetism previously?

I guess we don't really have anything to worry about if it was difficult for everyone??
Click to expand...

I thought it was the MUCH easier than any of the AAMC.





Juss kidding. I am taking it on the 10th..:laugh:
 
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Flavcool said:
At first I thought this was a joke, then I remembered the passage lmao 😀

Ok so it's pretty global then. I'm in Canada. Who the hell mentioned magnetism previously?

I guess we don't really have anything to worry about if it was difficult for everyone??
Click to expand...

i took the 8am test on the west coast and the very first passage was something about magnetic fields and qvb sin theta

and i also felt it was hard, but that doesnt mean anything because the people who felt it was easy are not going to post anything. so if most people are saying it was hard, that doesnt mean it was hard because most people who think it was easy wont post.
 
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some of the passages (i believe it's one passage from each section) are experimental. since a lot of us didnt see magnetism on our ps section, its reasonable to assume that that was one of them.
 
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I can't get over how different the PS was from my kaplan and aamc study stuff. I was scoring in the mid-upper thirties the past couple of weeks and I feel like I didn't even pull off a 30! I had a torque/rotational motion passage that was crazy hard! The BS section wasn't terrible but also not good.
When I took practice tests the questions seemed so much more straight forward. I was able to narrow most questions down to at least 2 answers but I felt like I was guessing a lot between two. VR wasn't bad. VERY FRUSTRATING.

Is there actually a curve based on our test date? I mean I've heard that the scoring is more based across all MCAT takers. If our test was so hard I would hope that scoring would take that into consideration. Anyone have any thoughts?
 
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you know what passage was excessive, but okay difficulty wise? it was the ambulence passage carrying a plethora of physical concept related materials in its trunk, im like wtf
 
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I took the 8am test and the BIO section was a KILLER! My test HAD a lot of Orgo lol which I wasn't feeling AT ALL. The PS section wasn't as hard as I thought, a lot of G CHEM. VS wasn't difficult but A LOT of ambigous ?s. WS= Oh Well. My first essay didn't save all the way ;-/ but I had a question about health care and whether the primary purpose of education should be about establishing values of society or whatever. But you all are in my prayers, I'm glad it is over. I know I didn't void my test but lol Im somewhat paranoid, but I know we all did well. Just give God the rest 🙂
 
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750hp said:
I just lol'd so bad i had the toilet flushing passage, in my head i was like heck ya i get this mechanism this is epic, then i realized it was a toilet... BS section, even though 1 orgo passage, i thought was a killer, and i was definately dazed by the end.... as for verbal, it took me 4min to get my fingerprint to work so when i got back to the computer i was shocked to see the break timer has ran out and i thought it was draining time from my verbal so that was a bad start
Click to expand...

could've sworn there were two orgo passages. steroids and cant remember the other one...
my brain's fried.
 
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ladyL203 said:
I agree! PS section was RIDICULOUS! this was my first time taking the MCAT, since I am probably going to apply next summer.. but it was NOTHING like the AAMC practice tests, I liked the verbal.. that is usually my weak area, but it was pretty straight forward.. as for BS ..WHAT WAS THAT! that is usually my strong area! it was WAY too much orgo which is ok but geez.. and the bio was all genetics!! way to many genes and mRNA and all that jazz.. where was the hormones and homeostasis!! I can safely say I will most likely be taking it again in january.
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LOL @ the Bio section, I'm glad I wasn't the only one but stay encouraged. This was my first time as well taking the test, lets stay positive!
 
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basolateral said:
could've sworn there were two orgo passages. steroids and cant remember the other one...
my brain's fried.
Click to expand...

Just one. I always do the bio passages first, since I get through them quick,so I have plenty of time for orgo, and was freaking out at one point when there was ~12min left thinking I had two orgo passages to do and there was only one. One passage blurred the lines a bit between bio and orgo i felt, so that may be the "second orgo" passage.
 
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I took the 2PM test

PS:

passages were: fishes, water flushing out of tank/neon sign, exp to measure G, water contaminants/acidity, one about NO2 and NO, producing H2(g), dont remember last one

Some questions were straightforward (AAMC like i suppose) but at least two passages were really hard.

VR:

passages: Artificial Intelligence, Movies/Books, Environmentalist, Farming, Sulfur, Liberty/Equality

Anyone remember the other passage?

some questions were hard, but at least passages were easy to read. Passages seemed longer b/c of font and the way it was arranged on screen. Sulfur passage definitely seemed longer. Overall, similar to AAMC.

BS:

passages: cholesterol, Huntingtons Disease, acellular vaccine, kidney stones, vesicles in synapse, chromatin, dsRNA/siRNA

Only one orgo passage, which was easy. Was kinda hoping for more orgo though. Bio passages were long and took forever to read. (except for kidney stones one which was easy). I would say BS was more difficult than AAMCs, and like someone said, almost all the passages here were experiment based.
 
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thegreatergood said:
I took the 2PM test

PS:

passages were: fishes, water flushing out of tank/neon sign, exp to measure G, water contaminants/acidity, one about NO2 and NO, producing H2(g), dont remember last one

Some questions were straightforward (AAMC like i suppose) but at least two passages were really hard.

VR:

passages: Artificial Intelligence, Movies/Books, Environmentalist, Farming, Sulfur, Liberty/Equality, Small Book/Walmart/humor beginning..

Anyone remember the other passage?

some questions were hard, but at least passages were easy to read. Passages seemed longer b/c of font and the way it was arranged on screen. Sulfur passage definitely seemed longer. Overall, similar to AAMC.

BS:

passages: cholesterol, Huntingtons Disease, acellular vaccine, kidney stones, vesicles in synapse, chromatin, dsRNA/siRNA

Only one orgo passage, which was easy. Was kinda hoping for more orgo though. Bio passages were long and took forever to read. (except for kidney stones one which was easy). I would say BS was more difficult than AAMCs, and like someone said, almost all the passages here were experiment based.
Click to expand...

I think that's the 7th one.
 
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thegreatergood said:
I took the 2PM test

PS:

passages were: fishes, water flushing out of tank/neon sign, exp to measure G, water contaminants/acidity, one about NO2 and NO, producing H2(g), dont remember last one

Some questions were straightforward (AAMC like i suppose) but at least two passages were really hard.

VR:

passages: Artificial Intelligence, Movies/Books, Environmentalist, Farming, Sulfur, Liberty/Equality

Anyone remember the other passage?

some questions were hard, but at least passages were easy to read. Passages seemed longer b/c of font and the way it was arranged on screen. Sulfur passage definitely seemed longer. Overall, similar to AAMC.

BS:

passages: cholesterol, Huntingtons Disease, acellular vaccine, kidney stones, vesicles in synapse, chromatin, dsRNA/siRNA

Only one orgo passage, which was easy. Was kinda hoping for more orgo though. Bio passages were long and took forever to read. (except for kidney stones one which was easy). I would say BS was more difficult than AAMCs, and like someone said, almost all the passages here were experiment based.
Click to expand...

vr: ishangos (sp?) from 20,000 bc, and larger industries vs. smaller farmers
 
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I need some help ---- I will pay! anyone and everyone who took the test recently, please contact me. I have some questions!! THANK YOU!!😀
 
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elusiveCHILD said:
I took the 8am test and the BIO section was a KILLER! My test HAD a lot of Orgo lol which I wasn't feeling AT ALL. The PS section wasn't as hard as I thought, a lot of G CHEM. VS wasn't difficult but A LOT of ambigous ?s. WS= Oh Well. My first essay didn't save all the way ;-/ but I had a question about health care and whether the primary purpose of education should be about establishing values of society or whatever. But you all are in my prayers, I'm glad it is over. I know I didn't void my test but lol Im somewhat paranoid, but I know we all did well. Just give God the rest 🙂
Click to expand...

dont essays automatically save at the end?
shoot i hope so..........i didnt save any one of my essays (i wrote sept 3 but was lurking here and read this)

sv3
 
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sv3 said:
dont essays automatically save at the end?
shoot i hope so..........i didnt save any one of my essays (i wrote sept 3 but was lurking here and read this)

sv3
Click to expand...


Don't they save automatically? Wtf...they better...😱
 
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I need my score now...damn it. 😡

If patience was a section on the MCAT I would get 0/15
 
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OCDMed said:
Don't they save automatically? Wtf...they better...😱
Click to expand...

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=365516

Post #6.

I had the same question... here's the response direct from AAMC:

"Hello,



Thank You for contacting the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) program.


The program does an automatic save as well, so you do not need to worry about
hitting save.


Please let us know if you need any additional assistance.



The MCAT Care Team

Association of American Medical Colleges

Section for Applicant Assessment Services

2450 N St., NW

Washington, DC 20037

U.S.A."
 
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the worst part is the feeling i have right now on the performance on the BS, i feel like i barely applied any knowledge and not confident in that section at all... and bs was supposed to be my strongest
 
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I had to skim through the passage with temperature change vs. solar intensity due to the timer running out (save this one for last).
what in the world was the high to low ratio... that part didnt make sense from the graph so im assuming i missed the information in the passage required to answer that one.
 
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there was a huntington's disease passage? lol, hope I didn't miss that one. My review said everything was answered...
 
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I felt the same for biology. The passages were kind of difficult I felt also in understanding the passages. Orgo was tricky i think. Physical was doable and was quite easy; except for some chemistry that was weird. Verbal was much more readable and the questions weren't all that bad. Not too convoluted and also not too long either.

I think on the real thing people tend to get caught up on what they did bad on and forget the parts they did well on. Then you think you bombed the whole test on just the basis of a few questions.

So try not to stress out, i think people generally felt the bio was more difficult. But how does that help our grades out? I dunno. Maybe they will curve it or not. Best to sit back and enjoy the waiting game.

So i think difficulty wise it was Bio>verbal>physical. Usually my best is either physical or bio and verbal was my weakest. Bio i usually get 9-11 depending on the difficulty. This physical was more on the 10-12 side. and verbal maybe a 9-11. If i had the best of luck 12 11 11. If i was really lucky 13 12 12. Worst case is a 11 9 10. Pshh all speculation tho...could be totally wrong. GL all.
 
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HelpSmartGirl said:
I need some help ---- I will pay! anyone and everyone who took the test recently, please contact me. I have some questions!! THANK YOU!!😀
Click to expand...

hahahaha I'm still laughing about this as I'm typing. That's great.

Just a question for you 9/4-ers... I'm taking the MCAT next week. In light of the difference of the test from the AAMC practice tests, what sort of added measures would you recommend for studying? Looking over equations more? Thanks for your help and congrats for being finished!
 
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Vince86 said:
I felt the same for biology. The passages were kind of difficult I felt also in understanding the passages. Orgo was tricky i think. Physical was doable and was quite easy; except for some chemistry that was weird. Verbal was much more readable and the questions weren't all that bad. Not too convoluted and also not too long either.

I think on the real thing people tend to get caught up on what they did bad on and forget the parts they did well on. Then you think you bombed the whole test on just the basis of a few questions.

So try not to stress out, i think people generally felt the bio was more difficult. But how does that help our grades out? I dunno. Maybe they will curve it or not. Best to sit back and enjoy the waiting game.

So i think difficulty wise it was Bio>verbal>physical. Usually my best is either physical or bio and verbal was my weakest. Bio i usually get 9-11 depending on the difficulty. This physical was more on the 10-12 side. and verbal maybe a 9-11. If i had the best of luck 12 11 11. If i was really lucky 13 12 12. Worst case is a 11 9 10. Pshh all speculation tho...could be totally wrong. GL all.
Click to expand...

Did you have am or pm?
 
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raab32 said:
hahahaha I'm still laughing about this as I'm typing. That's great.

Just a question for you 9/4-ers... I'm taking the MCAT next week. In light of the difference of the test from the AAMC practice tests, what sort of added measures would you recommend for studying? Looking over equations more? Thanks for your help and congrats for being finished!
Click to expand...

based solely on the ps section on today's test, i'd agree with looking over equations a bit more. but who's to say your mcat won't test completely differently.
 
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So, first off, here's a horror story:

I was supposed to take the MCAT on 8/25 in Portland, Ore., but I showed up at the testing registered under "Nick", while the name on my liscense reads "Nicholas", thus I was unable to take the test or get a refund.

SO! I rescheduled for ANOTHER test in Spokane, WA - where I go to school. I didn't want to have to take the test during the school year, but OH WELL.

Anyway, I showed up to take the 8am test today and as soon as I'm registered (and things were going smoothly) their internet connection FAILS! So! I go back outside and wait for AN HOUR AND A HALF while they fix their connection. I thought I wasn't going to be allowed to take it A SECOND TIME. AHHHHHH!!!! Someone out there doesn't want me to become a doctor!
 
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thegreatergood said:
I took the 2PM test

PS:

passages were: fishes, water flushing out of tank/neon sign, exp to measure G, water contaminants/acidity, one about NO2 and NO, producing H2(g), dont remember last one
.
Click to expand...

OKAY I wanna figure out the experimentals for PS for 2 pm

was the one u dont remember about Bond Dissociation energy?
 
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